Sex worker movements address issues of labor rights, gender-related violence, social stigma, migration, access to health care, criminalization, and police violence and have evolved to address local conditions and historical challenges. Although accounts of sex work dates back to antiquity, movements organized to defend sex workers' rights are understood as a more recent phenomenon. While contemporary sex worker rights movements are generally associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s in Europe and North America, the first recorded sex worker organization, Las Horizontales began in 1888 in Havana, Cuba.
An important moment in that movement was the shift from using the term prostitution to using the term sex work to emphasize their role as workers. The term, coined by Carol Leigh and Margo St. James, played an influential role in the sex worker movement in the U.S. and abroad. Sex work as a political issues has been a source of considerable debate within feminist movement.
The onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s framed sex work as a public health issue and led some state organizations and community groups to work more closely with sex worker organizations in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.Ahmed, Aziza. "Feminism, Power, and Sex Work in the Context of HIV/AIDS: Consequences for Women's Health." Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 34, no. 1 (2011): 225–58.
Global and distributed efforts The First World Whores' Congress which met on 14 February 1985, in Amsterdam, served as the impetus for the creation of the International Committee for Prostitutes Rights (ICPR). It included sex worker representatives from the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, England, Sweden, the United States, and Canada and sex worker advocates from Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Translation was provided into Dutch, English, French, German, and English.Pheterson, Gail, and Margo St James. A Vindication of the Rights of Whores. Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 1993: 33-51
The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers is an international day of action to protest the violence leveled against sex workers around the world. First observed in 2003, it was organized by Annie Sprinkle and Robyn Few, founder of the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP). It is observed annually on 17 December.
Red Umbrella Marches, sometimes referred to as Sex Worker Pride marches, began in 2001 as part of the 49th Venice Biennale of Art. The action was initiated by the Slovenian artist Tadej Pgacar and sex workers who created a living installation they titled Prostitute Pavilion. Sex Worker Pride is observed on 14 September.
Another day associated with sex workers' rights is 3 March, International Sex Workers' Rights Day. Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta-based group that has over 50,000 sex worker members, and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers' Rights Day.
The International Committee for Prostitutes Rights changes its name to International International Committee for Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE), and more recently changed it again to European Sex Workers' Rights Alliance.
Sex workers have engaged the arts and publishing internationally as a means to bring attention to their own stories, experiences, and perspectives. They have published memoirs, poetry collections, self-help guides, and mixed genre edited volumes. They have also organized arts and film festivals in Berlin, London, San Francisco, and elsewhere. Sex workers have also produced guides that detail best practices for teaching and writing about sex worker in academia and which provide exhaustive bibliography on the subject; best practice guides for providing services to those working in healthcare; and tips and strategies for those wishing to support through legal efforts and organizing.
Africa While sex worker movements have been most active in South Africa, other sex worker communities across the African continent have also taken action to promote their rights and combat issues such as police abuse and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Cameroonian sex workers protested police mistreatment through a strike in 2007, while sex workers in Zambia formed a union to address the concerning rates of HIV/AIDS in their community. Sex workers in Kenya created the Commercial Sex Workers Association to regulate their work, The Association of Women at Risk from AIDS, a prominent organization advocating for the rights of sex workers in Senegal, was founded in 1993 during an AIDS prevention campaign in Dakar and the Platform layalat advocate for the rights of trans sex workers in Morocco
South Africa
Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task Force (SWEAT) is the first sex workers' rights organization founded in southern Africa. Established in November 1994 in Cape Town, South Africa, SWEAT is considered by scholars as the most well-known sex worker movement on the African continent.
SWEAT was originally associated with the Triangle Project, a South African LGBTQ+ rights organization, until 1996 when SWEAT advocates recognized a need for a human rights approach in providing services and assistance to sex workerss. Upon separation, SWEAT's work began to provide sex workers with services such as health care, legal assistance, counseling, and training programs. They also engage in advocacy efforts to promote the rights of sex workers, including advocating for policy and legal reforms to protect the health and human rights of sex workers.
At a 2003 SWEAT conference in Cape Town, Sisonke, a sex worker-led movement, was founded in response to the lack of sex worker leadership in SWEAT. Sisonke's members work to empower and educate sex workers, and to advocate for policy and legal reforms that promote the health, safety, and human rights of sex workers in South Africa. SWEAT continues to provide support and assistance to Sisonke and other sex worker-led organizations through health and human rights trainings in their efforts to promote sex worker rights in South Africa.
Morocco Transgender women sex workers in Morocco have been at the forefront of advocating for the rights and recognition of both status: recognition of sex worker as work and legal recognition of transgender status. One prominent figure in this movement is Anya Dahan, a transgender woman and the founder and coordinator of Platform Layalat, a feminist network of trans women sex workers in Morocco, member of the global network of sex work projects.
Through their activism, Anya and the members of Platform Layalat have been working towards challenging stigma, improving health services, and fighting for the rights of sex workers in the country.
Kenya Health Options for Young Men on HIV/AIDS/STI (HOYMAS), a community-based organization registered by the Ministry of Social Services and Gender, was established in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009 by a group of male sex workers living with HIV/AIDS. The organization's primary objective is to promote human rights through police sensitization training, paralegal training, community education, and advocacy for sex workers' rights. HOYMAS conducts community outreach programs, such as health talks, mobilization, prevention, care and treatment, and economic empowerment.
On 11 September 2015, HOYMAS made history by launching Africa's first savings and credit scheme (SACCO) registered by male sex workers. This initiative was created to enable the organization to access financial resources, including small loans. The SACCO was composed of HOYMAS members who had received training on economic empowerment, finance, and savings from SMEP, a micro-finance institution, and the Kenya Cooperative Bank Ltd, who also assisted them to register the scheme.
Asia Asia's location as the site of international conflict including wars in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan have contributed to the prevalence of sex workers in the region. Organizing efforts started locally with one of the first documented organizations being EMPOWER Foundation in Thailand in 1985.
By the 1990s, sex workers in Asia began to formally organize to advocate for the decriminalization and legalization of sex work alongside providing assistance to workers. Most of the organizations were locally based and provided resources to sex workers in their regional languages. Regional organizations such as the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) and Sex Workers and Allies South Asia (SWASA) have worked independently and collaboratively to promote the health, safety, and human rights of sex workers in the Asia Pacific and South Asia regions, respectively.
Thailand Founded in September 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand, Service Workers IN Group (SWING) is a Thai sex worker organization that seeks to offer services and resources to male, female, and transgender sex workers.
SWING evolved from the EMPOWER Foundation, a national Thai sex worker network, in order to provide services and assistance to male and transgender sex workers who were not included in the national and civil society response to HIV/AIDS.
Since its founding, SWING has expanded to offer services and assistance to female sex workers as well. SWING has drop-in spaces and offices in Bangkok, Koh Samui, and Pattaya, all of which are considered Thailand's most infamous red-light districts. At each location, SWING offers core services such as care and support programs for HIV-positive sex workers and English language classes.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SWING extended additional support to sex workers who were struggling financially due to a lack of work opportunities and were not eligible for government health care or financial benefits, as sex work is still considered illegal in Thailand. To address the issue, SWING began distributing pre-prepared food bags and providing free HIV and syphilis testing through their mobile testing trucks. Moreover, SWING received financial assistance from the Australian Embassy's Direct Aid Program (DAP) to create and deliver 1,200 survival bags to sex workers in Pattaya.
India Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee was a group started in 1995 as a forum for sex workers in Kolkata and was created out of an HIV prevention group, Sonagachi Project in the red light district of the city. In 1999, they took over control of the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health to promote the health, safety, and legal rights of sex workers. They have organized marches, run clinics, adult literacy centers, residential homes for children of sex workers, created libraries, and developed a wing of the organization that supports creative expression through dance, music, and visual arts; and runs a micro-credit program.
In 2007 a union called Karnataka Sex Workers Union, KSWU, began to offer rights to sex workers the same way any other work field gets rights. With this union they have been able to help other work fields that risk being sexually assaulted. They do not want to be silenced; they want to be able to have their voice and not treated as any different. The long term goal is to decriminalize sex work in India. So far, they have been able to provide access to healthcare, help children of sex workers not be looked at differently and receive an education that can help them get a career. They have also been able to provide mental health support and seminars to inform people how to be safe while working and remembering them they have the rights and people standing behind them.
Australia