• Decriminalizing sex work [wikipedia] "Sex workers experience significant stigma and discrimination as a result of criminalization. Though they consider sex work a legitimate income-generating activity, sex workers are viewed as immoral, deserving of punishment, and thus excluded from healthcare, education, and housing. Criminalization laws exclude sex workers from health systems that provide access to preventative care such as condoms and regular HIV or STI testing."
     

  • Sex Work Decriminalization In South Africa: 5 Things We Should All Expect
    [Nedu; Dec 23, 2017; Buzz South Africa] 'But increasingly, talks about sex work decriminalization in South Africa is gaining grounds. In fact, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) in its 54th national conference in Johannesburg, divulge plans to decriminalize sex work in the country.'
    ...
    '3. Sex Trafficking Will Decline
    'Proponents of sex work decriminalization in South Africa believes that it will go a long way in facilitating a decline in sex trafficking. It is believed that criminalization makes sex workers fear arrest and extralegal abuse from the police. Thus, they are unwilling to have any contact with them and aren’t inspired to report abuse against themselves or other sex workers. 

    'Also, it is said that clients who are often the only outsiders to come in contact with someone who is being trafficked or coerced into selling sex are unwilling to report suspected abuse for fear of being arrested.'

  • 10 Reasons to Decriminalize Sex Work: a Reference Brief (pdf) [Open Society Foundation] "To effectively protect the health and rights of sex workers, governments must remove all criminal laws regulating sex work, including laws that criminalize the purchase of sex. Systems that maintain criminal penalties for clients who purchase sexual services continue to put sex workers at risk. Rather than ending demand for sex work, penalties on clients force sex workers to provide services in clandestine locations, which increases the risk of violence and limits the power of the sex workers in the transaction.  When sex work is decriminalized, sex workers are empowered to realize their right to work safely, and to use the justice system to seek redress for abuses and discrimination.  Even if sex work is decriminalized, the prostitution of minors and human trafficking can and should remain criminal acts."

  • Amnesty International publishes policy and research on protection of sex workers’ rights [amnesty.org] “We want laws to be refocused on making sex worker’s lives safer and improving the relationship they have with the police while addressing the very real issue of exploitation. We want governments to make sure no one is coerced to sell sex, or is unable to leave sex work if they choose to,” said Tawanda Mutasah.
     

  • New WHO guidelines to better prevent HIV in sex workers [World Health Organization] "The new WHO guidelines recommend that countries work towards decriminalization of sex work and urge countries to improve sex workers’ access health services. They also outline a set of interventions to empower sex workers and emphasize that correct and consistent condom use can reduce transmission between female, male and transgender sex workers and their clients."
     

  • Keeping sex workers safe [The Lancet] "Sex workers are among the most marginalised, stigmatised populations in the world. Criminalisation of their profession increases their risk of HIV and violence and abuse from clients, police, and the public. The Lancet Series on HIV and sex workers showed that decriminalisation of sex work would have the greatest effect on the course of HIV epidemics across all settings, averting 33–46% of HIV infections in the next decade. Such a move would also reduce mistreatment of sex workers and increase their access to human rights, including health care."

  • Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific [United Nations Development Program] "Positive public health and human rights outcomes have been achieved in jurisdictions that have decriminalized sex work: Evidence from the jurisdictions in the region that have decriminalized sex work (New Zealand and New South Wales) indicates that the approach of de ning sex work as legitimate labour empowers sex workers, increases their access to HIV and sexual health services and is associated with very high condom use rates. Very low STI prevalence has been maintained among sex workers in New Zealand and New South Wales, and HIV transmission within the context of sex work is understood to be extremely low or non- existent. In decriminalized contexts, the sex industry can be subject to the same general laws regarding workplace health and safety and anti-discrimination protections as other industries. The legal recognition of sex work as an occupation enables sex workers to claim bene ts, to form or join unions and to access work-related banking, insurance, transport and pension schemes."

  • LGBT Rights Organizations Join Amnesty International in Call to Decriminalize Sex Work [Lambda Legal] "When LGBT people are prosecuted for sex work, they face alarmingly high rates of harassment and physical and sexual abuse behind bars. One study found that 59% of transgender people in California men’s prisons report having experienced sexual assault while in custody (source). Alternative diversion program alternatives are frequently based on moral judgment, sending the message that there is something wrong with people who are just trying to survive, and do nothing to address the actual needs of sex workers, including those sex workers who might prefer to be doing other kinds of work."

Decriminalisation of Prostitution: the Evidence (pdf) [English Collective of Prostitutes] "The call for decriminalisation has since been taken up by the influential Home Affairs Select Committee which in July 2016 recommended a change in the law “so that soliciting is no longer an offence and so that brothel-keeping provisions allow sex workers to share premises”. Recognising the impact of criminalisation on sex workers’ ability to leave prostitution, the committee called for a law to delete “previous convictions and cautions for prostitution” from sex workers’ records. Crucially, by stating that "trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is an important and separate issue from prostitution between consenting adults", the committee brings clarity to an area fraught with misinformation. Credit for the committee’s judicious recommendations belongs, first of all, to the international movement for decriminalisation spearheaded by sex workers over many decades."

  • 5 Reasons Decriminalization Protects Sex Workers' Rights [Rolling Stone]
    "3. Decriminalizing sex work still means trafficking and other abuses are illegal. Removing criminal penalties for sex work does not remove penalties for exploitation, forced labor, violence, trafficking, rape or sexual assault — including of minors. All of these are grave abuses, and anyone who commits these crimes or any other form of human trafficking or exploitation for labor must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."

  • New report shows compelling reasons to decriminalise sex work [phys.org] "Our study demonstrated several ways that the criminalisation of sex work in [Western Australia] has negative impacts on the health, safety and wellbeing of sex workers. These include: criminalisation being used as an excuse for abuse by clients; sex workers being reluctant to go to police as victims of crime; and the hidden nature of sex work in the context of private houses and massage parlours impeding access to services and health promotion."

  • 6 reasons it’s time to decriminalize sex work [Daily Dot] "Most sex workers support decriminalization over legalization, on the grounds that legalizing sex work would lead to the adoption of restrictive new laws that sex workers would have no part in authoring. In short, “legalizing means lots of regulation and decriminalization is subtracting the bad laws,” explains Audacia Ray, the head of sex worker rights organization the Red Umbrella Project. “To decriminalize means to chip away at those different laws and ensure they’re not replaced by something awful.”"

  • Decriminalising prostitution could 'dramatically' reduce sexual violence and STI transmission, finds study [The Independent] "Research published in the Review of Economic Studies found that when prostitution was decriminalised in Rhode Island, sexual violence fell by 30 per cent and female gonorrhoea incidence decreased by more than 40 per cent."

  • Decriminalising sex work is the only way to protect women – and New Zealand has proved that it works [The Independent] "Decriminalisation – of both the sale and purchase of sex – is incredibly important for enabling access to justice when crimes are perpetrated against sex workers. A study conducted with street-based sex workers indicated a significant positive change in relationships between police and sex workers after the law changed. It showed how decriminalisation supports sex worker’s safety strategies, enabling street workers to take their time in initial conversations with clients, without risking their clients being arrested and losing income as a result. It also means that clients can provide information to police when sex workers are assaulted."

  • Escort wins landmark case [New Zealand Herald] "His self-described role as 'protector' of the sex workers at the Kensington has led him to be overbearing and exploitative, thinking that his sex, size and management role have given him a licence to do as he wishes and to behave as he likes.
    "The tribunal found his actions were a breach of the Human Rights Act, and awarded the plaintiff $25,000 for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings.'
    "The defendants were also ordered to undergo training with the Human Rights Commission."

  • Sex Work, Human Trafficking, and the Harm of Conflating the Two
    It is vital to distinguish between sex work – which involves adult, consensual sex – and sex tra cking, which is a gross violation of human rights. This Brie ng outlines a number of problems with the anti-tra cking movement, and its often negative e ects on sex worker rights. 
    '1. Estimates of Trafficking Prevalence Are Often Greatly Exaggerated
    2. Trafficking Narratives Oversimplify Complex Social Problems
    3. Decriminalization Would Reduce Trafficking and Other Coercive Practices'

 

  • ‘A mecca for prostitution’? A new bill proposes decriminalizing sex work in D.C. [Rachel Chason; October 13, 2017; Washington Post] "Monarez, who grew up in Fairfax County, said that if sex work is decriminalized, workers will also feel more comfortable reporting minors and other victims of trafficking to police.
    “When the women build trust with the police, they keep your neighborhood safe, because there are eyes watching,” Monarez said. “They know the neighborhoods.”
    Coercing people to engage in sex work against their will would remain illegal, as would any prostitution involving minors. The bill, introduced last week, is supported by the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition, a broad group that includes HIPS (formerly known as Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive), Whitman-Walker Health and the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C."

  • Help End Violence Against Sex Workers by Decriminalizing Prostitution, Activists Say [Reason] "And because sex workers don't view police or hospitals as safe, they tend to avoid seeking help following violent incidents, which also makes it harder for repeat perpetrators to be caught. "If you fear arrest, negotiating your personal safety becomes a secondary concern," said Lindsay Roth, SWOP-USA’s Board Chair."

  • Former Sex Worker & Activist Maggie McNeill on Why We Should Decriminalize Prostitution: 'This Is Not What Feminism Was Supposed to Be' [Reason] "The problem is that there are already laws for these things," states McNeill. "We have a name for sex being inflicted on a woman against her will. We call it rape. We have a name for taking someone and holding them prisoner somewhere. We call that abduction. … Why do we need [prostitution] to be laid on top of all these other things that already are crimes?" 

  • 4 reasons to decriminalize prostitution [Salon] "The decriminalization of prostitution can help bring sex workers — the real victims of this “victimless” crime— out of the social shadows so they could secure labor rights, unemployment benefits, health care and life insurance. More important, sex workers will be more able to secure police protection to deal with threatening or violent situations."

  • Sex Work and the Law: The Case for Decriminalization [The World Aids Campaign] “In reality, however, the law has had entirely predictable and deeply negative consequences for street prostitutes, who by all accounts do not number more than 650 to 1,000 in the entire country. These consequences include increased police harassment; reduced power to choose between clients, since they have become scarcer (hence prostitutes tend to find themselves with precisely the violent and unstable clients they would have avoided before); and the immediate deportation of non-Swedish sex workers discovered in the company of men arrested for purchasing sex. Despite these outcomes, the law is touted by government representatives as a beacon of hope in what they term “the fight against prostitution ...”

  • Councilmember David Grosso collaborates with the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition  Councilmember David Grosso is proud to collaborate with the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition on the Reducing Criminalization to Improve Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2017. The organizations who make up the coalition bring unique perspectives to this issue and can provide additional expertise about the need for a rethinking of how the District of Columbia approaches sex work.