HRC 56: IWRAW statement to the Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls

56th session of the Human Rights Council

 Item 3: Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls

IWRAW

As a sex worker and sex worker advocate, I and my community find this report problematic and harmful. As a feminist, I object to the report because it denies our agency and autonomy.

Sex worker rights is a women’s rights and human rights issue.

The report denies our rights and voices as sex workers. It ignores sex workers who do not identify as victims and misrepresents input from sex worker-led organisations.

It miscites international human rights frameworks and conflates sources of law on trafficking, sexual exploitation of children with sex work.

For instance, the term ‘exploitation of prostitution’ in international human rights law, does not refer to sex work as a whole as suggested by the SR VAW. The Trafficking in Persons Protocol does not equate sex work with trafficking. The protocol refers to ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘exploitation of the prostitution of others’ not sex work itself. Similarly, the CEDAW convention only refers to the ‘exploitation of prostitution’, the term which was deliberately chosen to distinguish from all sex work.

Conflating these issues and concepts is unhelpful and prevents us from being able to respond appropriately to needs of sex workers, including when exploitation and trafficking is present.