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Human Rights and Law

Human Rights and Law

PLRI is committed to examining the strengths and weaknesses of international human rights and domestic legal frameworks as they apply to sex work. We aim to evaluate the impact of various international and domestic laws and policies on the human rights of female, male and transgender sex workers and their communities.

Sex workers universally claim that their human rights are abused. In some cases this means exposure to violence and barriers to accessing services, resources and justice. In other cases arbitrary detention, criminal law and lack of access to clean safe places to live and work are cited as human rights issues.

International human rights standards and norms have traditionally constructed sex work as an affront to human dignity and as a result have failed to endow sex workers with the range of rights normally accorded to others unimpeded by occupational or moral status. The conflation of adult female prostitution with trafficking and child abuse that has occurred this decade has lead to the revival of law enforcement in many countries which appears to have lead to human rights abuses.

Questions about what legal and policy approaches can best protect sex workers, clients and the broader society are of great importance to sex worker advocates. PLRI seeks to illuminate a range of issues around law and human rights in respect of sex work and aims to resource sex workers to engage in local, national and international debates about what mix of laws and policies can best protect and advance their human rights.

Resources

  • Ain't I a Woman? A Global Dialogue between the Sex Workers’ Rights movement and the Stop Violence Against Women Movement - 2011

    This is a resource written by Bishakha Datta and sponsored by CASAM and CREA. The report documents a meeting entitled "Ain't I A Woman? A Global Dialogue between the Sex Workers Rights Movement and the Stop Violence against Women Movement" from 12-14 March 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand. 

    The report features the presentations from many great speakers including , Ruth Morgan Thomas, Anna-Louise Crago, Kaythi Win, Hua Sittipham Boonyapisomparn, Swapna Gayen and Meenakshi Kamble,Cheryl Overs and  Meena Seshu

  • An assessment of sex work in Swaziland: barriers to and opportunities for HIV prevention among sex workers - 2011

    The HIV situation in virtually all southern African countries is a generalised epidemic. Despite the fact that almost all adult age and social groups have high HIV prevalence estimates, sex workers are disproportionally affected, with prevalence estimates higher than the general population. In a qualitative study of 61 male and female sex workers in Swaziland, we found that while poverty drove many into sex work, others reported motivations of pleasure or “sensation seeking”, and freedoms from the burden of marriage as perceived benefits of sex work.

  • An Exploratory Study of the Social Contexts, Practices and Risks of Men Who Sell Sex in Southern and Eastern Africa - 2011

    The aim of the research presented in this report was to explore the social contexts, life experiences, vulnerabilities and sexual risks experienced by men who sell sex in Southern and Eastern Africa, with a focus on five countries; Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It sought to better understand differing and similar socio-cultural scenarios and personal life stories of male sex workers in these countries and to improve the representation of male sex workers in relevant regional organisations, particularly within the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA).

  • Argentine Sex Workers Fight for Union - 2011

    This article originally appeared in the Metro Newspaper on the 29 November 2011.

    ‘I’m not ashamed. I’m truly proud of what I do,’ says Elena Reynaga. ‘Through my work, I created possibilities for my children, opportunities I didn’t have myself. My children went to school, got jobs. I have nothing to be ashamed of.’

  • Beyond compassion: Children of sex workers in Kolkata’s Sonagachi - 2011

    Article in Childhood August 2011 vol. 18, no. 3, 333-349.

    In 2005, children of sex workers from Kolkata’s Sonagachi red-light district formed their own collective, Amra Padatik (‘We are Foot Soldiers’), to work to gain dignity for their mothers and claim their own rights as children of sex workers. In this article the authors speak to Amra Padatik’s founder members to demystify the culture of fear associated with their lives — perpetuated through popular representations. This is not to underplay their acute experiences of disadvantage, but to foreground them as politically astute citizens and decision-makers in policies that concern and affect them.

  • Buying the Girlfriend Experience: An Exploration of the Consumption Experiences of Male Customers of Escorts - 2011

    Article in Russell W. Belk, Kent Grayson, Albert M. Muñiz, Hope Jensen Schau (ed.) Research in Consumer Behavior (Research in Consumer Behavior, Volume 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.111-126. 

    This research explored the experiences of male customers of escorts who provide a sexual service known as the “girlfriend experience” or GFE.

    Methodology/approach: A combination of depth interviews and netnography is used to study how men experience the GFE.

  • Can rights stop the wrongs? Exploring the connections between framings of sex workers’ rights and sexual and reproductive health - 2011

    Background

    There is growing interest in the ways in which legal and human rights issues related to sex work affect sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV and abuses including human trafficking and sexual exploitation. International agencies, such as UNAIDS, have called for decriminalisation of sex work because the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services is affected by criminalisation and social exclusion as experienced by sex workers.

  • Casa Xochiquetzal : sex workers rights in action - 2011

  • Chickenheads, agents, mommies, and jockeys: the social organization of transnational commercial sex - 2011

    An article in Crime, Law and Social Change Volume 56, Number 5, 463-484.

  • Clients of Female Sex Workers: A Population-Based Survey of China - 2011

    An article in the J Infect Dis. (2011) 204 (suppl 5): S1211-S1217.

    The control of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI) is a challenge in China, with female sex workers (FSW) and male clients suspected as bridge groups. This study used a 2006 national probability survey of 2,707 adult men. Among men 15–49 years old, the prevalence of FSW contacts last year was 4.2% (95% CI, 3.3–5.2) overall, with 7.2% (CI, 5.9–8.7) in urban and 1.8% (CI, 1.0–3.3) in rural areas.

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