International Whores’ Day

The sex workers community ought to have yet another International Sex Worker Rights Day scheduled on 2nd June 2021. The International Sex Workers Rights Day is a holiday that commemorates and advocates the tireless efforts fighting human and labor rights for sex workers around the world. An anniversary will also be celebrated in India, a country with at least 800,000 professional sex workers. 

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The sex worker community includes people from a wide range of backgrounds: trans people, POC, women, immigrants, non-binary people, and the LGBTQ community. Sex workers are a maligned group, and when marginalized, they band together, pushing and speaking out against what makes them feel oppressed.

Sex Workers’ day dates back to 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers assembled in India to commemorate sex workers’ rights despite efforts by prohibitionist groups to prevent the festival from taking place. A Calcutta-based group, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee – with over 50,000 sex worker members and committee members, organized the festival. Henceforth sex workers across the globe in different cities celebrate this annual international event. 

Worldwide, cities like New York, Virginia, London, Barcelona, Nairobi, Madrid, Calcutta, Mumbai, and Nagpur marches will be held where you will find that each city has its planned events and speakers. The attendees should expect to hear the sex workers’ rights advocates, sex workers, freedom of speech advocates, civil rights advocates, among others. In the past, we have witnessed marchers in red and carrying red umbrellas – the global symbol of the sex work community. 

Sex workers experience inhumane working conditions. Some of the issues include transgender workers targeting, criminalization of our communities, migrants and sex workers of color, targeting sex workers instead of addressing the real problems such as traffic and lack of resources and police protection in cases of abuse. The main challenge facing sex workers is that sex work is criminalized.

We have recently been dismayed that although prostitution is legal, there have been reports that banks are discriminating against sex workers by refusing their applications. You come to wonder; currently, we are in a global pandemic, and most payments are being negotiated electronically through credit and bank cards. Now, if a sex worker is denied these services and continues to be marginalized, discriminated against, and disenfranchised, then sex workers will not escape violence and poverty. In Nagpur, India, especially in these lockdown months, civil rights and duties debate on sex workers has awakened. In fact, with the lockdown due to the pandemic, there has been a blow of the emergency block, and sex workers suffer situations of hunger and profound discomfort, not being able to make requests for state aid.

Sex workers’ rights are human rights. Among the rights that sex workers advocate for include:

• The right to liberty, life, and security of the person – sex workers are subjected to unnecessary violence and threats. While they try to access relevant authorities, they encounter many barriers, and you find that their reported cases are not always investigated and become water under the bridge.
• The right to non-discrimination – there is a high level of discrimination and stigma in prostitution. You will find that sex workers don’t open up about their work or disclose the challenges they encounter even to their closest friends and family members.
• The right to health – over 60% of sex workers in Nagpur have reported pf having unmet health care needs. They are six times less likely to access the health care they need. 
• The right to freedom of association and expression – most sex workers’ laws worldwide force sex workers to work alone. They further limit their ability to efficiently negotiate the terms and services or communicate with their clients. 
• The right to healthy and safe working conditions – sex workers have up to a 75% lifetime risk of sexual or physical violence, and chances of dying by homicide are 60 to 120 times that of the non-sex workers.   

Like other human rights, sex workers’ rights should be advocated for, fought for, and embraced. They are marginalized people who deserve the same rights as other people. It’s, therefore, an obligation to all to uphold sex workers’ human rights. It’s key to ending exploitation, violence, and discrimination against the people who trade or sell sexual services and sex workers.

We can help them by:

• Maintaining confidentiality – always avoid outing sex workers. Whether former or current sex worker. This could compromise their safety.
• Language reinforces stigma – use the term sex worker rather than options that may sound less respectful.
• Be the change – learn the issues that may be affecting sex workers and support the sex workers around your community and get involved. 

Therefore, if you feel interested and want to help – in doing something positive and supporting this marginalized group’s rights – show up on 2nd June. Be vocal about your support of sex workers. And after 2nd June, Volunteer. Vote. Donate. To make a change happen, it takes a lot of voices, and your voice is paramount. 

Conclusion

A sex workers’ rights day doesn’t mean chaos and riots from this marginalized group. It means a day where everyone is informed and unlighted about sex workers’ rights. Without a sex work community across the world, we can’t succeed.  To sex workers, it is an important day because they are informed, enlightened, and empowered on their rights – and encouraged to be part of the legal narrative; ‘What can we do? How can we help?’