Campaigns, Events, News

For a yearly round up of news about sex worker rights and anti-trafficking campaigns visit: Anti-Trafficking Industrial Complex Awareness Day

Amnesty International Votes to Support Decriminalization of Sex Work (August 2015)

Amnesty International posts this Q and A to explain their vote to support the decriminalization of prostitution: “Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups in the world. In many countries, they are threatened with a whole host of abuses, including rape, beatings, trafficking, extortion forced eviction and discrimination, including exclusion from health services. More often than not, they get no, or very little, legal protection. In fact, in many cases these violations and abuses are carried out by the police, clients and abusive third parties….” also see their report on the process here.

The Lancet issues policy of suppport for decriminalization (July 2014)

“With heightened risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, sex workers face substantial barriers in accessing prevention, treatment, and care services, largely because of stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation in the societies in which they live. These social, legal, and economic injustices contribute to their high risk of acquiring HIV. Often driven underground by fear, sex workers encounter or face the direct risk of violence and abuse daily. …This Series of seven papers …calls for the decriminilisation of sex work…”

From Repression to Empowerment: Is there a way back? by Marjan Wijers
Key note speech Conference “From Prosecution to Empowerment, Fighting Trafficking and Promoting the Rights of Migrants”, University of Southern California, February 2, 2013.

Anti-Prostituton Pledge- Updated Timeline
Updated February 2012, this timeline includes reports on the latest developments in the AOSI Vs. USAID suit and the path of the Pledge towards a possible Supreme Court Challenge. (February 2012)

Sign A Call to Change U.S. Policy on Sex Work and HIV” to protest the Anti Prostitution Pledge.

From Prosecution to Empowerment-Video Documentation
University of Southern California- “Opening panel will examine the definitions of human trafficking that have been proposed by government agencies, various documentaries and news specials, critically engaging discourses of human trafficking and calling attention to the different stakeholders. At the same time it will ask what laws offer the best hope for success. How can reframing the problem as one of labor and migration offer more productive solutions that could empower workers?” (February 2, 2025)

Anti-Prostitution Pledge Heads to Supreme Court
“I helped write PEPFAR,” Representative Barbara Lee told The Nation. “This was an idea that came out of the Congressional Black Caucus, right before President Bush’s first State of the Union.” Lee said that it was after getting Democratic and Republican consensus on PEPFAR that Representative Chris Smith proposed an amendment. “I’ll never forget that day,” said Lee. “We thought we had the votes to pass it based on negotiations, but then Chris Smith offers this—what did he call it? A conscience clause. This was the start of this anti-prostitution clause.” Melissa Gira Grant, The Nation, April 19, 2025