Penelope Saunders

[Ed. Note: The author is a Rockefeller research fellow in the Program for the Study of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights at the Columbia School of Public Health in New York City. This article is part of the Human Rights Dialogue Series of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs [CCEIA] based in New York and was taken from their web site at www.cceia.org. The author notes that additional information about sex workers' rights and the nature of sex work can be found at the web site of the Network of Sex Work Projects in Cape Town, South Africa, at www.walnet.org/csis/groups/nswp.]

At least 15 years have passed since the sex worker rights movement linked its strategies for change to the human rights framework. In 1985, the International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights demanded that sex workers be guaranteed human rights, including freedom of speech, travel, immigration, work, marriage, motherhood, health and housing. As part of this rights-based agenda, the sex worker rights movement aims to curb unethical and abusive behaviour towards prostitutes. These abuses include harassment and extortion by the police and other authorities; a denial of fair treatment during arrest; imprisonment without due process; failure to investigate or prevent crimes committed against prostitutes, such as rape, physical violence or murder; and threats and reprisals toward sex workers' families.

At the local level, an active discourse on the rights-based approach has taken place through new sex worker organisations in both developed and developing countries, and the general principles of sex worker rights have been translated to suit local circumstances. Internationally, advocates have also elaborated a rights agenda through participation in world conferences and through new alliances of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

In order to evaluate these developments from the perspective of sex workers and explore how human rights have been employed by women who work in the sex industry, I interviewed key sex worker rights activists about their involvement with the human rights framework. I also draw on my own 10-year experience as a sex worker rights advocate in Australia and the United States and my current role as a lobbyist and researcher in the field of human rights.

At the grassroots level, human rights have proved extremely useful for advocates seeking to reduce discrimination against sex workers. For example, the organisation Workers in Sex Employment (WISE) in Australia utilises the language of human rights to explain to migrant sex workers that they do not have to submit to 'mandatory health tests' organised by brothel owners and that information regarding their health should be kept confidential. Migrant sex workers are often unaware that the law in the Australian Capital Territory prohibits the use of health test results by business owners. This is a broader human rights issue for sex workers who in some countries have faced deportation, imprisonment without trial and the denial of health care due to their actual or perceived HIV status. Sera Pinwill, the director of WISE, explains: 'As sex workers, we are so often told that our jobs render us undeserving of protection under the law from exploitation, assault, privacy breaches, etc., that couching our rights in terms of human rights is a valuable tool. Once we sex workers feel that we are deserving of social justice, then we have a much better chance of convincing the rest of the world of that.'

Sex workers in developing countries also see human rights as a crucial tool. Women who were evicted from the Tan Bazar brothel in Bangladesh recently won the right to return to their place of work using rights claims, solidarity with local NGOs and the spotlight of the international arena to strengthen their cause. In 1999, when 3,500 sex workers were forcibly removed from Tan Bazar, they and their families were forced to live in a shelter for vagrants where they faced sexual harassment, abuse and extortion. In deciding the case brought by 100 sex workers, the High Court concluded that the government did not have legal grounds to evict the brothel occupants because prostitution, when it forms the basis for women's livelihood, is not illegal. The Tan Bazar case is key because it illustrates that, in organising to protect the human rights of sex workers, we should not limit our strategies to the perhaps more obvious realm of civil and political freedoms but should also consider economic and social rights, including the right to work. As Carol Jenkins, an advocate who works with sex workers in Bangladesh, stated, 'No other approach but that of human rights [such as the rights of a citizen and the right to work] would have worked in Bangladesh. Because a coalition of more than 60 human rights organisations put its strength behind the sex workers' cause, the High Court would hear the case.'

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the majority of sex workers have an in-depth appreciation of their rights or see utility in the human rights framework. Many sex workers simply never have thought about the social injustice they face in explicit human rights terms. In some places, the human rights framework is not viable. As one U.S.-based activist told me: 'I think that human rights discourse would have to be popularised before U.S. sex workers could use it with any impact. . . . Rarely if ever does human rights come up in conversations among the local sex worker population that I work with.' Moreover, because sex workers are considered criminals and 'undesirable elements' in many countries, they risk serious consequences for their activism. Many sex workers prefer not to make a fuss about rights abuses in order to avoid reprisals.

Unfortunately, little aid or development funding exists for rights-based activism and education among sex workers. Funding is often available only for health promotion to reduce the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. As a result, few people in the sex worker rights movement have been trained in the principles and practice of human rights and international law.

Despite these constraints, sex worker activists have self-funded, or scraped together support for, human rights programs and participation in major conferences, such as the Fourth International Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995. At the conference in China, sex workers from different regions and cultures aimed to establish links with human rights organisations, especially those concerned with women's and with gays and lesbians' human rights.

Yet not all organisations at the Women's Conference proved to be allies, and some groups even opposed the participation of sex workers and their organisations in such gatherings. For them, sex work is neither legitimate labour nor freely chosen. Rather, it is considered a human rights abuse: inherently coercive, degrading and a form of violence against women. Sex worker rights activists, on the other hand, argue that it is not prostitution per se that is the problem but the legal frameworks surrounding it that infringe upon sex workers' freedom and allow others to discriminate against them. Furthermore, it is difficult to generalise about any sex worker's personal experience. For some, prostitution may be as mundane as any other job; for others, sex work is the least bad option they can pursue out of a limited range of choices; and for still others, it can be an extremely creative, desirable and lucrative profession.

Efforts to define prostitution as a human rights abuse open the way for governments to take action to abolish the sex industry and to arrest those who work in it. Unfortunately, even when organisations are not clearly opposed to prostitution, they may inadvertently undermine sex workers' rights. For example, measures developed by women's organisations ostensibly to prevent the 'trafficking in women' may result in stronger legislation against prostitutes and police crackdowns on brothels and, thus, more abuse of their rights. Even though human rights advocates are now beginning to redefine 'trafficking in persons' as a form of slavery present throughout many forms of work, such as the garment industry and agricultural labour, many sex worker rights activists observe few practical changes in the measures emerging from the anti-trafficking movement. In this environment, the fight for sex workers' rights is a difficult one because few NGOs and human rights organisations understand the nature of sex work or are prepared to support the participation of sex workers in arenas where their rights are decided.

Clearly, sex worker activists and their organisations have a long road ahead before their rights are accepted, institutionalised as part of human rights doctrine and made widely accessible to those who need them. The challenge remains to raise awareness, strengthen organisations and train effective lobbyists who can win permanent status for sex worker rights in the U.N. system and at home.