Publications & Tools

This document has been developed for sex workers’ rights activists as a template on how to approach some of the most commonly asked questions by media representatives. It can be intimidating for activists with no experience to work with journalists and you might not feel confident enough to engage with them. But sex workers have the real-life knowledge from their experiences, and this makes them an expert on sex work. Still, it is important that sex workers feel able to communicate their thoughts and arguments in a way that is useful and safe for themselves, for their community and sex workers’ rights. We hope that this guide will give some directions so that sex workers can become more confident. This document is not meant to tell sex workers what they should think or say but merely to make them aware of the common topic of interests shown by media when talking about sex work and of the rhetoric commonly used by sex workers? rights movement to tackle these questions.

This joint briefing paper by NSWP and INPUD highlights the specific needs and rights of sex workers who use drugs, as a community that spans two key populations. This document provides an overview of some of the most endemic and substantive ways in which sex workers who use drugs face double criminalisation and associated police harassment, intersectional stigma, compounded marginalisation and social exclusion, heightened interference and harassment from healthcare and other service providers, infantilisation, pathologisation, and an associated undermining of agency, choice, and self-determination. A Community Guide is also available.

This joint briefing paper by NSWP and INPUD highlights the specific needs and rights of sex workers who use drugs, as a community that spans two key populations. This document provides an overview of some of the most endemic and substantive ways in which sex workers who use drugs face double criminalisation and associated police harassment, intersectional stigma, compounded marginalisation and social exclusion, heightened interference and harassment from healthcare and other service providers, infantilisation, pathologisation, and an associated undermining of agency, choice, and self-determination. A Community Guide is also available.

Globally sex workers experience a number of barriers to comprehensive
sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, ranging from explicit
exclusion from international financing to discrimination within SRH
services leading to lower access rates.

This paper discusses the obstacles sex workers face when accessing
SRH services, and examines the quality of services available to them. It
also provides practical examples and recommendations for improving the
accessibility and acceptability of SRH services for sex workers.

A Community Guide is also available.

This Briefing Paper documents the stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT sex workers and highlights differences in their experiences when compared with other members of their respective communities. It also includes recommendations for addressing the double stigma and discrimination experienced by those at the intersection of the sex work and LGBT communities.

This case study focuses on sex workers’ meaningful involvement in the development of rights-based sex worker program in national Funding Requests to the Global Fund in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In the first quarter of 2019, the Network of Women Sex Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean (RedTraSex) proposed to the Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity AC (Consortium), to join efforts to carry out a pilot research that would provide valid and quantitative information for the debate that would take place at the XIV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean at ECLAC, which has as its central theme the economic empowerment of women, thus the present exploration was born. This report presents the results of the quantitative study and the collection of secondary data on the contribution of women sex workers to the economies of the countries, based on the income and expenses they obtain from their work, which represent a flow in the regional economy.

Videos in a series from NSWP called Global Fund Basics.
Included are videos on:
The Board, Constituencies/Delegations, and Committees- you’ll hear about the history of the Global Fund, how it’s structured, how it works, the three civil society delegations and the three standing committees.
Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCM) – The CCM is responsible for identifying the work that needs to be done in HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and submitting technical proposals to the Global Fund, identifying the Principle Recipient and overseeing the implementation of grants.
Catalytic Investments – Catalytic Investments are a portion of funding for the Global Fund supported programmes, activities and strategic investments that are not fully covered through country allocations.

The videos are in English and is also available with Spanish, French, and Russian subtitles.

The European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance is proud to launch its latest Impact Report which highlights our key successes between 2010-2020. This report aims to educate members, partners, funders and other stakeholders on the impact of ESWA work over the last 10 years in areas such as advocacy, policy, capacity building and sub granting to its members. In these turbulent political times, fighting for sex workers’ rights and promoting a human rights and public health-based approach to sex work can be very challenging. We hope this Impact Report highlights some of the important changes ESWA and its members have achieved in our region.

In 2013, The WHO together with UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNDP the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and the World Bank published ‘Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with Sex Workers: Practical Approaches from Collaborative Interventions’ (or the SWIT as the document has become known). The SWIT reaffirms that the health of sex workers doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and that countries should work towards the decriminalisation of sex work, and the empowerment and self-determination of sex working communities, as a fundamental part of the fight against HIV.

This toolkit summarises each Intersection Briefing Paper developed over the last three years on sex workers’ rights as migrant rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, labour rights and right to health issues. It furthermore includes an infographic on sex work legal frameworks and recommendations to sex workers and allies on how to build intersectional social justice movements, inclusive of all sex workers.

“The lives of LGBTQ sex workers in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are impacted by many hardships, including precarious living conditions, various forms and levels of criminalisation and discrimination as well as violence and human rights violations. […] This briefing paper developed by SWAN aims to fill the gap in knowledge about LGBTQ sex workers in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.” Available in English and Russian.

The investigation was presented on December 9, 2020, to commemorate the International Day of Human Rights Defenders and International Human Rights Day. It is a complete mapping of sex work legislation and sex workers’ political participation in the region.

2022 report “Myth-Busting the Swedish Model: The Evidence Debunking 10 Key Claims of Client Criminalisation” which find that “the benefits of the Swedish model by its proponents are not supported by the evidence. Sex workers are not decriminalised – a finding corroborated by an Amnesty International report on the situation in Ireland – and there have been rises in cases of human trafficking, with victims of this trade made even more vulnerable within a system of criminalisation.” This finding is supported Swedish sex worker-led organisation Fuckf?rbundet (member of ESWA and NSWP) in their 2019 report Twenty Years of Failing Sex Workers.

The paper covers various areas of law and law enforcement practices that disproportionately impact sex workers, including immigration laws, policing of public spaces, anti-LGBTQ laws, HIV criminalisation and religious codes. A Community Guide is also available.