{"id":10833,"date":"2021-06-02T13:03:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T13:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redumbrellafund.org\/international-sex-workers-day-2021-cedaw-statement\/"},"modified":"2022-12-06T12:01:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T12:01:10","slug":"international-sex-workers-day-2021-cedaw-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redumbrellafund.org\/ru\/international-sex-workers-day-2021-cedaw-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"International Sex Workers\u2019 Day 2021 — CEDAW Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the CEDAW Committee: Sex work is work. It is not trafficking.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On 02 June, International Sex Workers\u2019 Day, the Count Me In! Consortium stands in solidarity with sex worker-led organisations and networks advocating for sex workers\u2019 rights<\/p>\n

and condemns the discriminatory and potentially harmful measures proposed in CEDAW\u2019s General Recommendation 38.<\/p>\n

Sex workers\u2019 rights are central to human rights — particularly women\u2019s rights — and for achieving gender equality. Yet, there continues to be disagreement about how best to ensure that sex workers are free from violence and discrimination. The recent CEDAW General<\/u><\/span> Recommendation<\/u><\/span> <\/u>38<\/u><\/span> on trafficking in women and girls in the context of migration adds to misunderstanding of the distinction between sex work and trafficking and may increase discrimination against sex workers.<\/p>\n

Our critique of the General Recommendation is wide-ranging. Expressing disappointment in the General Recommendation, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) highlighted the failure of the General Recommendation to distinguish between trafficking, sexual exploitation, and sex work. They note: \u201cBy habitually linking these three distinct phenomena, along with the poorly defined concept of \u201cthe exploitation of prostitution1<\/span><\/sup>,\u201d this General Recommendation reinforces erroneous conflations of sex work and trafficking which fuel harmful legislation, policies and practices, including an overly broad application of anti-trafficking measures.\u201d Noting how anti- trafficking laws and policies frequently cause harm to sex workers and result in human rights violations, Amnesty International noted that \u201cThe general recommendation has not only failed to adequately address this, but risks writing this harsh reality further into the normative framework governing trafficking.2<\/span><\/sup>\u201d The wide-ranging and detailed critique of the General Recommendation by International Women\u2019s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW AP) noted that the problems in the General Recommendation range from start to finish. They identify challenges even at the level of the legal framework upon which it relies, commenting on its regressiveness because \u201cit not only situates the legal basis of the GR (General Recommendation) in the anti-human-rights, racist, colonial, patriarchal and archaic 1949 Convention on Trafficking, but also vitiates 51 years of progress on legal standard setting on trafficking achieved by the Palermo Protocol which, despite its shortcomings, recognises that trafficking occurs for a wide variety of purposes not limited to exploitation of prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.3<\/span><\/sup>\u201d<\/p>\n

Inequality, discrimination and violence targeted toward sex workers of all genders is sustained through laws, policies and practices that criminalize some or all aspects of sex work4<\/span><\/sup>. All too frequently, anti-trafficking laws and policies directly and indirectly result in real harms for sex workers and individuals perceived to be sex workers5<\/span><\/sup>. While we commend and appreciate the efforts being advanced in trying to curb trafficking, such broad legislative and normative frameworks seldom address the structural root causes of trafficking but rather perpetuates the invisible networks that structurally exclude sex workers. Understanding the difference between sex work and trafficking is an essential step for effective anti-trafficking campaigns that both address trafficking and respect and safeguard sex workers\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n