Our lives matter

Rigorous antiprostitution laws and policies around the globe lead to the imposition of harsh and repressive measures against sex workers. Intolerance and stigma make it difficult for sex workers to safeguard their health and lives. Despite these challenges, sex workers have organized to defend their human rights with creativity and wisdom. They have protested to be free from incarceration, violence, extortion, eviction and humiliation. They have fought for equal access to health care services. And they have called for sex work to be officially recognized as work, a policy shift already taking hold in some countries that has significant implications for securing the benefits to which sex workers are entitled. This report highlights the innovative contributions of advocates and sex worker groups from different parts of the world, from Bangladesh to Brazil, Slovakia to South Africa. These groups, like countless others, are energetic and resourceful leaders in the fight for sex workers' health and rights. What they hold in common is an uncompromising commitment to the right of all sex workers to live full and free lives. Their efforts demonstrate how that goal can be realized.