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Front Line Defenders have launched the report of a 4-year investigation into targeted violence, threats, and attacks against sex worker rights defenders the first-ever global report documenting violence against sex workers who advocate for their communities’ rights.
Front Line Defenders led by Erin Kilbride interviewed more than 350 sex workers in 20 countries about the violent, targeted attacks faced by those who protect others.
The report found cases of arrest; sexual assault in detention; raids on their homes and offices; immense psychological pressure; threats from managers, family, and clients.
“physical attacks include police surveillance while conducting health outreach work as public defamation campaigns entails extreme financial burdens because of activism and discriminatory exclusion from policymaking in areas in which they have clear, demonstrable, and unmatched expertise,” stated Kilbride.
She said in interviews, they conducted in living rooms, train stations, mosques, brothels, salons, hotels, warehouses, boats, beaches and clinics, sex worker rights defenders echoed one another’s experiences of life at the intersection of sex worker and human rights defender.
According to Grace Kamau of the Africa Sex Worker Alliance, they have been victimized, humiliated and threatened while seeking justice.
Carolyne Njoroge said unique skills, perspectives and expertise held by sex workers are foundational to the effectiveness as advocates.
The author of the report, Front Line Defenders Executive Andrew Anderson says” Sexual Worker Rights Defenders are the known community advocates that others call during emergencies, arrests, and raids. Their visibility sustains life for the collective. But that recognition also magnifies the risk of being targeted by authorities, arrested, detained, and abused using the laws and discriminatory policies typically deployed against sex workers.”
