Category: DSW Newsletters

In 2023, Decriminalize Sex Work’s (DSW’s) advocacy efforts led to legislative victories in the Northeast that reverberated on a national scale. Notably, DSW advocates worked to pass the country’s most comprehensive ban on police sexual violence in Vermont. In Rhode Island, staff championed an expansion of the patient bill of rights, a crucial step toward dismantling discrimination based on income source and enhancing access to healthcare for sex workers. Also in RI, DSW advocates supported testimony and the finalization of a legislative study commission resulting in a groundbreaking report recommending the decriminalization of prostitution.

DSW’s impact extends beyond legislative triumphs as DSW continues to be at the forefront of national media regarding sex work legislation. In 2023, among numerous local news mentions and other notable appearances, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Crystal DeBoise, appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show and in The New York Times emphasizing the vital need for sex workers to be able to work with law enforcement. An op-ed by Legal Director Melissa Broudo in Newsday outlined how immunity legislation could have saved lives following the arrest of the Long Island Serial Killer. Broudo also appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to share the perspective she has gained from over twenty years as an attorney for sex workers and survivors of trafficking.

Heading in to 2024, DSW remains dedicated to our mission of ending the prohibition of consensual adult prostitution and improving policies related to all forms of sex work. We look forward to strengthening our partnerships with grassroots organizations, elected officials, and the numerous internationally recognized human rights groups endorsing decriminalization. Specific goals include continued advocacy for immunity and good samaritan legislation in New York and Rhode Island along with the pursuit of the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work in Vermont and New York.

View DSW’s successes since our founding in 2018 here.

Each year, on December 17, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (D17) brings together community members, advocates, and allies to honor those who have been lost to violence and abuse. The day also marks a renewed commitment to promoting rights, health, safety, and visibility for sex workers and related communities.

The annual event was first recognized in 2003 when community members in Seattle, Washington, came together to remember the victims of the Green River Killer. That year, Gary Ridgeway pled guilty to 48 counts of murder, though he is suspected of having nearly 80 victims, most of them sex workers or runaways. Just this week, investigators identified the  remains of Lori Anne Ratzpotnik, a 15-year-old who had run away from home in 1982. Two victims remain unidentified and there are three women — Kassee Ann Lee, Kelly Kay McGinnis and Patricia Ann Osborn — who were last seen in the Seattle area in the early 1980s. Authorities note they “are listed on the official Green River Homicides list,” but Ridgway was not charged in their disappearances.

In an interview, Ridgeway describes having targeted sex workers because he “knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”

Ridgeway was not alone, nor was his logic incorrect. ​​Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper), Jack the Ripper, Robert Hansen, Robert Pickton, Joel Rifken, Steve Wright, Benjamin Atkins, Donald Murphy, and Richard Cottington are all serial murderers who have admitted to targeting sex workers for their crimes either because they believed they would not get caught, or because they believed sex workers were immoral and expendable. A 2011 Indiana University found that between 1970-2009, 22 percent of confirmed victims of serial murderers were known sex workers and prostitutes. These numbers increased throughout the study, reaching a high of 69% from 2000-2009.

Law enforcement is often apathetic to cases involving sex workers, confirming serial murders’ view that they are expendable. “No Humans Involved” is a designation that has historically been used by ​​police, politicians, and judges when looking at crimes committed against sex workers and other marginalized individuals, a heartbreaking acceptance of the continued violence against these communities and the belief that they are unworthy of human rights.

Importantly,  D17 is also a day to recognize the hard work and dedication to justice and human rights of so many organizations and individuals promoting rights for sex workers, survivors of human trafficking, LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, racial justice, immigration reform, and more. It is a celebration of solidarity in the face of oppression and systemic inequality.

The United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women and girls has once again called for the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work globally. Their most recent report, released in late November, is the seventh in which they have explored the numerous ways that criminalization deprives sex workers of their human rights. Since 2016, it has advocated for decriminalization in reports on gender discrimination in health, women deprived of liberty, women’s rights in the world of work, and poverty as well as country-specific reports focused on Nigeria and South Africa.

Several other UN agencies are advocating for the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work, including the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the World Health Organization, the UN Population Fund, and the UN Development Program. Other organizations taking a stance against criminalization, based on evidence and research, include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Notably, the report clarifies that “Decriminalisation would not jeopardise the protective functions of the State in relation to combatting exploitation, as other criminal law provisions would be used in the case of violence, compulsion or exploitation, including anti-trafficking laws. However, antitrafficking measures should not be implemented in a way that infringes sex workers’ rights, as recognised by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons and the Special Rapporteur on the right to health.”

The evidence is unequivocal and organizations focused on a human rights based approach continue to call for decriminalization. Decriminalization is the only approach to consensual adult sex work that promotes rights and justice for all women.

The Rhode Island special legislative commission to study ensuring racial equity and optimizing health and safety laws affecting marginalized individuals has released a report documenting its findings and recommendations. The commission’s key findings recognize human trafficking as distinct and different from consensual adult sex work and that between 1980 and 2009, when indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island, there was a significant decline in sexually transmitted diseases and sexual assaults. When prostitution was again criminalized in 2009, the decline ended.

The commission recommends critical reforms to Rhode Island’s sex work-related laws, including decriminalization. Its final report states that “[the legislature should] consider a Rhode Island law to restore the pre-2009 landscape, such that private, consensual sexual activity remains out of the reach of criminal laws.” The report also recommends a number of incremental legislative measures that Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW) champions around the country, including a law that would provide limited criminal immunity to sex workers and survivors of trafficking who are victims of or witnesses to a crime and the repeal of RI’s “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” law. The report also recommends passage of a bill that would establish a “patient bill of rights.” As sex workers often face stigma and discrimination while seeking health care, this protection is critical in ensuring health and safety. The bill which provided that “a patient shall not be denied appropriate care on the basis of age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, source of income, source of payment, or profession” became law in RI shortly before the release of the report.

The study commission was formed following the unanimous passage of House Resolution 5250, which proposed a special legislative commission to study ensuring racial equity and optimizing health and safety laws affecting marginalized individuals. The bill, as passed, delineated who should sit on the commission, which includes 13 members, including individuals with lived experience. Other members of the commission include two legislators, a member of COYOTE RI, a representative from Amnesty International, two representatives of organizations serving populations disproportionately impacted by the criminalization of commercial sex, the director of the Department of Health, an attorney from the Rhode Island Public Defender’s Office, the Rhode Island attorney general, or designee, a representative from the Brown University Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, and the president of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, or their designee.

The study commission met eight times starting fall of 2021 with experts from both within the commission and outside of it testifying at each meeting. In her capacity as legal director at DSW and with over 20 years of experience representing and advocating for the legal rights of consensual adult sex workers and survivors of human trafficking, Melissa Sontag Broudo testified in April 2022 about the devastating consequences of the conflation of consensual adult sex work and human trafficking. She helped to draft the legislation proposing the study commission as she believes that public policy should be informed by research and evidence. In April 2023, Broudo and Henri Bynx, DSW’s community engagement consultant, testified together, providing recommendations to the commission. Bynx has testified on the impacts of criminalization on their life as a consensual adult sex worker. A leading advocate for sex worker rights, Bynx spoke powerfully about the critical need for decriminalization — the vital step that would allow individuals marginalized by criminalization to live with less fear and more dignity. In June 2022, Bynx provided testimony on the intersection of sex work and LGBTQIA+ rights.

DSW advocates for the creation of study commissions focused on evaluating prostitution laws, addressing trafficking concerns, and identifying better ways to create support systems for both sex workers and trafficked people.

Read our fact sheet on study commissions to review existing laws and address trafficking and exploitation.

In August 2023, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek vetoed two bills that would establish similar study commissions in Oregon. Read more here: With 2 quiet vetoes, Gov. Tina Kotek pushed back on drive to decriminalize sex work in Oregon

The European Court of Human Rights has accepted a case brought by sex workers whose human rights have been violated following France’s 2016 adoption of Entrapment Model policies, which criminalize the buying of sex but not the selling. As these laws explicitly target clients, people who purchase sexual services are increasingly wary of potential prosecution. Sex workers — who are financially dependent on criminalized clients — are compelled to accept clients who refuse to give their legal names, exhibit nervous behavior, or insist on a remote location. This means sex workers are unable to practice harm-reduction strategies for safety. Because sex workers are surveilled by police who are looking to arrest clients, reasonable people start to insist on a location of their choosing rather than a place where the sex worker feels comfortable.This makes it easier for predators to lure sex workers to their robbery, rape, or death, which occurred in France after the Entrapment Model was implemented.

Across Europe, in countries that have adopted Entrapment Model policies, sex workers report higher levels of anxiety and unease as well as increased stigmatization, and they have been subject to heightened rates of antisocial and nuisance behavior. Because criminalizing clients pushes the entire industry further underground, sex workers are more dependent on potentially exploitative third parties to help clients avoid discovery in order to keep their businesses, even if this risks exploitation. The most marginalized individuals are disproportionately affected by this criminalization, and it is women, migrants, and queer sex workers who have brought the case against France. The ruling that these 261 individuals can be considered victims under Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights is a monumental leap forward in sex workers’ fight for legitimacy.

The coalition of 261 sex workers and their allies, who claim that the Entrapment Model law subjected them to violence and discrimination, exhausted all legal avenues in France before taking its case to the European Court of Human Rights in December 2019. The court rejected a preliminary objection to admissibility by the French government and found the case admissible. The Court “rejects around 90 percent of all applications received” according to its own data.

Leading international human rights organizations oppose the criminalization of consensual adult sex work in any form, including the Entrapment Model. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Development Program (UNDP), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Planned Parenthood Foundation also oppose criminalization.

Research across Europe consistently demonstrates that the Nordic Model — which criminalizes the purchase of sex — pushes sex work farther underground, increases violence by police and clients, criminalizes women who work together for safety, and creates more obstacles for sex workers to access their rights to health, housing, and justice.