What will the United Nations say about the rights of sex workers and trans people in the Trump era?

Contacts: N’Jaila Rhee – newjerseyrua@gmail.com and +15515878079

Penelope Saunders – bestpracticespolicyproject [@] gmail.com and +12024809061

Noor Z.K. — contact@sweetatx.org and +1 5123870037

The Sex Workers Rights Coalition – rightsnotrescue@protonmail.com

Beyonce Karungi– beyonce30a@gmail.com and +1 347 604 1364

Communities of people in the United States have for many decades relied on the United Nations to bring global attention to what is going on here and to stop rights violations. Currently, the world is reeling from the impact of the Trump administration’s policies. Inside the United States social movements are organizing via actions such as the No Kings Protests.

Sex workers and trans people across the United States have made a decision to take all of our intersecting issues concerning policing, attacks on sexual and reproductive rights and ICE to the United Nations to shine a global spotlight on the rights abuses going on here. And to speak about the solutions we have that so often get little mention in the press.

“Right now sex workers and trans folks in the US are being arrested and harmed. The US also caused immeasurable damage to health and rights worldwide by abruptly cutting off US aid earlier this year,” said Penelope Saunders, co-director of BPPP, one of the groups involved in the action. “As we activate for fundamental change we want to see the end of criminalization and new ways of supporting health globally that includes se worker rights, reproductive rights and trans rights. We think the global community at the UN will stand with us.”

The United States’ is currently under scrutiny at the UN’s Universal Periodic Review where United Nations member states gather input from civil society to assess the ways the US has ultimately failed to protect the human rights of vulnerable populations. Beyonce Karungi, a sex worker rights activist who led the process of creating a shadow report to the UN earlier this year states that, “we always want the voices of sex workers to be heard. Nothing about us, without us.” 

The Sex Workers Rights Coalition will send a delegation to Geneva from June 22-28 to meet with representatives from member states that are willing to publicly support the rights of Sex Workers and Transgender people in the United States.

Access the 2025 UPR reports by the Sex Workers’ Rights Coalition and the Sexual Rights Initiative here and keep up to date with the coalition’s UPR work at bestpracticespolicy.org. The Coalition has also worked with 11 artists to illustrate the issues in accessible ways.

PRESS RELEASE FOR PR

The Sex Workers Rights Coalition addresses US human rights violations at the United Nations

Contacts: N’Jaila Rhee – newjerseyrua@gmail.com and +15515878079

Penelope Saunders – bestpracticespolicyproject [@] gmail.com and +12024809061

Noor Z.K. — contact@sweetatx.org and +1 5123870037

The Sex Workers Rights Coalition – rightsnotrescue@protonmail.com

Beyonce Karungi– beyonce30a@gmail.com and +1 347 604 1364

The United States’ is currently under scrutiny at the UN’s Universal Periodic Review where United Nations member states gather input from civil society to assess the ways the US has ultimately failed to protect the human rights of vulnerable populations. The Sex Workers Rights Coalition, consisting of community members, leaders, and advocates, will send a delegation to Geneva from June 22-28 to meet with representatives from member states that are willing to publicly support the rights of Sex Workers and Transgender people in the United States. 

The UPR is a United Nations mechanism that allows member states to review each others’ human rights interventions every five years based on treaties, conventions, and recommendations from previous review periods

In preparation for the UPR, the sex workers’ rights coalition have gathered over two hundred responses to a comprehensive survey giving sex workers an opportunity to speak frankly about their experiences with sex migration, healthcare access, criminalization, Transgender rights, substance user rights, climate change, and  US policy in and outside the US on sex workers’ wellbeing. The coalition submitted two joint reports to the United Nations review of the United States, including one done in collaboration with the Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI). 

The following recommendations by coalition partners and survey participants highlight issues sex workers, many of whom identify as LGBTQIA+, face as a result of the US’ criminalization of sex workers’ lives domestically and its insistence on exporting criminalization as policy to places where it offers aid through policies like the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath. Our report to the UN highlights that within the US, “Being treated “well” by law enforcement/ICE is not enough. We want an end to the criminalization and policing of our lives. We consider every arrest for sex work a rights violation. In gathering information about activities to change patterns of policing, we heard from our communities that “we [sex workers] have always questioned police motives.”

The delegation is calling on the US to:

• End the criminalization of sex workers’ lives in all forms, eliminating discriminatory registries, surveillance systems (including those based on facial recognition and AI), and policing practices that violate our rights and target the most marginalized among us
• Recognize sex workers as legitimate rights-holders under international law, ensuring that our voices and expertise are included in all policymaking, data collection, and human rights monitoring processes
• Invest resources in education, job training, healthcare, and housing programs for marginalized people engaged in sex work;
• Create new funding approaches based on the promotion of human rights and health for sex workers and transgender people.

The sex workers rights coalition aims to secure at least one recommendation to the United States from a UN member state calling for the above issues to be addressed. This mission to Geneva is a refusal to ignore the mechanisms put in place to hold violators accountable because our lives are in fact, protected by the UN declarations on Human Rights, The Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention for Ending all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other foundational human rights documents.  Report contributor, Zee Xaymaca highlights that, “The US was instrumental in creating these human rights guarantees. Yet, in the current climate, the US is overtly anti-human rights. We won’t go willingly with this continued shift toward fascism where people are made increasingly vulnerable so that their fundamental freedoms can be trampled. We resist in every way available and welcome the support of our sibling nations to protect our lives and livelihoods in the face of constant government hostility. At the very least, the world must bear witness to the harm the US perpetrates against Trans and Queer BIPOC folks, sex workers, unhoused and migrant and otherwise vulnerable communities inside and outside of its borders.”

To date, the US has only accepted one recommendation from the UPR process pertaining to sex workers’ rights. In 2010, with Recommendation 86, Uruguay’s delegation called on the US to “Undertake awareness-raising campaigns for combating stereotypes and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals, and ensure access to public services paying attention to the special vulnerability of sexual workers to violence and human rights abuses.”

Access the 2025 UPR reports by the Sex Workers’ Rights Coalition and the Sexual Rights Initiative here and keep up to date with the coalition’s UPR work at bestpracticespolicy.org. The Coalition has also worked with 11 artists to illustrate the issues in accessible ways.

PRESS RELEASE

Contacts: N’Jaila Rhee – newjerseyrua@gmail.com and +15515878079

Penelope Saunders – bestpracticespolicyproject [@] gmail.com and +12024809061

Noor Z.K. — contact@sweetatx.org and +1 5123870037

The Sex Workers Rights Coalition – rightsnotrescue@protonmail.com

Beyonce Karungi– beyonce30a@gmail.com and +1 347 604 1364

June 2025

In October 2024, the Sex Workers’ Rights Coalition administered a survey gathering information from sex workers around the world on the impact of migration, healthcare access, criminalization, Transgender rights, climate change, and US policy in and outside the US on sex workers’ wellbeing. A team of community members incorporated these responses from over 200 people and organizations into two reports (one done in collaboration with the Sexual Rights Initiative) that have been submitted to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in anticipation of the US’ human rights record review in 2025. 

The UPR is a United Nations mechanism that allows member states to review each others’ human rights interventions every five years based on treaties, conventions, and recommendations from previous review periods.

In anticipation of the US’ review the coalition, consisting of Trans and Queer sex worker led organizations, and allied sex workers rights organizations will send a cohort of advocates to the June session of the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva Switzerland from June 22-28, 2025. During this time our delegation will meet with delegations from nations that have a history of supporting sex worker and Trans rights with the aim of making a formal recommendation to the US based on the following list gathered from our community based research:

• End the criminalization of sex workers’ lives in all forms, eliminating discriminatory registries, surveillance systems (including those based on facial recognition and AI), and policing practices that violate our rights and target the most marginalized among us
• Recognize sex workers as legitimate rights-holders under international law, ensuring that our voices and expertise are included in all policymaking, data collection, and human rights monitoring processes
• Invest resources in education, job training, healthcare, and housing programs for marginalized people engaged in sex work;
• Create new funding approaches based on the promotion of human rights and health for sex workers and transgender people.

These recommendations highlight issues sex workers, many of whom identify as LGBTQIA+, face as a result of the US’ criminalization of sex workers’ lives domestically and its insistence on exporting criminalization as policy to places where it offers aid through policies like the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath. Our report to the UN highlights that within the US, “Being treated “well” by law enforcement/ICE is not enough. We want an end to the criminalization and policing of our lives. We consider every arrest for sex work a rights violation. In gathering information about activities to change patterns of policing, we heard from our communities that “we [sex workers] have always questioned police motives.”

To date, the US has only accepted one recommendation from the UPR process pertaining to sex workers’ rights. In 2010, with Recommendation 86, Uruguay’s delegation called on the US to “Undertake awareness-raising campaigns for combating stereotypes and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals, and ensure access to public services paying attention to the special vulnerability of sexual workers to violence and human rights abuses;”

Access the 2025 UPR reports by the Sex Workers’ Rights Coalition and the Sexual Rights Initiative here and keep up to date with the coalition’s UPR work at bestpracticespolicy.org. The Coalition has also worked with 11 artists to illustrate the issues in accessible ways.