Category: Press Release

PRESS RELEASE – June 16, 2025

June 16th, 2025 · · Press Release No comments - Tags: ,

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.

Sex Workers Respond to Gilgo Beach Arrest

September 3rd, 2023 · · Press Release No comments

Press Release: August 2023

Re: Sex Workers Respond to Gilgo Beach Arrest

U.S. Sex Workers rights organizations have gathered in response to the arrest of the Gilgo Beach suspect, Rex Heuremann. We hope that the families affected by this case can gain some comfort in knowing that a suspect is being held in custody and we may be one step closer to keeping our communities safe. 

However, as many family members and Sex Worker rights advocates know, the investigation into who has been murdering community members and leaving their bodies at Gilgo Beach has been botched for years. The fate of those left on Gilgo Beach has been overshadowed by ongoing violence perpetrated by law enforcement enabled by political corruption in Suffolk County. 

Rex Heuremann is far from the first serial killer that has harmed Sex Workers at their leisure for years/decades at a time. This will continue until law enforcement and the government recognize that violence against us is condoned, and at times, perpetrated by the very people sworn to protect everyone in every community. This case is a reminder that law enforcement continues to harm Sex Workers and the injustice system is still not a safe place for survivors and families of victims. 

It is deeply traumatizing that our communities face this on a daily basis due to criminalization, stigma, misogyny, and hate. It is a great emotional cost to be asked for a quote, an interview, a blurb, etc., as a community and our  families have lived in fear from those who can easily maneuver murderous activities. Since Heuremann’s arrest another victim’s body has been found and her name was released before her family was notified. Journalists can do better. Please take the time to listen to Sex Workers about what the issues are here, and  do so in ways that are not triggering and traumatizing.

We ask that the press and social media handle coverage of Gilgo Beach with depth and sensitivity rather than painting a tragic picture of who Sex Workers are and uncritically depicting police in Suffolk County as heroes and saviors. The real heroes here are the families of those found at Gilgo Beach who have fought for years for the cases to be investigated, and Sex Worker rights organizers who have been in solidarity with this case all along.

Desiree Alliance

New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance

Best Practices Policy Project

The Black Sex Workers Collective

The Outlaw Project

March 3rd and Rights

March 2nd, 2022 · · News Archive, Press Release No comments

By Janet Duran

On March 3rd we honor our history and all the shoulders we are standing on globally in our quest for rights. Look no further for an accurate history of March 3rd and sex worker rights, than this posting by Carol Leigh of BAYSWAN.

The 3rd of March is International Sex Worker Rights Day. The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

Live History Archive, www.bayswan.org/March3/

How will we celebrate this day in 2022? We have two ways. Want to chill, hear poems, a potted history and original music? Learn about March 3rd in audio form with this blast from the past poetry podcast from PJ Starr and NJRUA.

Want to get active in the spirit of March 3rd? This year we are happy to celebrate with the March 3rd edition of Heaux Skills with Jenna Torres and the BSWC. Want to learn how to organize around electoral issues? Then this March 3rd Electoral Rundown and Organizing 101 with Jenna Torres is the right place to be at 4 pm US Eastern.

An Open Letter to AIDS United et al:

December 20th, 2021 · · Press Release No comments - Tags: , , ,

Sex worker “focused” is not sex worker-led (20 Dec 2021)

We are writing this open letter in defense of all sex workers and in the spirit of finding solutions to long-standing dynamics in the HIV/AIDS sector globally that have led to the marginalization of the leadership of sex workers who are most affected and impacted. Please sign on here to future actions.

On December 16, 2021, without any discussion, communication or connecting of campaigns, AIDS United, Sex Workers Project (SWP), Reframing Health and Justice and the Postive Women’s Network (PWN), based their letter campaign and “movement-building” on policy work done by a coalition of sex worker-led organizations. See also, this statement by AIDS United on December 17. 

We are aware that our organizing and policy work in HIV and AIDS forums is carefully done, based on more than 30 years of experience and is held in high regard. It makes sense that other groups would want to build upon our groundbreaking work. 

We want to be clear about what has occurred so close to the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This is not about building on the work of others to strengthen sex workers’ voices (which, of course, we do support), this is blatant theft. The organizing and social capital of our work on HIV/AIDS policy and justice are being taken by privileged groups with unlimited access to resources who were in no way involved and with no consultation. And, this has been done by groups that gatekeep funding, have millions of dollars, and use respectability politics surrounding sex work.

We want to be very clear that while we are highlighting a specific instance we are not surprised that our work and organizing has been appropriated. The astro-turfing of work done by sex workers is something that happens frequently. This letter is not only about documenting what happened to us. We hope it serves as an example to other communities of sex workers that have had this happen to them already and for future sex worker rights organizers. This coalition presents a question for all to consider: Who will be at the table for furthering sex worker HIV policies? This question presents a bigger issue on who gets chosen to sit at the table that we built? For these mentioned groups to have a hand in policy-making and not include this coalition disregards our roles as leaders. This should give all in the sector pause.

Adding our organizational links to the letter is not recognition. It portrays sex workers as coming into this policy work when we are clearly leaders in this fight. Our organizations specifically mentioned in our NHAS open letter (one of the links used), that our rights and principles would no longer allow “advocates” to speak for us, but yet, this appropriation of our work clearly shows that our demands were not honored. Every one of the mentioned organizations has leadership that knows there is no greater offense than grifting work off marginalized populations. 

In the spirit of solutions we list the following remedies. AIDS United, SWP, PWN and Reframe Health and Justice must take down the letter/form, publicly apologize and support the work of grassroots organizations that did this work unfunded when the issues were not yet accepted. We are here waiting for your call so you can make this right and we look forward to working with you. Additionally, each organization involved in this must change their internal policies so something like this can never happen again. Each organization should pay the sex workers most impacted by these issues to advise them on how to make these changes. Our leaders and organizers have put their lives on the line for this work without payment for decades. If funding has been obtained by the intellectual and written appropriation of our work, then our groups’ deserve compensation. Monetary compensation is very important to our organizations as it literally allows our survival to sustain the work we do towards human rights for all. We refuse to allow more privileged groups and non-sex workers take from us now because they suspect that sex worker rights has become a popular issue and catching funders and donors attention. 

For people and organizations who are not closely associated with this work, you may wonder why we didn’t try to handle this internally. The answer is we have tried without success and now after this incident, we will not hold secrets when the community of sex workers and trans-led organizations continue to suffer from erasure, astroturfing, and appropriation. We tried to get AIDS United to return our messages for years–almost a decade–after we observed numerous policy missteps and erasures. We made countless efforts to connect with AIDS United as sex worker leaders and Black trans leaders. We even had AIDS United staffers speak to policy directors on our behalf to no avail. Other organizations involved in this action, such as Reframe Health and Justice, have repeatedly been advised privately to stop taking the work of grassroots organizations as their own. And, we have all of these years of reaching out documented in our archives; We have the receipts. 

Our work is our work and we must be acknowledged as such. UN UPR Recommendation 86 is also the work of sex worker-led groups. The legwork of organizing sex workers representing in Geneva for the 2010, 2015, and 2020 Universal Periodic Review was done by sex workers.  

Our roots in this work go very deep and it is an affront to every organization listed here that the seminal work of Black trans leader Sharmus Outlaw is also being taken without acknowledgement. It is foundational in whorephobia and transphobia to erase us from our own history. In 2011, many years into her advocacy, Sharmus addressed the Global Dialogue on HIV/AIDS and shared our joint policy agenda. She was also a central part in globally organizing, presenting, and participating in the many IAS conferences. This work cannot be erased.

Sincerely,

BPPP

Desiree Alliance

The BSWC

NJRUA 

The Outlaw Project