Due to whorephobia and transphobia, parts of the United Nations system and some women’s organizations attempt to deny our advocacy in participatory spaces dedicated to the rights of women. US sex workers are documenting our participation in the 2021 Generation Equality Forums held Mexico and Paris.

In 1995 representatives of the fourth world women’s conference in Beijing created the Beijing Declaration stating that “women’s rights are human rights.” Sex workers globally have the least resources to attend UN meetings and to advocate within the admittedly hard won spaces for women’s rights globally. Barriers are deliberately thrown in our way. Yet, representatives of communities of sex workers were there in Beijing in 1995, demanding to be heard and challenging attempts to denounce sex work due to machinations by people with anti-sex worker and anti-trans agendas (1).  Since that time sex workers have fiercely defended our rights at many UN meetings following the Declaration. This includes advocacy in spaces that have been sites of anti-sex worker policy attempts, such as those organized by UN Women as well as around the Women’s Convention (the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW), preventing the codification of harmful language about sex work in the world of human rights.

The Generation Equality Forums were held virtually due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the groups listed below in our coalition attended. The Forum kicked off in Mexico City from 29 to 31 March and ended in Paris from 30 June to 2 July 2021. According to the Forum’s own publicity it was a “global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico, to chart the way forward and to accelerate the implementation pace of the gender equality commitments made in Beijing in 1995.” The Forum said it would enable “feminist agenda setting and the launch of Action Coalitions that have concrete measurable targets and funding for gender equality for the upcoming five years.” 

Access was limited. Many of our groups applied to attend the Mexico City Forum but never received registration permission. However, Desiree Alliance, a national sex worker rights organization, attended the forum sessions in both Mexico City and Paris. Desiree Alliance noted that Mexico City was problematic in that no mention of marginalized populations such as sex workers was upheld the message of Gender Equality’s “mission of inclusion.” 

We experienced the same deliberate silence in France. Translations were nonexistent for some sessions, there was no access to respond in community forums and discussions, and navigation around the conference sites was difficult. We understand that complications arise with virtual formats. However, the organizers of the Gender Equality Forum clearly have the financial power to create a global event. Accessibility was a problematic limitation for those who were trying to be fully engaged with the conference. Sex workers who committed to be a part of this forum became invisible with no means to interact due to these malfunctions.  

To counter, we made ourselves very visible on social media using the official hashtag #generationequality and #generationequalityforum 

We would like to thank the Urgent Action Fund for supporting our UN work and for providing valuable information about participation in the Generation Equality Forum. We would like to also thank Desiree Alliance for these policy statements on the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW), statements that were released 2019 and in response by coalition in 2020.

Attending

BPPP

Desiree Alliance

The BSWC

NJRUA

The Outlaw Project

FOOTNOTES:

(1) for example, the advocacy of  Sue Metzenrath and others. Scarlet Alliance https://scarletalliance.org.au/who/history/ recalls that the organization had to advocate at the highest levels for the right of sex workers to enter China at all.