Sex workers' rights

The term sex workers' rights encompasses a variety of aims being pursued globally by individuals and organizations that specifically involve the human, health, and labor rights of sex workers and their clients. The goals of these movements are diverse but generally aim to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work and ensure fair treatment before legal and cultural forces on a local and international level for all persons in the sex industry.

The term sex work is generally used to refer primarily to prostitution, but also encompasses adult video performers, phone sex operators, dancers in strip clubs, and others who provide sexually-related services. Some extend the use of the term to include "support personnel" such as managers, agents, videographers, club bouncers, and others. The debate over sex work is often characterized as an issue of women's rights, especially by those who argue that prostitution is inherently oppressive and seek to criminalize it or keep it illegal, but in fact there are also many male and gender non-binary individuals engaged in providing sexual services. Most sex workers, naturally, do not wish to be branded as criminals, and tend to regard laws against prostitution, pornography, and other parts of the sex industry as violating their rights.

Since the use of red umbrellas by sex workers in Venice, Italy in 2001—as part of the 49th Venice Biennale of Art—a red umbrella has become the foremost internationally recognized symbol for sex worker rights.

In most countries, even those where sex work is legal, sex workers of all kinds feel that they are stigmatized and marginalized, and that this prevents them from seeking legal redress for discrimination (for e.g., racial discrimination by a strip club owner, dismissal from a teaching position because of involvement in the sex industry), non-payment by a client, assault or rape. Activists also believe that clients of sex workers may also be stigmatized and marginalized, in some cases even more so than sex workers themselves. For instance, in Sweden, Norway and Iceland, it is illegal to buy sexual services, but not to sell them (the client is said to have committed a crime, but not the prostitute).

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