Why fighting violence against sex workers is a feminist issue

Article originally published on December 17, 2021 and updated

On November 8, 2022, 49-year-old Saba was beaten to death on a street in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. A murder of incredible violence, in general indifference, a few days after the fight against violence against women. That of a prostitute.

They are often set aside, excluded from the issue sexist and sexual violenceyet the violence to which prostitutes are victims is real and is equally the result of a misogynistic, racist and transphobic society that perpetuates violence against women and minorities.

This violence is murder, but also assault, rape. “The feminicide against the TDS is sometimes trivialized, as if they were part of the “risk of the job”, as if prostitutes were not women, but only “whores”” denounced several Belgian associations in 2021, after the murder of a prostitute in her home.

A statement that echoes the words of activist Giovanna Rincon, director of the Acceptess-T association, after the murder of Vanesa Campos in 2018:

“When you are a prostitute, you should protect yourself from murder and rape. We don’t question the aggressors, the system that makes us precarious, the society that excludes us, we prefer to blame the victims. »

This violence, terrible as it is, is often relegated to the news, and finds little echo and solidarity, even from feminist associations. Femicide counts are tentatively starting to take into account homicides that do not fit into the circumstances of the couple or separation, especially the homicides of trans women or prostitutes.

It is to remind them and them that the International day for the elimination of violence against sex workers was established and takes place every December 17th.

The origin of December 17th

She is most notably the American feminist filmmaker and performer Annie Sprinkle who started this day of tribute to sex workers in 2003, in order todraw attention to violence and hate crimes of which these people are victims all over the world.

In 2003, on December 17, she and several activists, including Sex Workers Outreach Project USA founders Robyn New and Stacey Swimme, gathered in San Francisco to honoring the memory of the victims of Gary Ridgeway, a serial killer known as the Green River Killer, who had just been convicted by American justice of dozens of murders of women. Among his victims, many prostitutes.

This day is a reminder that the fight against violence against prostitutes must be seen as a matter of women’s rights, but it is also a symbol ofintersectionality :

“Most violence against sex workers is not just violence against sex workers – it is also violence against trans women, against racialized women, against drug addicts, against immigrants »remember Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.

“We cannot end the marginalization and victimization of all sex workers without also fighting transphobia, racism, the stigmatization and criminalization of drug use and xenophobia. »

A mobilization of human rights, no more, no less

This is, for example, the line defended by the NGO Amnesty International and summarized by the activist Sébastien Tüller in 2021. On Twitter, the thread below allows us to understand how a mobilization to defend the rights of people who carry out sex work is a human rights issue.

Remember one important point: stand up for the rights of prostitutes in no way means turn a blind eye to the trafficking, smuggling and exploitation of human beings and forgive this violence.

It also recalls that the criminalization of sex work, but also any law that makes the exercise of sex work more dangerous and more precarious (such as the law penalizing the client passed in 2016 in France), contributes to not rejecting sex work – since this is the stated goal, to make prostitution disappear – but well done increase violence and oppression that prostitutes are already experiencing.

In France, several rallies and meetings it will take place this Saturday, December 17 at the initiative of militant organizations including Strass, in Paris, as well as in Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Nantes, Rennes and Brussels.

Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr