sex work decriminalization

Grammy Award-winning singer and a goodwill ambassador for Unicef, Angélique Kidjo performing at an event for International Women’s Day, March 2020. This year was supposed to be a time for heralding women’s rights, but so far that is not working out. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
This year was intended to be a celebratory time for women: the 25th anniversary of the momentous Beijing conference on women’s rights and how to advance them. It isn’t working out that way, however, as a global health crisis and disagreements among advocates for women rewrite the script.

A detail from a mural being painted on a memorial for victims of Guatemala’s civil war, San Juan Comalapa, 2018. As UN-led global commemorations push ahead on women’s rights and equality in 2020, a set of six “action coalition” themes was announced by UN Women. Not everyone is happy with the topics. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN

A coalition of civil society organizations is petitioning UN Women, which is devoted to promoting gender equality worldwide, to think twice about supporting the decriminalization of prostitution, as UN preparations begin to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing women’s rights conference in 2020. 
A group of civil society organizations is warning that a growing global movement to decriminalize and rebrand prostitution as “sex work” could lead to more, not less, violence against the world’s most vulnerable women and girls.