A backlash against progress in gender and sexual rights is common.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino speaks during a news conference on the government’s plan to enable expungements for convictions under the Criminal Code for bawdy house, indecency-based and abortion-related offences in Ottawa in March 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Experts on the history of sexuality in Canada say recent changes to the Expungement Act don’t go far enough, and they urge Canadians to reject attempts to divide marginalized communities.
Interviews with religious and spiritual sex workers examine how these seemingly opposite life choices can interconnect and coexist.
Members of the African Christian Democratic Party protesting against the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa.
Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The repeal of outdated apartheid-era laws would have a far-reaching, positive impact on individual sex workers’ health and well-being.
Margot, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, is important because viewers without much experience with fine dining culture, or who empathize with criticisms of it, can relate to her.
(Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures)
Societally, we need to recognize that sex workers have agency and deserve the same respect, dignity and aid as any other person selling their labour.
Members of the Association of Transgender and Hijra at Bengal light a lamp to mark Transgender Day of Bengal in Kolkata, India, in 2017.
AP Photo/Bikas Das
A sociologist explains that the ability to claim transgender identities in India may appear progressive, but this can further marginalize historically stigmatized gender-nonconforming groups.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gives a press conference in January 2022.
(AP Photo/Marcelo Chello)
Until Bolsonaro’s election win, sex workers had been gaining rights. His ultra-far-right, homophobic, racist and mysoginistic views have made the reality much worse.
Financial strain exacerbated by the pandemic could be driving increased student sex work, whether through apps like OnlyFans or other platforms and avenues.
(AP Photo/Tali Arbel)
The timely re-release of ‘Working Girls’ by Lizzie Borden brings sex work into the public eye as activists in Canada prepare for another Supreme Court challenge to laws criminalizing commercial sex.
Strip away the sexy marketing and what you have is just another digital platform shifting legal responsibilities and risks.
A billboard in Mounds View, Minnesota, put up by the nonprofit National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Children are not routinely being snatched from pizza parlors and sold into sexual slavery. Sex trafficking more often looks like ‘vulnerable people struggling to survive’ through sex.
Supporters of sex workers’ rights marched in Las Vegas in 2019.
AP Photo/John Locher
COVID-19 restrictions created life-threatening challenges to female sex workers as they weren’t able to access their medication, support or their clients.
The UN warns sex workers face increased discrimination under COVID-19. In Australia, they have been an ‘afterthought’ in the country’s pandemic response.