A Feminist Inquiry into Sex Workers' Access to Justice - Online

Background

In 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women invited civil society inputs for a report on the nexus between prostitution and violence against women. More than 3,600 sex workers and allies responded – not with submissions, but with a petition challenging the very premise of the call. They objected to the use of the term ‘prostitution’ and the rights-unfriendly framework it signals, one that sex workers and allies have resisted for decades. The petitioners argued that a process built on such a framework cannot meaningfully contribute to the respect, protection and fulfilment of sex workers’ rights.

That petition was both a catalyst and a rationale for this Inquiry.

About the Inquiry

The Inquiry is a community-led event which is being conducted in consultation and collaboration with the sex worker groups, Scarlet Alliance in Australia and Empower Foundation and the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers in Thailand, and is supported by partner organisation Thammasat University. It is co-sponsored by Urgent Action Fund (Asia and Pacific) and Women’s Fund Asia.

The Inquiry will hear testimonies from sex worker organisations to examine how violence is experienced, how different areas of law intersect with sex workers’ lives, and what legal strategies enable these communities to survive and thrive. It will also document what sex workers themselves identify as violence in their specific contexts, and what they see as priorities for legal reform.

The findings will inform the upcoming Victorian legislative review of sex work decriminalisation and support sex worker-led mobilisation for decriminalisation in Thailand, including for Thai migrant sex workers who move across the Asia Pacific region.

The Inquiry is also supported by MSI Australia.

Please note: the zoom link will be available on the confirmation email from Humanitix. We will also send a reminder closer to the date.

The Inquiry will be heard by the following panel:

Marcia Neave (Inquiry Chair) is a law reformer, public policy maker, a former judge, and academic. After nine years on the Supreme Court of Victoria, Court of Appeals Division, she was appointed to the role of Commissioner of the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. In 2021 she was named as President and Commissioner of the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.

Fiona Patten is a former sex worker, sex worker rights advocate and an Australian politician. Fiona led the Victorian governments’ review into the decriminalisation of sex work. She was the leader of Reason Australia and was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council between 2014 and 2022.

Christine Robinson is a Bundjalung woman and CEO of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's community legal centre Wirringa Baiya. She is also a member of the Domestic Violence Death Review Team (NSW).

Pranom “Bee” Somwong is a Thai feminist lawyer and human rights defender with more than twenty years’ experience advancing women’s human rights, migrant justice, and protection of community defenders. Her work focuses on feminist legal strategies, defender protection, and challenging criminalisation and structural violence affecting women and marginalized communities.

Heather Douglas is a professor at the Melbourne Law School. She is a Chief Investigator at CEVAW and a leading expert in the field of family violence.

The times below are in Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) unless noted otherwise.