During a lively and busy meeting November 10th in the Balie in Amsterdam, Mama Cash brought together 150 sex workers, activists and interest groups from the Netherlands and abroad. Topics of discussion included the consequences of new legislation that is before the Dutch Parliament now.

The new bill proposes mandatory registration for sex workers and criminalization of clients who use services by unregistered sex workers. The bill is modelled after Swedish legislation that criminalizes all clients. But according to Swedish activist Pye Jakobssen sex work flourishes like never before in Sweden, and has simply gone underground. “Ten years after the introduction of this law, there are no numbers on its effectiveness. And nobody ever asked our opinion about it. They speak about us and for us but never to us.”

Rules and legislation to protect sex workers often have the opposite effect. While authorities focus on rescuing sex workers, sex worker human rights are violated and ignored.  ‘If you take away my right to say ‘yes’, then how much is my ‘no’ worth?’ sex worker and activist Ruth Morgan Thomas asked.

With this focus on rescue, little is done about the stigma that is still attached to sex work and the discrimination sex workers have to deal with on a daily basis. The concerns of sex workers themselves are ignored and the sex worker rights movement is one of the most underfunded human rights movements. “We’re sexy, but we're definitely not sexy to fund’ says Ruth Morgan Thomas. Mama Cash has supported sex worker rights organisations from all over the world for twenty-five years. This meeting gave sex worker activists a chance to speak up and raise awareness for the state of sex worker rights organising internationally.

A more detailed report will be available soon.

Read a report about the meeting by Marije Janssen on the Akimbo blog>>