On 17th of May, LSI contributed to the webinar ‘Sex work, migration, exploitation and trafficking’, organised by the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) and hosted by Freedom Collaborative This webinar was the final event of ICRSE’s ‘Rights not Rescue’ programme (2019 – 2021), aimed to empower migrant sex workers to fight trafficking and exploitation in the sex industry and strengthen ICRSE’s advocacy on issues relating to migration, exploitation and human trafficking. Through this programme, ICRSE was able to provide financial and technical support to 12 sex workers’ rights organisations in 10 countries, which developed national activities to tackle exploitation and amplify voices of migrant sex workers.
During the webinar, ICRSE launched its latest report ‘From vulnerability to resilience: sex workers organising to end exploitation‘, which aims to support the recognition of the work of community-based and community-led programmes in the field of anti-trafficking. As such, it is addressed to policy makers, experts, and civil society organisations active in countering human trafficking and to sex workers and their organisations to share best practices and effective approaches in eliminating exploitation in the sex work industry. The report has three parts: section 1 explains key definitions and concepts, and related sex workers’ demands; section 2 presents approaches and strategies that ICRSE members carried out within the framework of the Rights not Rescue programme; and the last part focusses on recommendations for policy makers to upscale community resilience and to recognise and support (sex workers’) community-led initiatives as important actors in the field of anti-trafficking.