Around the world
Since its launching, in 2006, the Sexuality Policy Watch website has circulated relevant information on sexual politics trends, events and actors around the world. This investment has resulted in a rich archive of global and national sexual politics.
One main feature of this database is that it is not confined to specific areas or issues. It encompasses information on abortion, sexual and reproductive rights, sex work, sexual violence, gender and women’s rights, HIV and AIDs; and emphasizes materials and analysis that contribute to locate these issues in relation to the political economy of sexuality. Since 2013, key facts, events and trends are selected and highlighted in monthly announcements.
Largest Online Male Escort Service Raided
A criminal complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging the CEO of Rentboy.com, Jeffrey Hurant, and six Rentboy.com employees with conspiring to violate the Travel Act by promoting prostitution. The defendants were arrested this morning and are scheduled to appear before United States Magistrate Judge Marilyn Go at the United States Courthouse, […]
Read moreLondon: Launch of the Global Sex Work Law Map
Tuesday 15 September 2015 16:00 to 18:00 Westminster Kingsway College, Soho Centre, Peter Street, London Register to attend The interaction of law and poverty is a focus of the work on sex work of the Sexuality, Poverty and Law Programme of the Institute of Development Studies. As part of that work it has produced an online map […]
Read moreConsultation – How to create and maintain civil society space? What works? A Report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is preparing a report of practical recommendations on how to create and maintain the space for civil society to work freely and independently. Read more about the report and the kind of information civil society can contribute here. The deadline is September 30, 2015. As they ask, help […]
Read moreFRIDA Young Feminist Fund Call For Proposals
The Young Feminist Fund is the only youth-led fund focused exclusively on supporting global young feminist activism to advance social justice movements and agendas. FRIDA was created to bring new resources and new opportunities to young women and trans* youth globally. DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 14th September 2015 Who can apply? Groups founded or led by […]
Read moreReports from Portugal’s recent changes in abortion law – International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion
PORTUGAL: DIARY OF A PARLIAMENTARY SELL-OUT BY THE RIGHT-WING MAJORITY PARTIES by Duarte Vilar Executive Director, Associação para o Planeamento da Família (APF), Portugal and from two e-reports by Alice Frade Executive Director, P&D Factor – Associação para a Cooperação sobre População e Desenvolvimento, Portugal ************ 18 June 2015 Portuguese Parliament postpones discussion of an […]
Read moreChile’s Health Commission Moves Abortion Bill Forward
08.05.15 – (PRESS RELEASE) This evening the Health Commission of Chile agreed to advance a proposed bill that would allow women access to safe and legal abortion services in cases of life-endangerment, sexual violence, and fatal fetal impairments. The legislation, which was introduced by President Michelle Bachelet in January, will face another vote in the Health Commission […]
Read moreAmnesty International: should sex work be decriminalized?
“We speak to this issue from experience and evidence. Having many years of experience between us of work on sexuality-related human rights, we are seized by a sense of urgency on this issue. A report on sex work and the law in Asia and the Pacific, compiled by the UNAIDS joint programme on HIV/AIDS with the […]
Read moreLoss and gain in recent UN debates on ‘the family’
Since the heyday of preparation for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, Cairo, 1994), UN debates on the family have been contentious. However, since then, as morally conservative views became more vocal and articulate in international arenas, the demise of the Cairo definition on ‘various forms of family’ became one of their main […]
Read more‘I am someone, like everyone else’: A story about a migrant sex worker in Johannesburg, South Africa
The photograph taken by @Confidence — a South African sex worker — guide readers to the article I am someone, like everyone else’: A story about a migrant sex worker in Johannesburg, South Africa co – authored by Vanessa Klass and Elsa Oliveira. Vanessa Klass is the pseudonym of a sex worker and an […]
Read moreSPW compilation of statement, letters and articles on Amnesty International’s proposal for decriminalization of sex work
In English Global Advocates Issue a Call to Amnesty International in Open Letter – Coalition Against Traffickin in Women ICRSE, 1100 organisations and individuals ask Amnesty International to support decriminalisation of sex work – International Comittee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe Hollywood v. Amnesty International: The big battle over sex work – […]
Read moreUN Committee on Human Rights discusses the right to life
The UN Committee on Human Rights is developing a new General Comment on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that addresses the right to life. The last General Comment on the topic, adopted in 1982, centered on violations of the right to life resulting from war, acts of mass violence, […]
Read moreWhy Amnesty International Must Hold Firm in Its Support for Sex Worker
by Sebastian Kohn July 28th, 2015 Amnesty International seems poised to support the decriminalization of sex work—a move that would improve the health, rights, and safety of sex workers everywhere. Who could argue with that? One of the world’s leading human rights organizations is on track to do something that could benefit thousands of people across the […]
Read moreLes grandes baigneuses: a fragment
In June, 2015, SPW posted a fragment of the large painting by Paul Cézanne that is housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This choice was not casual. We wanted indeed to call attention to this magnificent art work of the early twenty century. More importantly however, in an era where the visual universes of […]
Read moreHollywood v. Amnesty International: The big battle over sex work
Exclusive: Hollywood stars have taken offence at Amnesty’s latest proposal to decriminalise sex work, but the human rights organisation tells Radhika Sanghani there’s been a big ‘misunderstanding’. Read more on the Telegraph.
Read moreGlobal feminisms and social justice movements have lost Gigi
With great sadness as SPW we mark the departure of Gigi Francisco – activist, scholar, teacher and for a long time a working partner and wonderful friend of many of us. Gigi’s departure is a major loss for global feminisms and social justice movements.
Read more