VSE Knowledge Database -Monthly Update

Thanks to VSE’s Researcher Oleksandra Boychenko, our knowledge database is being updated on a regular basis every month. See what was added in October 2020.

As you may know, VSE has recently welcomed the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) as its new member. ICRSE is a network of sex worker organisations and their allies that work together to support the development of national and international law, policy and practice, which respects and upholds the human and labour rights of sex workers throughout Europe and Central Asia.

ICRSE works in many diverse ways, regularly publishing various products of their work, from briefing papers to community reports to guides and toolkits for professionals working with sex workers as well as for sex workers themselves. In order to better familiarise our members with ICRSE’s work, we have added some of their most interesting publications to our Knowledge Database, accessible to all our members via Intranet.

One of the ICRSE’s publications which is now available on VSE’s Knowledge Database is the Training manual on sex work, HIV and human rights. The manual is intended to serve as a tool for organising and leading participatory community training on issues related to sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV and human rights. It is also designed for service providers and allies who want to support meaningful participation and the leadership of sex workers in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of HIV programming. Victim support professionals coming in contact with sex workers may thus find this manual useful.

ICRSE advocates for an intersectional perspective on sex workers’ rights. They have produced a series of briefing papers on various intersectional approaches to sex workers’ rights, including LGBT rights and sex workers; migrant sex workers; and labour activism in the context of sex work, to name a few. All three briefing papers can now be found on the Knowledge Database.

Another publication titled “Nothing about us without us: 10 years of sex workers’ rights activism and advocacy in Europe” provides an excellent overview of ICRSE’s work over the last decade, its achievements as well as challenges which remain in the field. Similarly, a report titled “Structural violence: Social and institutional oppression experienced by sex workers in Europe” explores systemic issues sex workers have to deal with on a regular basis.

All these publications (and more) can be found on the Knowledge Database.

For more, check out ICRSE’s website.