Readers of Sexual and Reproductive Health Matter are no strangers to interrogating evidence in all its forms, assessing which claims it can support, and about challenges and uncertainties in international norms in the fields of sexual and reproductive rights and health. Questions of evidence, positionality and the role of testimony are particularly live in the context of sex work and human rights. As an exploration about good and bad practices in research and evidence, in this Commentary we highlight the errors, mistakes and wrongly shaped conclusions arising in the recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls about prostitution law, sex worker health and rights, and the status of international human rights law on sex work and trafficking. We do this not only to reinforce more accurate information about the status of human rights law, public health evidence and the needs of people of all genders in the sex sector, but also as an opportunity to remind us of the principles around evidence, transparency, and self-determination. We are conscious of the current vulnerability of global rights and health systems. Our Commentary seeks to contextualise our criticisms to this current moment of rights and health systems' fragility and multi-pronged attacks on the emancipatory potential of rights for persons in the sex sector as workers especially as they intersect with racist stereotypes. Practices of deploying evidence matter for rights advocacy: its legitimacy as well as its efficacy depend on good practices.
Keywords: (mis)use of evidence; good practices for health rights advocates; international human rights, contested rights; sex work, prostitution law and trafficking.
Our article raises concerns about the basis on which a recent report on “prostitution and violence” by a UN human rights expert, rests its arguments. We wrote as researchers and advocates working around the world. We think that evidence is strong that criminal law making both the buying and selling of sex a crime hurts the very people who are most at risk. Our own work has also led us to engage with how inter-connected ideas about gender, race, age and sexuality matter to support rights for everyone. We also argue that “trafficking” is not the same as “sex work”. While we claim these ideas as a feminist approach, we know that there are researchers and advocates, including the author of the UN report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, who disagree with us.Because there is no agreement in international human rights law about what laws best protect the rights of people who sell sex, clear information by experts in the UN, where states debate law, are important. While there are often disagreements within the world of contested rights, we argue that independent experts’ reports should contribute to new law with accuracy and transparency. We say in our article that the SRVAW misuses evidence by inaccurately reflecting other UN experts’ work, especially on state responsibility for rights; not precisely presents facts; and ignores dissenting voices, such as sex workers of all genders and identities. We raise these concerns carefully in our article because we want to build the case for good practices to support the future of human rights, as human rights as a space of dignity and freedom are under attack.