Improving Laws and Policies To Protect Sex Workers and Promote Health and Wellbeing

The O’Neill Institute, the Whitman-Walker Institute, and HIPS released a new report on the effect of the District of Columbia’s laws and policies on the safety and health of sex workers and the community at large. The report shows that DC laws criminalizing sex work stigmatize and victimize sex workers, degrading their health and trapping them in cycles of poverty and homelessness. Recommendations for change include reforming the criminal code of the District of Columbia to eliminate criminal penalties for consensual commercial sexual exchange between adults; increasing access to affordable housing; expanding resources for job training and employment programs; and strengthening efforts to address discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) people.

Read the report here.