World Charter for Prostitutes' Rights

The World Charter for Prostitutes' Rights is a declaration of rights adopted in 1985 to protect sex workers' rights (or prostitutes' rights) worldwide. It was adopted on 15 February 1985 at the first World Whores Congress in Amsterdam by the newly formed International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights (ICPR). The Charter established a human rights-based approach to prostitution, demanding that sex workers be guaranteed freedom of speech, travel, immigration, work, marriage, motherhood, health, and housing, amongst other things. This approach has subsequently been further elaborated by the sex workers' rights movement.

The World Charter emerged from the prostitutes' / sex workers' rights movement starting in the mid-1970s. The distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution was developed by the movement in response to feminists and others who saw all prostitution as abusive. The World Charter for Prostitutes' Rights calls for the decriminalisation of "all aspects of adult prostitution resulting from individual decisions." The World Charter further states that prostitutes should be guaranteed "all human rights and civil liberties", including the freedom of speech, travel, immigration, work, marriage, and motherhood, and the right to unemployment insurance, health insurance and housing. Furthermore, the World Charter calls for protection of "work standards", including the abolition of laws which impose any systematic zoning of prostitution, and calls for prostitutes having the freedom to choose their place of work and residence, and to "provide their services under the conditions that are absolutely determined by themselves and no one else." The World Charter calls for prostitutes to pay regular taxes "on the same basis as other independent contractors and employees," and to receive the same benefits for their taxes.

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Human Rights

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