Decrim now world news digest for July 2026

“Sex work is work” - TUC LGBT+ conference backs Equity’s call to decriminalise sex work

United Kingdom, Brighton

July 1, 2026

An Equity motion to unionise sex workers and decriminalise sex work secured the backing of the union movement last week at the annual TUC LGBT+ Conference.  

The motion was brought by Equity’s LGBT+ Committee. It called on the TUC to support unions to organise LGBT+ sex workers; promote union contracts and health and safety standards; and campaign for the full decriminalisation of sex work as a matter of LGBT+ workplace safety and trade union equality. The motion passed, supported by the TUC and seconded by the Bakers Food & Allied Workers Union. 

A significant number of sex workers undertaking performance work are LGBT+ workers, including trans and non-binary performers, reflecting both the diversity of the creative industries and the economic marginalisation faced by LGBT+ people. Due to the criminalisation of sex work and the poor terms and conditions in connected work, LGBT+ sex workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, unsafe working conditions, harassment and non-payment. Trans and migrant LGBT+ workers face heightened risks of discrimination, profiling and barriers to reporting abuse. 

Smashlyn Monroe, Co-Chair of Equity’s LGBT+ Committee, spoke to the motion, saying: 

“As unions, it is our responsibility not to decide whose labour is morally acceptable. Our responsibility is to protect workers. Full stop. We do not improve safety by pushing people to the margins. We improve safety through organisation, representation, and decriminalisation. 

“If we are serious about harm reduction and workplace safety, then we should be actively supporting efforts to decriminalise sex work. Criminalisation does not stop sex work from existing — it simply makes workers more vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and abuse. Union protection, collective bargaining, and open support save lives.” 

The TUC LGBT+ Conference, which this year was held in Brighton from 26-27 June 2026, brings together trade unionists from across the movement to set the TUC LGBT+ agenda for the coming year.    

Giovanni Bienne, of Equity’s LGBT+ Committee, also spoke in support of a motion calling for the revision of harmful Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) Guidance, which is published by the Department of Education. 

Source portal equity.org.uk

’Outdated and dangerous’: Tasmanian sex work laws must be overhauled, reformists say

Tasmania

July 12, 2026

Tasmania’s "outdated and dangerous" sex work laws are jeopardising worker safety and need to be urgently reformed, an activist for the industry has said.

Phillip Cox, who launched a Change.org petition calling for reform and sent a draft policy proposition to every state parliamentarian, said commercial sex work businesses - brothels - should be allowed to operate in Tasmania.

"I’m saying just get basic protections in place... basic super, basic insurances, basic health protections," he said.

"It’s the women and the men that work in the industry that need help the most."

Under Tasmania’s present 2005 legislation, sex workers are allowed to operate only if they provide services as individuals and are not employees of a commercial sex business.

Unlike in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, brothels employing multiple sex workers are still illegal in Tasmania.

Mr Cox said this ban on organised brothels left both sex workers and their customers vulnerable to unscrupulous shadow operators.

With organised criminal gangs managing networks of individual sex workers, the sex workers faced exploitation while customers could be vulnerable to blackmail schemes, assaults or scams, he said.

His reform proposal emerged as a man was committed for trial in the Supreme Court later this year on one count of being a commercial operator of a sexual services business, and one count of inducing a person to provide sexual services in a sexual services business by threat, fraud, drugs or other act.

Mr Cox said the cases were examples of why legal brothels were necessary.

"The present framework pushes a lot of work underground and creates situations where individual workers might get exploited," he said.

A spokesperson for sex work advocacy group Scarlet Alliance said the organisation also supported reform of Tasmania’s 2005 law.

"We support the full decriminalisation of sex work as the best-practice model for sex work regulation, and oppose any form of criminalisation," the spokesperson said.

"Sex work decriminalisation is endorsed by respected international organisations and policy makers for eliminating HIV transmission, preventing violence and promoting the safety, well-being and social inclusion of sex workers."

Under a regulated brothel system, Mr Cox said sex workers could be protected by door security guards, cameras and alert systems, and would be employed with other sex workers.

According to the website of one of Melbourne’s largest brothels, Gotham City, the establishment employs as many as 120 sex workers, and has open employment vacancies for receptionists, cleaners, managers and hosts.

He has mailed a copy of his reform proposal to every Tasmanian parliamentarian.

A Tasmanian government spokesman said, however, that it had no plans to attempt reform.

However, Tasmanian Greens leader Dr Rosalie Woodruff (on photo) said a review of the law governing sex work was "significantly overdue".

"Sex work is work. All workers deserve equal rights and protection in the workplace," Dr Woodruff said.

Problems with the 2005 law were identified soon after its adoption, she said.

"The law is overly restrictive and results in unnecessary safety and financial security problems for sex workers.

"The Greens support an independent assessment of Tasmania’s sex work laws."

Mr Cox said he believed other independent members of parliament might support his reform proposals.

He said while many in the Tasmanian community might support legal brothels, local opposition to new establishments could emerge.

"There are plenty of locations within Tasmania for them to be hosted, where it’s not going to ruin the local community," Mr Cox said.

Source portal archive.md

Univercity of Victoria social researcher recognized for contributions to Canada

Canada, Victoria

July 15, 2026

A local researcher is making headlines for being recognized with one of the most prestigious awards in Canada, awarded to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the country.

Longtime University of Victoria researcher and sociologist, Cecilia Benoit, recently received an appointment at the Officer (O.C.) level to the Order of Canada title.

Benoit, who joined UVic in 1989, bravely researched stigmatized topics in society, such as sex work, expanding midwifery, and supporting vulnerable youth. Her other work focused on social equity in employment, health and health care for people who face structural disadvantage and unfair treatment in Canadian society. These groups include midwives, childbearing women desiring access to non-medical health care, street-involved youth in transition to adulthood, pregnant women confronting substance use, poverty and housing insecurity, and adults who sell sexual services.

Speaking to Saanich News, Benoit said she was thrilled when she received the news that she was a recipient of the Order of Canada.

“Oh, it was a wonderful feeling. I was humbled by the decision to give me this award, and I felt like the work I had done in communities and with the different groups who were marginalized in Canadian society over the years was also being recognized and given some positive view,” she said.

While going down memory lane, Benoit remembered facing countless challenges in her journey when she was conducting extensive research about marginalized communities that no one dared to talk about.

Although she could classify the various challenges she faced, the biggest one, the researcher said, came from within herself.

Speaking about how she got into doing research about marginalized communities, she said, once she moved to Victoria, she was assigned to help an established organization develop a research question about sex work to help them get a community grant.

“I had never worked with sex workers before, so I said, yeah, I will help you to get the question, to develop the question,” she said.

Once she started conducting the research, she realized her own prejudice and became aware of the stigma she held towards them.

“And then when I got to work with them, I had to really work with my own feelings. And then we became close friends.”

Working closely with them, she realized that their work was not any different than any other worker who is trying to make a living, trying to deal with working conditions.

“So that was really a lot of learning for me. And then when I started to do research more in sex work, I realized how stigma was so strong in society against them, how, you know, people did not see them as real workers and had all kinds of prejudice against them.”

A lot of research she conducted over the years tried to shed light on the prejudice society had towards sex workers.

Benoit is currently mentoring a new generation of early-career professionals.

Source portal oakbaynews.com

Amsterdam police urge exploited Romanian sex workers to come forward

Amsterdam, Netherlands

July 16, 2026

The Amsterdam police are circulating a video among Romanian sex workers in the city, urging them to come forward if they are victims of human trafficking. In the video, a former exploited sex worker assures her former colleagues that they too can get out, and the police promise to help them, Nieuwsuur reports.

The video follows a major police operation against human trafficking in the Red Light District on Tuesday. The Amsterdam police arrested four suspects. At the same time, three suspects were arrested in Romania. The investigation is ongoing, and more arrests may follow.

The police did not publish the video publicly, but sent it to individual sex workers. It is now circulating in the sector. Nieuwsuur has seen the video.

Many sex workers in the Red Light District are Romanian. The anonymous victim therefore addresses her former colleagues in Romanian. “I got out,” she says. “You can too.”

The police add: “Perhaps you chose this work yourself. Yet no one should take advantage of you, your money, or your feelings. You are not alone. The police in the Netherlands can help.”

“We are actively looking for victims,” a police spokesperson told Nieuwsuur. “We know that for many of them, going to the police is a real barrier. We are trying to remove that barrier.”

Conny Rijken, the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, called it exceptional that the police simultaneously arrested suspects in the Netherlands and Romania. “It is a long and intensive process to get a clear picture of these types of networks. We haven’t seen a raid like this in years,” she told the current affairs program.

Source portal nltimes.nl

VPD makes changes to Sex Work Enforcement Guidelines 

Canada, Vancouver

July 23, 2026

It’s a move that ignores what some are calling the prioritization of health, safety and rights of sex workers in Vancouver. 

“This is laying the groundwork for increased violence against sex workers,” says Leaf Henderson, board member of Pace Society.

Frontline organizations supporting sex workers in the city are coming together to condemn revisions made by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) to its Sex Work Enforcement Guideline last year that were just made public in April.

They changed the response when sex workers report being victims of crime, and erased all mentions of the Downtown Eastside, on which the initial guidelines’ history which was based, when a serial killer murdered dozens of Indigenous and sex working women.

This is all without any external input. 

“To have five organizations consult the original guidelines in 2013 to nothing, as Leaf said, really highlights the fact that the VPD isn’t on our side and isn’t prioritizing sex work safety, which is devastating,” says Caroline Doerksen, board member of Pace Society. 

Instead, they say there’s been a shift towards exploitation and trafficking by the VPD, just as an important support noted by these groups; however, it should not be conflated with sex work as it only creates additional barriers. 

“We have had cases where women have experienced violence, they’ve reported it to the police and the police in turn open up a trafficking investigation or repeatedly ask who’s pimping you out or who are your traffickers, when there aren’t any, and so often the actual crime goes unpunished,” says Angela Wu, executive director of SWAN Vancouver.

In 2020, SFU conducted a study, finding that only 26 per cent of sex workers in Metro Vancouver actually reported violence to police, and the reluctance only increased when it came to racialized and immigrant sex workers.

“The reason sex workers don’t report violence to police is due to a lack of trust with police and a criminal legal system, and the updated VPD guidelines risk further eroding sex workers’ access to justice and their ability to work,” says Andrea Krüsi, assistant professor, SFU School of Criminology.

”The already limited, precarious that sex workers had, or some did, the hope for that is completely eroded,” says Henderson.

VPD could not provide a spokesperson on the concerns being raised by community groups, instead sharing a statement which reads in part: “Our commitment to the safety of sex trade workers and investigations into crimes committed against them remains unwavering.”

Going on to note that the VPD is cognizant of the dangers faced by those in sex work and endeavours to reduce these threats in the updated guidelines, viewing situations like violence, exploitation, and human trafficking as high priority for intervention. 

“The VPD is cognizant of the dangers faced by those in sex work and endeavours to reduce these threats. In particular, the VPD views situations involving violence, exploitation, human trafficking, youth, or other criminal associations (e.g. organized crime or gang affiliations) as high risk and, as a result, are a priority for intervention to ensure the safety of the sex worker(s) and the community,” read the VPD statement.

While groups working with sex workers say they have been left out of talks with the VPD, it doesn’t mean that the conversation for safer conditions ends here. 

“I hope that through this we can continue to hold the VPD accountable and that more community engagement, advocacy and education comes from this,” says Doerksen.

Source portal vancouver.citynews.ca