World Charter For Prostitutes' Rights - Development of A Human Rights Approach

Development of A Human Rights Approach

The World Charter emerged out of the prostitutes' rights movement starting in the mid-1970s. It was established through the two World Whores Congresses held in Amsterdam (1985) and Brussels (1986) which epitomised a worldwide prostitutes' rights movement and politics. The Charter established a human rights based approach which has subsequently been further elaborated by the prostitutes' rights movement.

In 1999, the Santa Monica Mirror commented on the popularization of the term "sex worker" as an alternative to "whore" or "prostitute" and credited the World Charter, among others, for having "articulated a global political movement seeking recognition and social change."

In 2000, the Carnegie Council published a report commenting on the results of the World Charter, fifteen years after its adoption. The report concluded that the human rights approach embodied in the World Charter had proved "extremely useful for advocates seeking to reduce discrimination against sex workers." For example, human rights advocates in Australia utilized the language of human rights to resist “mandatory health tests” for sex workers and to require that information regarding health be kept confidential. However, the report also found that efforts to define prostitution as a human rights abuse had led some governments to take action to abolish the sex industry.

And in 2003, a writer in the journal "Humanist" noted that the World Charter had become "a template used by human rights groups all over the world."

Read more about this topic:  World Charter For Prostitutes' Rights

Famous quotes containing the words development of, development, human, rights and/or approach:

    “Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.”
    —Loris Malaguzzi (20th century)

    “I do seriously believe that if we can measure among the States the benefits resulting from the preservation of the Union, the rebellious States have the larger share. It destroyed an institution that was their destruction. It opened the way for a commercial life that, if they will only embrace it and face the light, means to them a development that shall rival the best attainments of the greatest of our States.”
    —Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
    —Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22.

    “... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.”
    —Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 8 (1962)

    “A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had ...”
    —Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)