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
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