International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers 2024
17 December 2024
December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, where sex workers and allies across the Globe come together in mourning, remembrance and hope. This year marks the 21st anniversary of this memorial day.
The first IDEVASW was held in 2003, in response to Gary Leon Ridgeway, the ‘Green River Killer’ who was convicted of who murdering 49 women involved in the sex industry in Seattle Washington. It is suspected that he murdered many more.
Since 1990, the UK and Ireland has seen the murders of 199 people within the sex industry. There are many more who cannot be named publicly, and members we have lost whose status as a sex worker is unknown. As well as remembering those who have fallen victim to interpersonal violence, we mourn the vast number of those who have lost their lives as a result of stigma, marginalisation, and state violence. From harmful drug laws, poverty, and suicide, our community honours and remembers each and every member we have lost. They are why we fight for better.
Megan Prescott, NUM’s Chair of the Board of Trustees, speaks on the value of this memorial day, how the violence perpetuates, and why protections are needed to eliminate it. This is followed by a reading of the 199 names as they appear on the memorial card.
Our X/ Twitter account is posting the names individually throughout 17th December, as we do each year. Please take the time to read the names on our memorial card, and to share this amongst your friends, families and communities so that their names are not forgotten. You can download the card here.
2 years ago, our team created an interactive map displaying the geographical areas of the 199 murders of known sex workers. In each area, you can access information and news about these individuals and their cases. Memorial Map – please note that this resource contains information that may be upsetting to you.
Only months ago, news broke of the SNP’s sex work strategy proposals in Scotland. These revelations demonstrate a misinformed attitude that only exacerbates the toxic conditions that cause the deaths of so many people. In whichever form the violence manifests, we cannot allow it to perpetuate, uninhibited, and have people to come to harm time and time again. At best, it is unjust; at worst, murderous.
As in the 21 years of the International Day to End Violence, we hold space to remember our colleagues, friends and family members, and all the sex workers we did not have the pleasure of meeting. We ask that you hold this space with us and then honour their memories by continuing to fight for equal rights. Here are some of the ways that you can help to eliminate all forms violence against sex workers, and create a safer and more equal future.
- Explore how stigma and criminalisation combine to reduce the power that sex workers have over their work and lives
- Commit to listening to, and uplifting, sex workers and sex worker-led organisations
- Support groups including the English Collective of Prostitutes, SWARM, the Sex Workers’ Union, Decrim Now, SWAI, UglyMugsIe, and the many local groups across the UK and Ireland providing support, care and community by, with and for sex workers
- Make a donation to these services
- Commit to making any services you run sex worker-inclusive
- Write to your MP to show your support for the full decriminalisation of sex work
- Sign the Decrim Now petition to end the criminalisation of sex work
- Help end their victimisation by refusing to be silent in the face of whorephobia
- Stand up against poverty and austerity, as well as misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, racism and anti-migration, and all harmful policies which serve to marginalise and exclude communities
- Work with sex workers to eliminate the social conditions and the harmful policies that limit their life chances
- Practitioners: Take the NUM eLearning course and work with us to improve services by, with and for sex workers
- Police Forces: NUM’s eLearning for police was designed by sex workers for you. Please take this training, become familiar with the issues facing sex workers to improve your response and protections.
Manchester Event – December 17th 2024.
This year, the NUM team headed to Manchester’s Christmas Market. We set up a stall and raised awareness about the memorial day as well as various support organisations based in Manchester. We ran this stall alongside Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH), Our Room, LGBT Foundation, and Manchester Community Safety Partnership.
LONDON
Details: Trafalgar Square at 6pm. Organised by Sex Workers’ Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM), Decrim Now, and English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP). Some team members from NUM are attending, including our Chair of the Board of Trustees, Megan Prescott.
NEWCASTLE
Details: 12pm march from Newcastle Civic Centre, followed by a 12:30 Remembrance & Hope Service at Brunswick Methodist Church
GLASGOW
NUMbrella Lane members can contact numbrellalane@nationaluglymugs.org for event details.
