In the light of the celebration of June 2 – the International Sex Workers’ Day, STAR – the First Sex Workers Collective in the Balkans, throughout the month of June 2024, will conduct a digital video campaign entitled “Sex Workers Countering Disinformation“, which has the purpose of contributing to the reduction of disinformation regarding sex work and sex workers, which is pervasive on social media in North Macedonia.
Sex workers as a marginalized community are often the target of disinformation that incites hate speech and online violence and this campaign is a community mobilization towards reducing the problem of disinformation in the digital space. During the digital video campaign throughout the month of June, 5 short videos (shorts) will be promoted on social media in order to create positive narratives regarding these topics among the users of social media in the North Macedonia and to reduce the existing negative and harmful narratives about the oldest profession in the world.
In the long term, the campaign is to contribute to a strategically important goal for the sex worker community, which is to encourage a positive public debate on the decriminalization of sex work, as the only policy that will ensure respect for the human rights and freedoms of sex workers in a democratic and just society.
The video campaign is within the frames of the project “Sex Workers Countering Disinformation in North Macedonia”, supported by the Digital Activism Program of TechSoup Global.