Every year, sex workers and advocates around the world celebrate March 3rd, The International Sex Workers’ Rights Day to raise awareness about human rights abuses sex workers face.
STAR – The first sex workers collective in the Balkans, as every year, joins the global celebration of this day to fight for social justice and respect for sex workers’ rights in the Republic of North Macedonia and at an international level. On this day we would like to shine a spotlight on sex workers activism and the importance they achieve in increasing public visibility by engaging in public appearances, protests, and marches.
Sex workers are socially excluded, they face stigma and discrimination by the police, institutions and society on a regular basis. In the Republic of North Macedonia, sex workers live and work in unsafe conditions. They are in constant fear of harassment, violence, and abuse. As a result of absence of the national legal regulation for sex work, the fundamental rights of sex workers are limited, as well as their freedom to live and work as people equal with everyone else in the society.
International Sex Workers’ Rights Day began in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a festival organized by a Calcutta-based group called Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (Unstoppable Women’s Synthesis Committee). In 2002, Durbar invited organizations from around the world to join them in commemorating Sex Workers’ Rights Day on March 3rd.
We join the global celebration of March 3rd to emphasize the importance and need for promotion of our human rights, to fight against criminalization and receive legal protection from violence and abuse. With equal and dignified rights for all, the world would be a beautiful place to live! We have the right to life, liberty, equality, security, privacy, the right to freedom of expression and association!