Mission/Principles

Mission Statement

Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade is a network of individuals and organizations promoting self-determination, safety, well-being, and human rights of sex workers and people engaged in the sex trade through public education, policy advocacy, and other activities from empirical, harm reduction, and social justice perspectives.

Values/Principles Statement

We center the voices of current and former sex workers and people in the sex trade when discussing or advocating for policies that impact them.

We are concerned about the harms caused by the criminalization of sex work and of marginalized communities, and work to reduce the criminal justice involvement in the lives of sex workers and people in the sex trade.

We employ a harm reduction, human rights perspective in our understanding of the rights and safety for sex workers and people in the sex trade.

We commit to an intersectional analysis, intentionally applying social justice (especially anti-racist, anti-xenophobic) lens to all of our activities.

We work toward advancing policies that do not support some at the expense of others, especially mindful of the risk that policy changes may exacerbate existing racial, gender, and other disparities. When otherwise necessary policy changes are expected to have unintended negative consequences for some members of the community, we proactively advocate for specific remedies for these potential harms.