50 years of International Sex Workers’ Day
2 June 2025
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the occupation of the Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, when over a hundred sex workers occupied the church for eight days demanding safer working conditions and the end of stigma, violence and police harassment. June 2 is not only a symbolic date to honour their courage and struggle and the global movement for sex workers’ rights it sparked: it is also a reminder that we are still a long way from where we want to be.
The Nordic model, introduced in the Republic of Ireland in 2017 and in the north two years earlier, criminalised the purchase of sex, with as its corollaries significantly more dangerous working conditions and an increase in violence against sex workers.
The report ‘I Must Be Some Person: Accounts From Street Sex Workers in Ireland’ (2022) notes how 1 in 5 street sex workers has experienced sexual exploitation and harassment at the hands of the gardaí. In 2019, two sex workers working together for safety were arrested and imprisoned under brothelkeeping laws. ‘Welfare checks’ are used to intimidate and monitor us; meanwhile, sex workers are assaulted and murdered under the State’s watchful eye.
The review of the Nordic model, published earlier this year, proved only what we already knew: both government and gardaí refuse to listen to or consult with sex workers when it comes to sex work legislation and policy. We are systematically ignored and excluded from a conversation which is, quite literally for many of us and to a higher degree for those of us who are undocumented, trans, or working the streets, a matter of life and death.
We honour June 2 in memory of our brave French sisters who stormed a church and took matters into their own hands. Let this day be a reminder that the gardaí are not our friends or allies: the only thing which will bring safety to those in sex work is its full decriminalisation.
Against police, against prisons.
For many more occupied churches.
Happy International Whores’ Day!
I Must Be Some Person: Accounts From Street Sex Workers in Ireland
