☂️ International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers | 🚨 Violence by Design: How Colonization Continues to Harm Sex Workers in Thailand

🚨 Violence against sex workers in Thailand is not accidental, it’s by design.

This December 17, on the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, we name some of the systems behind that harm: colonial powers and criminalization.

While Thailand was never formally colonised, imperial influence shaped its economy in ways that displaced and impoverished marginalized and working-class women. Many were forced into sex work as a means of survival. But these forces didn’t disappear; They evolved, tying the industry to global tourism and systemic inequality that profits from women & gender-diverse persons’ bodies while denying them protection.

Today, sex workers in Thailand endure routine violence just to survive: homicide rates 17 times higher than the general female population, and widespread abuse by clients, pimps, and even police. Instead of safety, they are met with punishment.

✊🏽 Sex workers deserve rights, protection, and dignity — not criminalisation. Today, and all days, the decolonial & intersectional feminists of Manushya Foundation stand with sex workers!

#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings