#SexWorkerPrideDay 🏳️‍🌈✊ Sex work is work. So why does Thailand still criminalise sex workers instead of protecting their rights?

Under Thailand’s Criminal Code and the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act B.E. 2539 (1996), sex work continues to be treated as unlawful and immoral. Sex workers can face fines, imprisonment, or both, as laws intended to combat trafficking blur the crucial distinction between consensual adult sex work and human trafficking.

💬 “Sex work isn’t immoral. What’s immoral is a legal system that protects employers but not workers.” —’Ton’ Sirisak Chaited, non-binary human rights defender, sex worker, and Manushya Foundation Board Member

And that contradiction has real consequences. ⚖️

Sex workers remain excluded from many of the labour protections and social security available to other workers, leaving them vulnerable to wage deductions, unpaid work, denial of leave, violence, exploitation, and other abusive working conditions.

🚨 Criminalisation doesn’t make sex workers safer. It can make it harder to seek help, report abuse, or access justice without fear of prosecution. These harms fall even harder on sex workers already pushed to the margins, including those from rural, LGBTIQ+, migrant, and ethnic minority communities.

✊ On International Sex Worker Pride Day, we stand with sex workers demanding what every worker deserves: rights, safety, labour protections, dignity, and equal treatment under the law.

#SexWorkersPrideDay #DecriminalizeSexWork #SexWorkIsWork

#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings