The second London’s Sex Worker Film Festival is held at a crucial juncture in the straggle to end persecution, exclusion and stigmatisation of sex workers.

Earlier this week,London sex workers were evicted from their “walk up” flats in Soho. Thus, The corporate development of Soho, in conjunction with an increasingly prohibitionist political climate, had led to the eviction of independent sex workers in the capital's it's traditional red light district. The workers were evicted after police pressure on Landlords to put an end to “immoral activities” on the premisses.
Soho is considered one of the safest places for sex workers. The recent eviction took place in the shadow of increasing violence against and repression of sex workers – and growing anger amongst sex workers rights activists in the face of legislative trends conspiring to make sex workers even more vulnerable and stigmatised.
In July this year, sex workers in the UK and around the world protested the murder of 2 sex workers - Dora Özer, murdered by a client in Turkey, and Petite Jasmine stabbed to death by her ex husband in Sweden, .
The latter tragedy highlights one the many problematic aspects of the “Nordic model” of legislating sex work, which criminalises the clients, and has proved to decrease the ability of sex workers to take safety measures. It has also increased stigma, demonstrated all too well in a Swedish court ruling in September, absolving a pub in South Sweden from charges of racist discrimination for barring “an Asian looking” women on the grounds of the suspicion she was a sex worker.
Another approach being tried out in Liverpool, the “Merseyside model” which defines violence against sex workers as a hate crime, and is now proposed by some as a possible UK- Wide approach. Debates against and in favour of the Swedish Model, the Merseyside model , and the New Zealand Model - complete decriminalisation of sex work- are currently taking place in legislative, health, and academic forums in the UK, Europe, and globally. Last year the UN advised that decriminalisation of Sex Work should be a world wide goal.
Sadly, sex workers are often excluded from these discussions and consultations concerning their own life and work, and research supporting their demands for decriminalisation is discredited
Currently, 2 reports on HIV and sex work presented to the UN and supporting the decriminalisation of sex work are under venomous attack from the lobbying group Equality Now, who has recently launched a camping aiming to pressure the UN to ignore these reports, and is also targeting sex work positive research funding.
However, sex workers are relentlessly fighting for their voices to be heard loud and clear – and do not hesitate to build their own autonomous platforms when excluded from other's.

The London Sex Worker Film Festival is organised by the Sex Worker Open University in order to present an educated - and complex - reading and representations of sex work and sex workers realities - from sex workers own perspective.
The 2013 edition features current films addressing contemporary processes and experiences of sex workers the UK, Asia, Latin America, and continental Europe: From the dramatised testimonials of migrants in London's sex industry to the subversive international sex workers conference Kalkata, from a satirical commentary on the “rescue raids” in Thailand , to the inspiring parliamentary election campaign of a Brazilian sex worker''s rights activist.
The latter, Gabriela Leite, has passed away this week after battling cancer. We will conduct a special commemoration ceremony in honour of this increasable women during the event.

The program also features performances by sex workers and allies and a discussion with sex workers rights activists and film makers.

Come and support our fight against marginalisation and policing and creatively celebrate our struggle for labour and human rights!

London’s Sex Worker Film Festival, Sunday 20 October at the Rio Cinema in East London. 1:00-5:00pm.

Check out the full program on:
• Sex Worker Open University website -  http://www.sexworkeropenuniversity.com
• Sex Worker Open University Facebook –  https://www.facebook.com/sexworkeropenuniversity
• Rio Cinema website -  http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/ (Advance tickets can be bought via the site)