Massachusetts currently criminalizes sex workers and their clients, putting sex workers in danger and keeping many trapped in poverty and unable to obtain other employment due to criminal records. Sex workers currently cannot report if they are victims of an assault or robbery, because they could be arrested for prostitution, and clients cannot report if they witness a case of sex trafficking without fear of being arrested themselves. Sex workers also face sexual assault from police officers; a Department of Justice report on Worcester Police Department last year found that officers engaged in sexual conduct with sex workers during undercover investigations before arresting them for prostitution.

A wealth of evidence finds that the full decriminalization of sex work is the best policy to support the health and safety of sex workers. This policy has been endorsed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the ACLU, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDS.

Ask your Massachusetts legislators to co-sponsor four bills to support sex workers' health and safety:

1. H1980 - An Act to Promote the Health and Safety of People in the Sex Trade

• Decriminalizes independent adult sex work, while leaving anti-trafficking laws on the books.
• Expunges marijuana and prostitution-related records.
• Modernizes Massachusetts' anti-trafficking law to match the federal and international definition of human trafficking.

2. H4610 - An Act to Study the Decriminalization of Sex Work

• Creates an interagency committee to study decriminalizing sex work.
• The committee's mandate would include developing strategies to reduce human trafficking and studying the development of a fund to prevent human trafficking.

3. H1747 - An Act Relative to Safe Reporting

• Enables people to report a crime without fear of arrest for prostitution, drug possession, loitering, trespassing, or soliciting.

4. H2634 - An Act Relative to Sexual Assault by an Officer

• Prohibits police from engaging in sexual conduct with a person they are investigating or detaining.
• Requires police agencies to create a policy prohibiting police from engaging in sexual conduct with a person under investigation for prostitution.

We are also asking legislators to oppose H1683/S1116 - An Act to Strengthen Justice and Support for Sex Trade Survivors, which uses the stigmatizing language of "prostituted persons" and creates a commission staffed primarily by organizations that support the Nordic Model or "End Demand" model. This model removes criminal penalties for selling sex but keeps sex workers' clients criminalized, which evidence shows puts sex workers at greater risk of violence, increases police surveillance, and hurts their livelihoods.