Woodhull Freedom Foundation and Allies Respond to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls’

March 7, 2025

On January 30, 2025, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the National Survivor Network (NSN), and Freedom Network USA (FNUSA) submitted a response to the United Nations Special Rapporteur (SR) on Violence Against Women and Girls’ call for input to inform an addendum to their thematic report. The addendum focuses on the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls. As U.S. civil society organizations focused on human rights, sexual freedom, sex worker rights, and anti-trafficking, the concept of consent is critical to our work, and our expertise is necessary to inform the UN SR’s call for input on this topic.

United Nations Special Rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to monitor, advise, and publicly report on human rights situations worldwide. Each UN SR covers a different human rights issue and has regular reporting requirements on topics related to their issue area. Their reports, presented to the UN HRC, serve as vital tools for promoting and protecting human rights, including sexual freedoms.

Civil society organizations responding to UN Special Rapporteur requests for input is critical to the effective functioning of global human rights mechanisms. By engaging with UN SRs, civil society groups are able to hold governments accountable for their human rights obligations, provide expertise on crucial human rights issues, and amplify the experiences of marginalized communities on a global stage. Woodhull and our allies’ participation in this process also allows us to advocate directly to UN SRs to interpret their mandates inclusively by recognizing and defending the human rights and dignity of sex workers and transgender and gender-expansive people.

As organizations whose advocacy defending sex workers’ and transgender people’s rights to bodily autonomy and sexual freedom is directly tied to ending violence against women and girls (cisgender and transgender), our expertise and perspective is always crucial to inform UN SR calls for input on issues related to women and girls’ rights and safety. Our input is especially needed during the tenure of the current Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, as she has used her position to advocate for policies and laws that undermine sexual freedom as a fundamental human right, particularly as it relates to sex workers and transgender people’s bodily autonomy.

In our response to SR Alsalem’s call for input, we highlight the disturbing dismissal of sex workers and transgender people’s experiences and expertise to inform her prior report, “Prostitution and violence against women and girls – Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences.” Despite input from over 60 sex worker rights organizations, that report repeatedly and erroneously conflated sex work with human trafficking, directly undermining the consent of adults to choose sex work consensually and thus their right to choice of employment as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Fact Checked by Wooduhll, we’ve also explored and debunked this myth, proving that sex workers are NOT all victims of trafficking and exploitation.

Our submission on the concept of consent is significant because it:

• Focuses attention on the complexities of consent, particularly in the context of sex work and transgender rights.
• Highlights the importance of inclusive representation in global policy discussions.

• Provides expertise on consent to ensure that the rights of sex workers and transgender individuals are recognized and protected.
• Challenges the conflation of consensual sex work with human trafficking, advocating for the right to choose one’s employment.

• Seeks to rectify the exclusion of sex worker and transgender perspectives in previous reports.
• Emphasizes the value of lived experiences in shaping effective policies to combat violence against women and girls (cisgender and transgender).

Woodhull Freedom Foundation President and CEO Ricci Joy Levy explained, “In our response to the UN Special Rapporteur, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the National Survivor Network, and Freedom Network USA provide critical information about how the United States’ approach to the concept of consent undermines sex workers’ consent by criminalizing their labor and conflating it with human trafficking, which only fuels violence in the sex trade. As experts on ending violence against all women and girls, we urge the UN SR to include our crucial insights in her forthcoming report to the Human Rights Council and stand firm in opposing the current administration’s trampling of human rights protections.”

By engaging in this process, Woodhull and our allies are creating a more inclusive and just global framework for human rights and sexual freedoms. The submisshttps://html-cleaner.com/ion from Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the National Survivor Network, and Freedom Network USA is available online here.

*The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls will present the thematic report addressing the concept of consent to the UN Human Rights Council during its 59th session in June.