International Sex Workers’ Day 2023: Date, Theme, History, Significance

On June 2, 1975, around 100 sex workers took over Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France, to express their anger with the criminalisation and exploitative nature of their living conditions. To convey their message, they displayed a banner from the church steeple that read, "Our children do not want their mothers to go to jail." This bold action along with media attention initiated a strike involving sex workers from all across France and establishing a powerful tradition of activism celebrated annually on International Sex Workers' Day.

Among their demands, the sex workers occupying Saint-Nizier Church called for an end to police harassment, the reopening of the hotels where they worked, and a thorough investigation into a series of murders targeting sex workers. Upon hearing of the occupation in Lyon, sex workers from other French cities sought solidarity and took refuge in churches in Marseille, Grenoble, Montpellier, and Paris. Sex workers across the country joined forces by participating in an eight-day-long strike.

Despite the widespread impact of the protest, the police refused to address the protestors' grievances and resorted to issuing severe threats of punishment. After eight days, law enforcement cleared the church, and although the occupation and strike did not result in immediate legal reforms, sex worker activists acknowledge it as the catalyst that ignited the contemporary sex workers' rights movement in Europe and the UK.