Eurydice Aroney

What is this project?

We're building a digital timeline that tells the story of how sex workers fought for the radical reform of prostitution laws during the 1980's and 90's.  Drawing on the archives of the sex worker rights movement this work reveals how NSW became the first place in the world to decriminalise all aspects of sex work. 

Who's it for and how will it be used?

This online public facing rescource will be used by sex workers at human rights conferences and HIV/AIDS forums to demonstrate how NSW sex workers contributed to successful and enduring law reform.  By showing what was achieved by sex worker activists the timeline will help to strengthen the legitimacy and influence of the sex workers rights movement and at the same time explain what lessons have been learnt along the way.  It looks at the way politics and police corruption influences sex work policy reform and links through to key documents and sex worker activist produced research and journalism across all platforms. NSW is still one of only two places in the world (the other is New Zealand) to have decriminalised sex work across all locations, and we believe that it's critical that sex workers in particular know how and why it occurred.

The (placeholder) UTS credit card number that you need to use for pledges is:

Card number: 4111 1111 1111 1111

Expiry: 12/20

CCV number: 123

I've made a start with this project but it now needs an expert to finish it.  Julie Bates is a 68 year old activist and sex worker, one of the founding members of the Australian Prostitutes Collective NSW. She's researched HIV/AIDS in the sex worker population with the Kirby Institute based at the University of NSW and has published in scholarly medical journals.  In June 2018 she was awarded a Queen's Birthday Order of Australia for her services to the community and to sex workers.  Julie has the skills to identify important sources and documents, will use her contacts in the activist communities to widen that search, to do the research that ensures that our project talks to the movement and sex workers in general through social media and other networks.  

The timeline draft sits on the website owned by @WhoresofYore, otherwise known as historian Dr Kate Lister from Leeds Trinity University.  Kate has amassed over 171,000 Twitter followers in just over 3 years. Many of them are sex workers and human rights activists.   Kate and I both believe that social media is crucial to delivering our research to the people who need it most - that is sex worker NGO's and activist communities.  Please consider supporting us.

https://vimeo.com/275938594