International Sex Workers Day

[Patricia]

More of what the Irish Times was saying about the prostitutes in Lyon in 1975

[LaBelleThatcher]

I thought an old girl like you Belle was probably there in 1975!

Oi, you speak fer yerself...I was still a nice girl in '75...didn't put a single stilleto in the Champs Elysees until 1982...

[A M I N A]

Yes discount for advertisers.....

[Morpheus]

June 2 is International Sex Workers Day.

Thirty-seven years ago on 2nd June 1975, sex workers began a week-long occupation of Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, France.

This event was the birth of the European sex workers' movement.

150 women, men and trans sex workers staged a multi-day sit-in at the biggest church in Lyons. They were protesting police harassment and failure to prosecute crimes committed against sex workers.

The protest quickly spread to other churches in France.

"June 2, 1975 made the positive and human side of sex work and sex workers visible in the media and in society. For the first time sex workers talked about sex work as an occupation that one is free to choose and demanded respect for it". - International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe

It sad to see that almost 40 years later here in Ireland there are forces that are trying to rescind all that good work!