This short video by PJ Starr highlights “Recommendation 86,” one of 200 recommendations the United States received from the Human Rights Council at the United Nations several years ago. Recommendation 86 calls on the Obama administration to “…ensure access to public services paying attention to the special vulnerability of sexual workers to violence and human rights abuses.” This is the first time the US has been internationally called upon to address its insensitivity to the long-neglected issues faced by sex workers. This PSA-style short video by PJ Starr paints a bullseye on the issue. (39 sec.-2011)

More about this issue:
On March 18, 2011 the United States government presented a response to recommendations made during the Universal Periodic Review. The US government has accepted recommendation 86. The recommendation asks the US government to address the vulnerability of LGBT people and sex workers to human rights abuses and violence and to ensure that sex workers have access to services.

As BPPP reports, in March 2015, “representatives of U.S.-based sex worker rights organizations will travel to Geneva, Switzerland next week, March 15-21st, to meet with members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), and to call for greater human rights protections.” “In advance of the review this year, advocates with Best Practices Policy Project, Desiree Alliance, and Sex Workers Outreach Project-NY submitted a report to the HRC, demonstrating that the U.S. has failed to live up to the promises of Recommendation 86.”

Please visit Best Practices Policy Project to learn more about the process and these issues:

PRESS RELEASE: U.S. SEX WORKER RIGHTS ACTIVISTS TO ADVOCATE BEFORE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
http://www.bestpracticespolicy.org/2015/03/12/press-release-geneva-2015/

Update February 2015
http://www.bestpracticespolicy.org/2015/02/16/update-on-the-united-nations-upr-process/