Scarlet Alliance is The Australian Sex Workers Association and is the national peak sex worker organisation. We have a national membership of sex worker organisations, projects, networks and groups. Some of those are funded organisations and others are unfunded or advocacy sex worker groups. Our membership is open only to sex workers, be they current or former sex workers. We represent all sex workers – male, female and transgender.
Our membership is quite broad and covers many different areas. Largely, we have some funded sex worker projects in Australia as well as some of our own funded projects, which focus on recognition of the skills that sex workers put in place on a daily basis in implementing safe sex practices in their workplaces. Some of the projects are HIV/AIDS and/or STI prevention-focused projects, but in doing that, we look at the social determinacy of health and we take quite a broad approach to a person’s health. Since that encompasses legal implications, we also do a lot of work around policies, becoming involved in law reform for sex industry legislation that will impact on sex workers.
The Scarlet Alliance was formed in 1989 and came from an AIDS and sex work conference that held in Melbourne. The Alliance formed locally in the states and territories by sex workers who identified that there needed to be a national sense of coordination around issues pertaining to sex workers. Since then we’ve largely been a volunteer based organisation. We have funding for international projects in Papua New Guinea and Mongolia, but on a national level, we’re mostly a volunteer based organisation
Another aspect of the Scarlet Alliance is the Debbys, aka Debby Doesn’t Do It For Free, a sex worker activist performance art group with members from all over Australia. This performance group originated in Perth in 2002 and has now appeared in festivals in San Francisco, Bangkok, Hong Kong, some parts of Asia, Montreal and New York.
One event to watch out for is the International Whores Day on June 2nd. It began in 1975 when a group of sex workers took over of a church in Lyon, France, in response to police corruption, police harassment and police refusals to do anything when sex workers reported crime. Now every year the Scarlet Alliance hold a Red Umbrella Day on June 2nd to bring awareness to the presence of sex workers. See their website for event details.
For more information, email info@scarletalliance.org.au, or ring 02 9326 9455. You can find the Scarlet Alliance online at: www.scarletmen.org.au, www.scarletalliance.org.au or www.debbydoesn’tdoitforfree.org.
