Description
The project reacts to the problem of violence committed against women in the sex industry. No research investigation has yet taken place in CZ, with institutional help. Neither the state authorities nor the non-profit sector have a complex way of handling the violence in sex business. Although it is proved that women in the sex business are an extremely endangered group considering different forms of violence. The project’s goal is to decrease the incidence of violence committed on women working in the sex-business, analyse the problem, gain know-how from the international partner, create prevention materials and promote the topic and a solution method in public. The project’s outcome will be a research investigation, informative/educational prevention programs (e-learning, smart-phone application), promotion of the topic of violence in media, concept of group meeting of women from sex-business and spreading of good practice in the network of cooperating organizations. The Norwegian partner (ProSentret) will provide know-how for the implementation of individual project activities.
Summary of project results
Our long-term goal is to legalise prostitution and recognise its content as regular work. Some progress has been made in this respect thanks to this project, involving research of the types of violence against women working in the sex-business. We successfully advocated with various media to use terminology such as sex-business or sex business woman; commented on the bill on the regulation of prostitution; we have moved one step forward in the dialogue between us and local governments. We've been educating clients, customers and the public with tools we have developed, such as the new "Without Violence" bar on our website, e-learning for women in the sex-business, e-learning for customers, and a smartphone application for courses. The backbone of the project was research inspired by our Norwegian partner Pro Sentret. We also found interesting the Norwegian model of legislative approach to prostitution based on the criminalisation of customers, not prostitutes. We involved almost 200 women from the sex-business and over 40 people working with these women at some level in our research. We have informed more than 150 people from the non-profit sector about our work and have approached male and female MPs. The outputs were given to our clients. The main benefit of the project are the identified tools for reducing violence against women in the sex-business, changing the public's view of these people’s work and increasing efforts to improve their working life.
Summary of bilateral results
We met the partner “Pro Sentret“ during the internship carried out in frame of the project in Oslo, Norway. There we learned more about their work and research projects undertaken by the organization and shared the know-how. We also had the opportunity to study their work deeper, and subsequently benefit from their experience. The partner continually commented on the project outputs. Finally, the partner joined us in other project of our organization and we hope to work together further in future.