Glimmer of hope for sex workers opposed to the criminalization of clients of prostitution. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday declared admissible the application filed by 260 of them who want the repeal of the French law of 2016. However, the ECHR will not rule on the merits of the business only in the months to come.
The applicants are 260 men and women of various nationalities who indicate that they “habitually exercise the activity of prostitution in a lawful manner under the provisions of French law”, specifies the court based in Strasbourg. “They denounce the criminalization of the purchase of sexual relations, even between consenting adults, established by law n ° 2016-444 of April 13, 2016 “aiming to strengthen the fight against the system of prostitution and to support prostitutes “”. All their appeals at the French level were rejected and they had filed their appeal before the pan-European body in December 2019.
Deterioration of working conditions
“The applicants have produced testimonies before the Court describing the deterioration of their situation since the criminalization of the purchase of prostitutional acts”, continues the ECHR. “According to the applicants, who practice prostitution lawfully, the criminalization of clients of prostitution pushes prostitutes underground and into isolation, exposes them to increased risks for their physical integrity and their lives and affects their freedom to define the terms of their private life”, notes the European court.
The applicants, who are supported by some twenty associations, thus consider that the 2016 law violates Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and 8 (right to respect for private life and family) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Overcoming the pitfall of admissibility is an important first step for applicants: more than 90% of applications addressed to the ECHR are declared inadmissible.