Encouraging Cambridge to Support Sex Work Decriminalization
September 28, 2026
Dear Cambridge City Council,
My name is Mandy Salley and I am the Chief Operating Officer at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a national organization whose mission is to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. Woodhull protects individuals’ rights across the United States to enjoy sexual dignity, privacy, and consensual sexual expression without societal or governmental interference, coercion, or stigmatization. As a representative of Woodhull and in my capacity as an expert on the human right to sexual freedom, I submit this testimony to express our support of Policy Order #10, regarding the safety of sex workers and sex trafficking survivors in Cambridge.
Why Cambridge should support the full decriminalization of sex work.
- Evidence shows that full decriminalization is the policy that best protects sex workers’ health and safety. Multiple large cross-country meta-analyses have found that decriminalization leads to improvements in sex workers’ health and well-being, including reductions in violence, increased trust in law enforcement, reductions in STIs, and increased use of condoms, while all forms of criminalization are associated with harms.[1]
- Criminalizing sex work makes it harder for sex workers to maintain good health status and/or access services that would enhance a healthier lifestyle. Criminalization is associated with worsened physical and mental health outcomes for sex workers, and limits sex workers’ access to HIV/STI screenings and negotiations with clients about physical safety measures, such as condom use.[i]
- In the countries that have decriminalized sex work, including New Zealand, parts of Australia, and Belgium, studies find that sex workers feel safer reporting crimes, more able to access health services, and they have successfully brought legal claims against abusive clients and employers.
- Human rights and global health organizations have called for the full decriminalization of sex work, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the ACLU, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the World Health Organization, the Lancet, UNAIDS, the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, UNFPA, UNDP, Freedom Network USA, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, and Lambda Legal. The largest global organization led by sex workers, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, unequivocally calls for full decriminalization.
Why you support the recommendations following the city’s previous meeting on sex work and sex trafficking.
- The best way to keep people from having to do sex work is through providing material resources and economic opportunities, not through criminalizing their work.
- A dedicated CARE team call and referral line would enable sex workers to report abusive clients without having to talk to police and fear being arrested.
- Many LGBTQIA+ youth begin trading sex as minors because of a lack of support at home, and the best way to help them is through giving them resources and support, without involving police.
Please vote yes on Policy Order #10 to protect the safety of people in the sex industry.
Sincerely,
Mandy Salley
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Woodhull Freedom Foundation
[1] These include a meta-analysis of 134 studies across over 30 countries (Platt et al. 2018), a meta-analysis of 52 studies in New Zealand and New South Wales, Australia (Macioti et al. 2023), and a meta-analysis of 30 studies across Europe (Oliveira et al. 2023). Lucy Platt et al., “Associations between Sex Work Laws and Sex Workers’ Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Studies,” PLOS Medicine 15, no. 12 (2018): e1002680, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002680; P. G. Macioti et al., “The Health and Well-Being of Sex Workers in Decriminalised Contexts: A Scoping Review,” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 20, no. 3 (2023): 1013–31, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-022-00779-8; Alexandra Oliveira et al., “Understanding the Impact of EU Prostitution Policies on Sex Workers: A Mixed Study Systematic Review,” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 20, no. 4 (2023): 1448–68, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-023-00814-2.
[i] Grossman, A. (2025, February 14). Criminalizing sex work does not improve safety or public health. Woodhull Freedom Foundation. https://www.woodhullfoundation.org/fact-checked/sex-work-decriminalization