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BSWAC Legislative Priorities 2025-2026:

1. H1980 – An Act to Promote the Health and Safety of People in the Sex Trade

• Decriminalizes independent adult sex work, while anti-trafficking laws remain.
• Expunges marijuana and prostitution-related records.
• Modernizes Massachusetts’ anti-trafficking law to match the federal and international definition of human trafficking.

2. H2467 – An Act to Study the Decriminalization of Sex Work

• Creates an interagency committee to study decriminalizing sex work.
• The committee’s mandate would include developing strategies to reduce human trafficking and studying the development of a fund to prevent human trafficking.

3. H1747 – An Act Relative to Safe Reporting

• Enables people to report a crime without fear of arrest for prostitution, drug possession, loitering, trespassing, or soliciting.

4. H2634 – An Act Relative to Sexual Assault by an Officer

• Prohibits police from engaging in sexual conduct with a person they are investigating or detaining.
• Requires police agencies to create a policy prohibiting police from engaging in sexual conduct with a person under investigation for prostitution.

We are also asking legislators to oppose the Nordic Model, a.k.a. partial criminalization, “End Demand,” or the “Equality Model,” which H1683/S1116 – An Act to Strengthen Justice and Support for Sex Trade Survivors would enact. This model removes criminal penalties for selling sex but keeps sex workers’ clients criminalized, which evidence shows puts sex workers at greater risk of violence, increases police surveillance, and hurts their livelihoods.