Eugène Atget/WikimediaToday is “International Whores’ Day,” a day commemorating the 1975 occupation of the Church of St. Nizierof in Lyon, France, by more than 100 prostitutes. The event is considered to be the birth of the modern sex workers’ rights movement.

Here’s a good summary of the sit-in from the blog Prized and Reviled:

On the 2nd of June in 1975, around 100 street-based sex workers decided they’d had a gutful of police being more interested in harassing and arresting them, than in solving murders and other crimes committed against them. They took over a church and staged a sit-in, in protest.

As the days wore on, the police became more and more impatient. Instead of attempting to negotiate with the sex workers and resolve their issues, the police just threatened them with increasingly harsh penalties. When the protesters still showed no sign of backing down after a full week in the church, the police announced that they were going to have the sex workers’ children removed from their homes.

This cruel threat outraged the women of Lyon, who promptly walked into the church and joined the sex workers in solidarity. If you’re going to remove the sex workers’ children, the women said, then you’re going to have to remove ALL our children-because how can you tell the difference between one mother and the next?

READ THE REMAINDER HERE at REASON.COM for free minds and free markets