Using technologies to commemorate international day to end violence against sex workers in the North East of England

This article explores the use of digital technologies at the commemoration of International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers in the North East of England in 2016 and 2017. Learning from sex work research and Human-Computer Interaction literatures, this feminist exploration of the day provides opportunities for more nuanced and contextualised discussions of digital technologies that are used with, and for sex workers and sex work support services. In the paper, I provide an overview of how this day is commemorated internationally before providing a detailed overview of a hyper-localised day organised by Changing Lives, a charity supporting sex workers, people who have experienced sexual exploitation, and those engaged in survival sex. I focus on the ways in which they use digital technologies throughout an activist march and a reflexive commemoration event to better understand the ways in which novel digital technologies could be designed and implemented for these kinds of commemorations in the future.