Sex work and the law

Sexual Health ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Harcourt ◽  
Sandra Egger ◽  
Basil Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Welfare Impacts ◽  
Initial Impression ◽  
Administrative Effectiveness ◽  
The Law

We reviewed publications, websites, and field observations to explore the health and welfare impacts and administrative effectiveness of different legal approaches to sex work. We identified three broad legal approaches: (1) prohibition, including the unique Swedish law criminalising sex workers’ clients; (2) licensing; and (3) decriminalisation. Each of these models is employed under one or more jurisdictions in Australia. We make preliminary observations on their consequences and conclude that, on initial impression, decriminalisation may offer the best outcomes. However, more rigorous population-based research is needed to properly assess the health and welfare impacts of legal approaches to sex work.

scholarly journals Sex Work in Slovenia: Assessing the Needs of Sex Workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110184
Author(s):  
Leja Markelj ◽  
Alisa Selan ◽  
Tjaša Dolinar ◽  
Matej Sande
Keyword(s):  
Needs Assessment ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Distress ◽  
Legal Advice ◽  
The Law ◽  
Client Relations ◽  
Insight Into

The research comprehensively identifies the needs and problems of sex workers in Slovenia from the point of view of three groups of actors in a decriminalized setting. The objective of the rapid needs assessment was to identify the needs of sex workers as perceived by themselves. In order to gain a deeper insight into this topic, we analyzed the functioning of the organizations working with the population, and examined the perspective of the clients. The results of the study show that no aid programmes have been developed for sex workers, even though organizations from various fields often come in contact with this population. Sex workers express the need to be informed about various topics (health, the law, legal advice) and emphasize client relations as the primary issue. The findings indicate the need for the development of a specialized aid programmes to address the fields of advocacy, reducing social distress and providing psychosocial assistance.

scholarly journals Managing Risks of Violence in Decriminalised Street-Based Sex Work: a Feminist (Sex Worker Rights) Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lynzi Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
The Law

<p>It is widely understood that street-based sex workers are vulnerable to experiencing violence in their work. The Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was passed in New Zealand in 2003, decriminalising sex work with the intention of supporting the health, safety, and human rights of sex workers. This thesis explores strategies to manage risks of violence amongst women working on the streets in New Zealand, considering how the law change has impacted on the management of these risks, and whether further change is required to better support the safety of street-based sex workers. Drawing from the perspectives of women working on the streets, this thesis challenges portrayals of street-based sex workers as passive recipients of violence. The experiences and perceptions of these women highlight the diverse violence related risks they managed from a range of potential perpetrators, including passersby, individuals approaching as clients, other sex workers, and minders. The shift to decriminalisation has not eliminated violence. However, the findings suggest that the law change has provided a framework that better supports existing risk management strategies. For instance, in removing the possibility of arrest for soliciting, the PRA has provided an environment in which these women have sufficient time to screen potential clients on the street. Moreover, the perceptions of these women suggest that the law change has to some extent improved the relationship between police and street-based sex workers. Nevertheless, whilst decriminalisation has created anenvironment more conducive to sex worker safety, it is clear that challenges remain in addressing violence against sex workers. Since the sex industry does not operate in social and political isolation, moral discourses continue to stigmatise and threaten the wellbeing of street-based sex workers. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that whilst decriminalisation was an important first step, moving forward to proactively challenge violence against street-based sex workers requires a paradigm shift away from discourses that support violence, to a more positive acceptance of street-based sex work in New Zealand society.</p>

scholarly journals SEX WORKERS SPEAK OUT: Policing and the sex industry

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolé Fick
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
The Law

South African sex workers, especially those working on the street, have good reason to feel afraid when they are on the job. Not only do they have to contend with the inherent dangers of their profession, but because sex work is a crime, they face frequent abuse and harassment from the police who are ostensibly upholding the law. But the threat of arrest does little to stop sex workers; instead it forces them underground and into situations that are potentially even more dangerous.

scholarly journals Managing Risks of Violence in Decriminalised Street-Based Sex Work: a Feminist (Sex Worker Rights) Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lynzi Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
The Law

<p>It is widely understood that street-based sex workers are vulnerable to experiencing  violence in their work. The Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was passed in New  Zealand in 2003, decriminalising sex work with the intention of supporting the health,  safety, and human rights of sex workers. This thesis explores strategies to manage  risks of violence amongst women working on the streets in New Zealand, considering  how the law change has impacted on the management of these risks, and whether  further change is required to better support the safety of street-based sex workers.  Drawing from the perspectives of women working on the streets, this thesis  challenges portrayals of street-based sex workers as passive recipients of violence.  The experiences and perceptions of these women highlight the diverse violencerelated  risks they managed from a range of potential perpetrators, including passersby,  individuals approaching as clients, other sex workers, and minders. The shift to  decriminalisation has not eliminated violence. However, the findings suggest that the  law change has provided a framework that better supports existing risk management  strategies. For instance, in removing the possibility of arrest for soliciting, the PRA  has provided an environment in which these women have sufficient time to screen  potential clients on the street. Moreover, the perceptions of these women suggest that  the law change has to some extent improved the relationship between police and  street-based sex workers. Nevertheless, whilst decriminalisation has created an  environment more conducive to sex worker safety, it is clear that challenges remain in  addressing violence against sex workers. Since the sex industry does not operate in  social and political isolation, moral discourses continue to stigmatise and threaten the  wellbeing of street-based sex workers.  The overall conclusion of this thesis is that whilst decriminalisation was an important  first step, moving forward to proactively challenge violence against street-based sex  workers requires a paradigm shift away from discourses that support violence, to a  more positive acceptance of street-based sex work in New Zealand society.</p>

scholarly journals ‘The Problem of Prostitution’: Repressive policies in the name of migration control, public order, and women’s rights in France

2019 ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlène Calderaro ◽  
Calogero Giametta
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Migration Control ◽  
The Law

This article focuses on the political debates that led to the adoption of the sex purchase ban (commonly referred to as the Swedish or Nordic model) in France in April 2016. It examines the convergence of French mainstream feminists and traditional neo-abolitionist actors in the fight against prostitution, and its impact on sex workers’ rights and wellbeing. We argue that there is continuity between the effects produced by the ban on soliciting enacted in 2003 and those created by the law penalising clients passed in 2016. In discussing the current repression of sex work in France, we highlight how the construction of the ‘problem of prostitution’ should be seen in light of broader political anxieties over sexism in poor neighbourhoods and immigration control, which justify the national priorities of security and public order.

Impossible Migrants

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-532
Author(s):  
Svati P. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Field Level ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Law

In the wake of the twinned specters of authoritarianism and antidemocratic governance that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in India have both exacerbated and facilitated, the author argues that scholarship on sex work deployed through a critique of labor will be pressed to rethink its analytic focus on the law. Instead, the author argues for a field-level focus built around both the everyday life of surviving sex work in the informal economy and the understanding that enforcement of the law regularly diverges from the letter of the law itself. Unless it accounts for prevailing epistemic conditions, new critical work on sex work as a labor strategy may afford opportunities to be taken up in support of reductive narratives of sex work, built around the trope of injury. The consequences of not addressing the conditions of the production of our critiques will be the continued erasure of sex workers as migrant workers and as economic agents. In the post-COVID-19 world, these critiques will be stressed even further, as the informal sector expands along with uneven policing, and as sex work continues to serve as a measure of security for some, against a backdrop of extreme and intensifying precarity.

scholarly journals Managing Risks of Violence in Decriminalised Street-Based Sex Work: a Feminist (Sex Worker Rights) Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lynzi Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
The Law

<p>It is widely understood that street-based sex workers are vulnerable to experiencing  violence in their work. The Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was passed in New  Zealand in 2003, decriminalising sex work with the intention of supporting the health,  safety, and human rights of sex workers. This thesis explores strategies to manage  risks of violence amongst women working on the streets in New Zealand, considering  how the law change has impacted on the management of these risks, and whether  further change is required to better support the safety of street-based sex workers.  Drawing from the perspectives of women working on the streets, this thesis  challenges portrayals of street-based sex workers as passive recipients of violence.  The experiences and perceptions of these women highlight the diverse violencerelated  risks they managed from a range of potential perpetrators, including passersby,  individuals approaching as clients, other sex workers, and minders. The shift to  decriminalisation has not eliminated violence. However, the findings suggest that the  law change has provided a framework that better supports existing risk management  strategies. For instance, in removing the possibility of arrest for soliciting, the PRA  has provided an environment in which these women have sufficient time to screen  potential clients on the street. Moreover, the perceptions of these women suggest that  the law change has to some extent improved the relationship between police and  street-based sex workers. Nevertheless, whilst decriminalisation has created an  environment more conducive to sex worker safety, it is clear that challenges remain in  addressing violence against sex workers. Since the sex industry does not operate in  social and political isolation, moral discourses continue to stigmatise and threaten the  wellbeing of street-based sex workers.  The overall conclusion of this thesis is that whilst decriminalisation was an important  first step, moving forward to proactively challenge violence against street-based sex  workers requires a paradigm shift away from discourses that support violence, to a  more positive acceptance of street-based sex work in New Zealand society.</p>

scholarly journals When the law is silent: stigma and challenges faced by male sex workers in Japan

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Mana Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Male Sex Workers ◽  
Male Sex Work ◽  
Control Regulation ◽  
Male Sex ◽  
The Law ◽  
Japanese Law

AbstractThis study considers how invisibility under the law can lead to stigmatisation. It examines how legal silence affects the stigmatisation process and the identity of male sex workers in Japan. Since male sex work is currently not recognised under Japanese law, male sex workers are not subject to control, regulation, punishment or protection. However, the number of male sex workers in Japan is increasing. Many studies have noted that male sex workers may experience double stigmatisation – referring to the stigma associated with homosexuality and the stigma associated with commercial sex. Male sex workers in Japan, however, may face an additional stigma caused by the fact that the law essentially ignores their existence. This paper draws on fieldwork interviews to show how the silence of the law can exacerbate the marginalisation and disempowerment of a vulnerable social group.

scholarly journals Managing Risks of Violence in Decriminalised Street-Based Sex Work: a Feminist (Sex Worker Rights) Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lynzi Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Risk Management Strategies ◽  
The Law

<p>It is widely understood that street-based sex workers are vulnerable to experiencing violence in their work. The Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was passed in New Zealand in 2003, decriminalising sex work with the intention of supporting the health, safety, and human rights of sex workers. This thesis explores strategies to manage risks of violence amongst women working on the streets in New Zealand, considering how the law change has impacted on the management of these risks, and whether further change is required to better support the safety of street-based sex workers. Drawing from the perspectives of women working on the streets, this thesis challenges portrayals of street-based sex workers as passive recipients of violence. The experiences and perceptions of these women highlight the diverse violence related risks they managed from a range of potential perpetrators, including passersby, individuals approaching as clients, other sex workers, and minders. The shift to decriminalisation has not eliminated violence. However, the findings suggest that the law change has provided a framework that better supports existing risk management strategies. For instance, in removing the possibility of arrest for soliciting, the PRA has provided an environment in which these women have sufficient time to screen potential clients on the street. Moreover, the perceptions of these women suggest that the law change has to some extent improved the relationship between police and street-based sex workers. Nevertheless, whilst decriminalisation has created anenvironment more conducive to sex worker safety, it is clear that challenges remain in addressing violence against sex workers. Since the sex industry does not operate in social and political isolation, moral discourses continue to stigmatise and threaten the wellbeing of street-based sex workers. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that whilst decriminalisation was an important first step, moving forward to proactively challenge violence against street-based sex workers requires a paradigm shift away from discourses that support violence, to a more positive acceptance of street-based sex work in New Zealand society.</p>

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Elene Lam ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Katherine Chin ◽  
Kate Zen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Sexual Services

Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which began at least 8 weeks prior to the first social distancing and shelter in place orders issued in the U.S. and Canada, has been further complicated by a history of aggressive policing of migrant massage workers in the wake of the war against human trafficking. Migrant Asian massage businesses are increasingly policed as locales of potential illicit sex work and human trafficking, as police and anti-trafficking initiatives target migrant Asian massage workers despite the fact that most do not provide sexual services. The scapegoating of migrant Asian massage workers and criminalization of sex work have led to devastating systemic and interpersonal violence, including numerous deportations, arrests, and deaths, most notably the recent murder of eight people at three Atlanta-based spas. The policing of sex workers has historically been mobilized along fears of sexually transmitted disease and infection, and more recently, within the past two decades, around a moral panic against sex trafficking. New racial anxieties around the coronavirus as an Asian disease have been mobilized by the state to further cement the justification of policing Asian migrant workers along the axes of health, migration, and sexual labor. These justifications also solidify discriminatory social welfare regimes that exclude Asian migrant massage workers from accessing services on the basis of the informality and illegality of their work mixed with their precarious citizenship status. This paper draws from ethnographic participant observation and survey data collected by two sex worker organizations that work primarily with massage workers in Toronto and New York City to examine the double-edged sword of policing during the pandemic in the name of anti-trafficking coupled with exclusionary policies regarding emergency relief and social welfare, and its effects on migrant Asian massage workers in North America. Although not all migrant Asian massage workers, including those surveyed in this paper, provide sexual services, they are conflated, targeted, and treated as such by the state and therefore face similar barriers of criminalization, discrimination, and exclusion. This paper recognizes that most migrant Asian massage workers do not identify as sex workers and does not intend to label them as such or reproduce the scapegoating rhetoric used by law enforcement. Rather, it seeks to analyze how exclusionary attitudes and policies towards sex workers are transferred onto migrant Asian massage workers as well whether or not they provide sexual services.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document