Ethical and Human Rights Issues in Coercive Interventions With Sex Workers

Abstract

Sex work reemerged as a spotlight issue within feminist arenas in the 1960s. The interest in ‘‘prostitution’’ reform during the 1960s came about in much the same way it had in the past, that is, it rode on the coattails of other social movements (Hobson, 1987). As the civil rights movement led a heightened awareness of all human rights, individuals began to protest governmental interference in private sexual acts. Civil libertarian lawyers and feminist activists contested prostitution laws and social injustices against sex workers. The relationship between some strands of feminism and sex work is often polarized and rocky at best. In fact, the contemporary feminist debates on sex work, which began in the 1960s related to pornography and prostitution, have often been referred to as the feminist sex wars (Hollibaugh, 2000; Lerum, 1998; Sloan & Wahab, 2000; Zatz, 1997). On one side of the debate are sex workers and feminists who emphasize the importance of sex workers’ rights and understand sex work as potentially liberating and empowering. On the other side are those who believe sex work is exploitive, casting sex workers as coerced victims. Whether social workers think that sex work is a form of violence, legitimate work, or something much more complicated that cannot be reduced to the rhetoric of the feminist sex wars, it is time to seriously grapple with the ethical considerations involved with social work practice focused on people in the sex industry. Social workers should be deeply troubled by social work interventions that target individuals for arrest as a means of providing services. Specifically, we call attention to social work collaborations with law enforcement that target or end in the arrest of sex workers. While specific events in Arizona during the week of May 16, 2013, sparked the writing of this editorial, the issues discussed below bring into question ethical social work practice with sex workers including practice with oppressed and marginalized individuals and groups. Specifically, we challenge the assumption that arresting (or participating