Reflecting on labour exploitation in the sex industry

Abstract

This chapter discusses the exploitation to which sex workers are subjected is the growing popularity of an abolitionist standpoint that depicts sex work as “sexual exploitation” rather than economic activity or work. It aims to engage in the debate about labour exploitation in the sex industry by challenging abolitionist notions of sex work as “sexual exploitation”, and reflecting on the complex dynamic shaping relationships between sex workers and those third parties who organise, facilitate and profit from sex workers’ work. The chapter argues that some of the key factors contributing to the labour exploitation experienced by sex workers in Europe and Central Asia are the criminalisation of sex workers, their workplaces, third parties and clients and the resulting exclusion of sex workers from employment legislation and protection. Constructing prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation, the neo-abolitionists regard the elimination of prostitution itself as the only way to combat the exploitation experienced by sex workers.