Criminalization Of Sex Work Research Articles

Pandemic-related challenges accessing food and primary healthcare among sex workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: findings from a community-based cohort in Vancouver, Canada

IntroductionGlobally, the COVID-19 pandemic upended healthcare services and created economic vulnerability for many. Criminalization of sex work meant sex workers were largely ineligible for Canada’s government-based financial pandemic relief, the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit. Sex workers’ loss of income and inability to access financial support services during the pandemic resulted in many unable to pay rent or mortgage, and in need of assistance with basic needs items including food. Little is known about the unique experiences of sex workers who faced challenges in accessing food during the pandemic and its impact on healthcare access. Thus, we aimed to identify the association between pandemic-related challenges accessing food and primary healthcare among sex workers.MethodsProspective data were drawn from a cohort of women sex workers in Vancouver, Canada (An Evaluation of Sex Workers’ Health Access, AESHA; 2010-present). Data were collected via questionnaires administered bi-annually from October 2020-August 2021. We used univariate and multivariable logistic regression with generalized estimating equations to assess the association between pandemic-related challenges accessing food and challenges accessing primary healthcare over the study period.ResultsOf 170 participants, 41% experienced pandemic-related challenges in accessing food and 26% reported challenges accessing healthcare. Median age was 45 years (IQR:36–53), 56% were of Indigenous ancestry, 86% experienced intimate partner violence in the last six months, and 62% reported non-injection substance use in the last six months. Experiencing pandemic-related challenges accessing food was positively associated with challenges accessing primary healthcare (Adjusted Odds Ratio: 1.99, 95% Confidence Interval: 1.02–3.88) after adjustment for confounders.ConclusionsFindings provide insight about the potential role community-based healthcare delivery settings (e.g., community clinics) can play in ameliorating access to basic needs such as food among those who are highly marginalized. Future pandemic response efforts should also take the most marginalized populations’ needs into consideration by establishing strategies to ensure continuity of essential services providing food and other basic needs. Lastly, policies are needed establishing basic income support and improve access to food resources for marginalized women in times of crisis.

Imposed Mobility, Legal Ambiguity, Institutionalized Abandonment: Exploring the Sex Work Crimscape in Contemporary Poland

When conceptually framed as a crimscape, the contemporary landscape of sex work criminalization can be understood as a complex array of policies relating to sex work, migration, trafficking, fiscality, and labor. Rather than working in isolation, these measures intertwine to shape the working conditions and lived realities of migrant sex workers. Through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Ukrainian sex workers in Poland, I demonstrate how this policy assemblage contributes to the vulnerabilization and precarization of migrant sex workers, marking their everyday existence with uncertainty and precarity, surveillance and policing, and the withholding of state protections, recognition, and rights. Analyzing the Polish sex work crimscape as a mode of sex work governance reveals how this policy assemblage translates into three interconnected conditions for migrant sex workers: imposed mobility, legal ambiguity, and institutionalized abandonment.

Impacts of Sex Work Criminalization and Censorship for Indoor Workers: Exploring How Barriers to Online Advertising Shape Occupational Health and Safety

Impacts of Sex Work Criminalization and Censorship for Indoor Workers: Exploring How Barriers to Online Advertising Shape Occupational Health and Safety

Excluded but Fighting: Where Are the Voices of Sex Workers and Their Allies in EU Anti-Trafficking Policymaking?

The ‘end demand’ approach to prostitution has been popping up in Europe through the anti-trafficking debate and receives increasing attention on the international agenda. It is well recognized that improving workers’ rights, increasing unionization and collective bargaining coverage are effective strategies for tackling trafficking. However, with regard to sexual exploitation, focus is not on these strategies but instead on the abolition of the entire sex industry with the help of criminal justice systems. In first decade after the Palermo Protocol (2000), international organizations (IGOs) promoted a human rights-based approach to tackling trafficking, aiming to balance the criminal justice focus of the protocol. This work guided states on how to maintain and protect human rights while combating human trafficking. However, the explosive issue of sex work/prostitution was minimized, with IGOs avoiding the topic due to the fragile consensus about the definition of human trafficking and state obligations. Meanwhile, sex workers’ collectives and unions globally and throughout Europe developed their own strategies on how to address widespread criminalization, discrimination, violence and exploitation, with no or very limited funding and resources—and without recognition of their work, experience and expertise. This article presents how the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA) and other sex workers’ rights civil society organizations have sought to challenge the harmful impacts of the ‘end demand’ discourse and the criminalization of sex work in the name of anti-trafficking in Europe.

The epidemiology of HIV infection among female sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya: A structural determinants and life-course perspective.

High HIV prevalence among female sex workers (FSWs) is heavily influenced by structural determinants (e.g. criminalisation of sex work; violence) and significant life events (e.g. orphanhood, teenage pregnancy). This study aims to understand the epidemiology of HIV among FSWs in Nairobi, Kenya using a structural determinants and life-course perspective. Baseline cross-sectional survey data were collected June-December 2019 for the Maisha Fiti study with 1003 FSWs (aged 18-45 years). Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using multivariable logistic regression with a hierarchical modelling approach. HIV prevalence was 28.0%, and increased with age (<25 years 5.7%, 25-34 years 19.0%, ≥35 years 40.6%). In adjusted analyses, HIV seroprevalence was associated with childhood and adolescence including violence from militia or soldiers (AOR = 1.60; 95%CI:1.00-2.53), young age at sexual debut (≤15 years old vs. ≥18 years AOR = 0.57; 95%CI:0.39-0.84) and teenage pregnancy (AOR = 1.37; 95%CI:1.00-1.88). For adulthood the factors included lower SES score (lowest vs. highest tertile AOR = 0.63; 95%CI:0.40-0.98); reduced housing insecurity (AOR = 0.52; 95%CI:0.54-0.79); lower alcohol/drug use score (AOR = 0.44; 95%CI:0.31-0.61); and a longer duration of selling sex (0-5 years vs. ≥11 years AOR = 2.35; 95%CI:1.44-3.82). Among HIV-negative FSWs, prevalence of HIV risk factors was high (recent hunger 32.3%; internalised 67.7% and experienced 66.0% sex work stigma; recent police arrest 30.1%; recent physical or sexual violence 65.6%, condomless last sex intimate partner 71.1%; harmful alcohol or substance use 49.1%). Only 24.6% of HIV-negative FSWs reported taking PrEP. Taken together, adverse events in childhood and adolescence were associated with increased odds of living with HIV, and were more strongly associated with HIV serostatus than adulthood structural or behavioural risk factors. HIV-negative FSWs remain at high risk of HIV acquisition. This study highlights the importance of addressing adverse events throughout the life course to reduce HIV risk, and the need to continue multi-level HIV prevention and treatment efforts.

Barriers to Oral PrEP: A Qualitative Study of Female Sex Workers, PrEP Prescribers, Policymakers, and Community Advocates in Morocco.

In 2017, Morocco became the first Arab country to incorporate pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in its HIV-prevention program. Yet no research has been published on PrEP from Morocco. Although female sex workers are one of the target populations of PrEP in Morocco, their enrollment in PrEP is lower than men who have sex with men. In this study, we conducted 38 semi-structured interviews with female sex workers, physicians who prescribe PrEP, policymakers, and community advocates to identify problems associated with access to and use of PrEP. We also investigated preferences for daily oral, vaginal ring, and long-acting injectable PrEP. A reflexive thematic analysis revealed seven themes: PrEP stigma; stigmatization and criminalization of sex work; one size doesn't fit all; knowledge and misconceptions about PrEP; economic burden; inconvenience of PrEP pills; and preferred PrEP modalities. This paper discusses the implications of the findings for increasing access and use of PrEP in Morocco.

Improving Laws and Policies to Protect Sex Workers and Promote Health and Wellbeing: A Report on Criminalization of Sex Work in the District of Columbia

Improving Laws and Policies to Protect Sex Workers and Promote Health and Wellbeing: A Report on Criminalization of Sex Work in the District of Columbia

A queer footnote

AbstractAnthropological accounts of sexual and gendered difference often serve the role of footnotes that buttress and even expand the reach of Euro‐American concepts. In contrast to this contained role for anthropology, queer footnotes can push the discipline toward more capacious and experimental engagements with powerful knowledge. In 2020, governments around the world introduced lockdowns and border‐control measures in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. This was the case in Australia, where I undertook fieldwork with trans‐ and queer Indonesians living in Melbourne. In Australia, COVID‐19 public health measures paralleled and exacerbated migration restrictions on people living with HIV and the criminalization of sex work. Asian, queer, trans‐, and sex worker bodies were addressed as a moral and physiological contagion. Queer anthropology is good for maintaining a critical ethnographic focus on how the state governs through a racial biopolitics of containment, and generates concepts for public health that shift the focus from security to care.

Who Do We Call “Creepy?”: Sex Workers’ Relationships as Targets of Intimate Intervention

Like other forms of problem-solving justice, prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) are designed to (re)shape thinking and behaviors. The authority to surveil and punish stems from criminalization of sex work, itself an act of control over women and their bodies. The court cues normative behaviors through rewards and punishments based on information gleaned through ongoing surveillance in and out of court. Using a critical feminist lens, we draw on ethnographic and interview data from studies of two court-affiliated PDPs to examine the regulation of women's bodies and intimate relationships. We found that criminal justice professionals explicitly viewed constant discussion and surveillance of all facets of PDP participants’ lives as a tool to cause participants to internalize particular understandings of normative relationships. Such normative understandings involve assumptions about which men are “creepy” that do not always reflect women's lived experiences and decontextualize relationships in ways that are incompatible with women's own assessments of these relationships. This analysis contributes to feminist social work by revealing the social control functions of such programs, which employ “creepy” intrusion to police the boundaries between unacceptable and normative behavior while simultaneously disregarding the systemic forces that shape women's choices and constructions of normativity.

Possible Consequences of the Criminalization of Sex Work in Spain, Inferred from COVID-19 Lockdown Measures

IntroductionIn this paper, we explore the possible consequences of the criminalization of sex work in Spain through an analysis of the measures adopted during the COVID-19 lockdown, which were tantamount to a prohibition of prostitution.MethodsWe interviewed 69 female sex workers (19 of them trafficking victims) from the lowest stratum and six escorts from the upper stratum of prostitution, during the period from March 2020 to May 2021. We also conducted an ethnographic study in a hotel operating in the middle to upper stratum of commercial sex work.ResultsThe months of home confinement showed that the prohibition of sex work affected women in more precarious and vulnerable situations more adversely, worsening their living and working conditions compared to before the pandemic, whereas the impact on the escorts was far less.ConclusionIf commercial sex work in Spain were totally or partially criminalized, sex work would not stop taking place, and nor would the demand for paid sex cease to exist. Rather, they would be driven underground, worsening the quality of life, and both health and working conditions in the practice of commercial sex work for women. On top of that, the implementation of such a policy would reduce or eliminate sex workers’ relationships or collaborations with the police.

Intersecting structural barriers to reporting violence among men and non-binary sex workers under end-demand criminalization in Canada

A growing body of evidence indicates that sex work criminalization is linked to increased risk of violence and undermines the occupational health and safety (OHS) of sex workers. However, less is known about men and non-binary sex workers’ (MNBSWs) experiences with workplace violence and police-based systems for reporting violence under end-demand criminalization. To address this gap, we conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with MNBSWs in British Columbia between 2020 and 2021. Analysis drew on structural determinants of health and intersectionality frameworks. Most participants described sex work as not inherently dangerous. When participants experienced workplace violence, many described feeling morally obligated to report these incidents to protect others. However, participants experienced barriers to reporting violence to police due to intersecting sex work and substance use criminalization and stigmatization, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-poverty stigma, homophobia, transphobia, and gender stereotypes. Participants further described the need for gender-inclusive community-based systems of reporting violence against sex workers. Our findings demonstrate how intersecting forms of criminalization, stigmatization, and discrimination prevent MNBSWs from reporting workplace violence. Along with calls to decriminalize sex work and substance use, these findings highlight the need to develop community-based systems for reporting violence that account for intersecting identities, including gender, to improve OHS conditions for MNBSWs.

Gains and gaps: addressing HIV in diverse sex worker groups

Over the past four decades of the HIV pandemic, diverse groups of sex workers have been disproportionately affected across settings. 1 UNAIDSHIV and sex work: human rights fact sheets series. https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/05-hiv-human-rights-factsheet-sex-work_en.pdfDate: 2021 Date accessed: June 1, 2023 Google Scholar Social and structural factors including the criminalisation of sex work, financial insecurity, and intersectional stigma, discrimination, and violence have been identified as key drivers of sex workers' disproportionate HIV risk and poor treatment outcomes. 2 Shannon K Crago A-L Baral SD et al. The global response and unmet actions for HIV and sex workers. Lancet. 2018; 392: 698-710 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (129) Google Scholar Although community-driven combination prevention interventions have shown promise in reducing new HIV infections and improving HIV care and treatment outcomes among sex workers, 3 Kerrigan D Kennedy CE Morgan-Thomas R et al. A community empowerment approach to the HIV response among sex workers: effectiveness, challenges, and considerations for implementation and scale-up. Lancet. 2015; 385: 172-185 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (209) Google Scholar investments to bring these efforts to scale have lagged far behind historical and current needs. Temporal trends in, and risk factors for, HIV seroconversion among female sex workers accessing Zimbabwe's national sex worker programme, 2009–19: a retrospective cohort analysis of routinely collected HIV testing dataWe identified high rates of seroconversion shortly after linkage to programme services, which emphasises the need to strengthen HIV prevention programmes from first contact with female sex workers in Zimbabwe. New infections among female sex workers remain challenging to measure, but longitudinal analysis of routine testing data can provide valuable insights into seroconversion rates and associated risk factors. Full-Text PDF Open AccessHIV prevalence, risk behaviour, and treatment and prevention cascade outcomes among cisgender men, transgender women, and transgender men who sell sex in Zimbabwe: a cross-sectional analysis of programme dataThese unique data show that people who sell sex and identify as cisgender men, transgender women, or transgender men in sub-Saharan Africa have high HIV prevalences and risk of infection, with alarmingly low access to HIV prevention, testing, and treatment services. There is an urgent need for people-centred HIV interventions for these high-risk groups and for more inclusive HIV policies and research to ensure we truly attain universal access for all. Full-Text PDF

‘Blowjobs are Jobs Too’: An Exploratory Study into Victimization Experiences of Male Sex Workers in Botswana

This study conducted in-depth face to face interviews with twenty male sex workers (MSWs) servicing sex tourists in Botswana. Expert opinions were also sought with support organizations and the police in Botswana to understand more about male sex work in Botswana. The research questions were directed at exploring (a) how male sex workers experienced and perceived victimisation in their interactions with sex tourists, (b) what role support groups played, and (c) what reforms both male sex workers and support groups propose for the male sex work industry. The article presents their victimisation experiences, health risks and opinions of the support groups. The study found out that MSWs frequently experienced physical violence and sexual assaults such as stealthing, especially male sex workers who identified as gay or bisexual. MSWs never reported their victimisation experiences to the police due to fear of stigmatisation, shaming and possible arrests given the partial criminalisation of sex work. Support groups on the other, as non-governmental organizations offered the much-needed support services such as distribution of lubes, condoms, HIV screening, counselling, and ARV and PrEP access and management for sex workers. This study contributes to the limited literature examining the experiences of MSWs, demonstrating their vulnerability and the need for interventions to mitigate their victimisation and protect their health. Many sex workers emphasised constitutional protections of their rights, the need to decriminalise, as well as the promotion of safety and security. The study argues that traditionally, culture and religion have produced a gender-biased socio-cultural parameters that place males as providers, hence, their vulnerability to victimisation and sexual violence is often unnoticed, which also makes reporting difficult to law enforcement.

Sex worker or victim? Exploring the sex industry in Spain

This article examines entry into paid sex work in Spain, comparing those people who entered sex work by choice and those who were coerced. There is a dearth of research that focusses on documenting the circumstances and conditions in which women engage in commercial sex work in Spain and on examining their opinions about current or planned legislation to regulate sex work. The article is based on a cross-sectional study using a sociological survey of people who work in indoor commercial sex, which is the least visible form of sex work in the Spanish context and about which we have the least information due to stigmatisation, both of the activity and of the people involved. This article considers the circumstances and working conditions of sex workers, and their views and position with regard to the legal framework for this activity. This focus is important at a political juncture in which a policy of criminalisation of sex work is being considered in Spain.

Criminalization and coercion: sexual encounters with police among a longitudinal cohort of women who exchange sex in Baltimore, Maryland

BackgroundThe criminalization of sex work and drug use creates unequal power dynamics easily exploited by police. Women who exchange sex (WES) in settings around the globe have reported coerced sex and sexual assault by police, and some have reported police as paying clients. Little research has examined nuances underlying WES’s sexual interactions with police.MethodsA cohort of cisgender WES (N = 308) was recruited through targeted sampling in Baltimore, Maryland and completed a structured survey every 6 months for 18 months. Follow-up surveys included detailed questions about recent sexual encounters with police. In bivariate and multivariate models using generalized estimating equations to account for intra-person correlation, we examined correlates of reporting recent sex with police over time.ResultsOne-third reported recent sex with police at any study visit. At each time point, about 90% of women who reported sex with police reported any uniformed or non-uniformed police had paid for sex. Between 72 and 85% had been solicited for paid sex by uniformed police. Between 41 and 50% of women who reported recent sex with police indicated they had done so because they feared arrest otherwise; one-third were directly pressured for sex by police to avoid arrest or trouble. In the final adjusted model, severe food insecurity [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.05; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13–3.71], Black race (vs. white, non-Hispanic; aOR = 1.90; 95% CI 1.13–3.17), recent arrest (aOR = 1.51; 95% CI 1.01–2.27), nonfatal overdose (aOR = 1.94; 95% CI 1.24–3.01), and client- or non-paying intimate partner-perpetrated violence (aOR = 2.46; 95% CI 1.63–3.71) were significantly independently associated with recent sex with police.ConclusionsSexual encounters between WES and police in Baltimore are common and often coerced to avoid arrest in a setting where both drug use and sex work are criminalized. Recent sex with police was more prevalent among WES who were racially marginalized, highly structurally vulnerable, and/or at high risk for drug overdose—and therefore subject to the dual-criminalization of sex work and drug use. This indicates deep power imbalances and their exploitation by police as the root of such sexual encounters and adds to the evidence regarding the need for decriminalization to support the health and wellbeing of WES.

An Evaluation of Indoor Sex Workers' Sexual Health Access in Metro Vancouver: Applying an Occupational Health & Safety Lens in the Context of Criminalization.

The criminalization of sex work has been consistently shown to undermine workers' Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), including sexual health. Drawing on the 'Guide to OHS in the New Zealand Sex Industry' (the Guide), we assessed barriers to sexual health best practices among indoor sex workers in Metro Vancouver, Canada, in the context of ongoing criminalization. Part of a longstanding community-based study, this analysis drew on 47 qualitative interviews (2017-2018) with indoor sex workers and third parties. Participants' narratives were analyzed drawing on a social determinants of health framework and on the Guide with specific focus on sexual health. Our findings suggest that sex workers and third parties utilize many sexual health strategies, including use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and peer-driven sexual health education. However, participant narratives demonstrate how structural factors such as criminalization, immigration, and stigma limit the accessibility of additional OHS best practices outlined in the Guide and beyond, including access to non-stigmatizing sexual health assessments, and distribution of diverse PPE by third parties. Our current study supports the need for full decriminalization of sex work, including im/migrant sex work, to allow for the uptake of OHS guidelines that support the wellbeing and autonomy of all sex workers.

THE SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN THE CRIMINALISATION OF SEX WORK AND CORRUPT POLICING IN SEX WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA

Despite existing studies that prove the prevalence of corrupt policing of sex work in South Africa, corruption continues to be a common feature of sex workers’ experiences with police officers. In this article, it is argued that the criminalisation of sex work, which is the current legal model enforced in South Africa, has enabled and cemented corrupt practices in the policing of sex work. Whilst police officers occupy a position of power over all persons living in South Africa, due to their office and authority to enforce the law, it is argued that the police officer/sex worker dichotomy is deepened by the illegal status of the conduct that sex workers engage in. This dichotomy places sex workers in an extremely vulnerable position in relation to police corruption.

Understanding drivers of female sex workers’ experiences of external/enacted and internalised stigma: findings from a cross-sectional community-centric national study in South Africa

To deepen our understanding of sex work stigma, and to its drivers and their interrelation, we conducted an analysis using structural equation modelling of the South African National Sex Worker Survey. We enrolled 3005 women in sex work using multi-stage sampling across all South Africa’s provinces. Experience of external/enacted and internalised stigma was widespread. Non-partner rape, intimate partner violence and partner controlling behaviour (often expressions of external/enacted stigma) compounded internalised stigma. These experiences of violence, other manifestations of external/enacted stigma and food insecurity, were key drivers of internalised stigma, and often had an impact on mental health. We found that considerable protection against stigma emanated from viewing sex work positively. This resistance to stigma provided opportunities to shift the narrative. Reducing sex workers’ exposure to external/enacted stigmatising behaviour, including by enabling more to work indoors, and providing greater protection from partner violence and rape, are critical for better health and well-being. Ending the criminalisation of sex work is foundational for safer working conditions and better health outcomes for sex workers, similarly providing adequately funded mental and physical health and social care through sex work specific programmes.

Queerness, Sex Work, and Refugee Status in Nairobi: A conversation with Queer Sex Workers Initiative for Refugees

In this interview, the author speaks with Queer Sex Workers Initiative for Refugees: a Nairobi-based grassroots service-provision and advocacy group formed by queer refugees in Kenya who are engaged in sex work. The interview explores the question of how queer identity experiences interact with the policing of borders, labour issues, and refugee status. It teases out the ramifications of the compounding factors of migration and criminalisation of sex work and gender diversity, across borders, to show how these produce discrimination, loss of livelihood, and vulnerability to violence.

Digital Exclusion and the Structural Barriers to Safety Strategies among Men and Non-Binary Sex Workers Who Solicit Clients Online

Background: Evidence shows that online solicitation facilitates sex workers’ ability to mitigate the risk of workplace violence. However, little is known about how end-demand sex work criminalization and the regulation of online sex work sites shape men and non-binary sex workers’ ability to maintain their own safety while soliciting services online. Methods: We conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with men and non-binary sex workers in British Columbia between 2020–2021 and examined their ability to enact safety strategies online in the context of end-demand criminalization. Analysis drew on a structural determinants of health framework. Results: Most participants emphasized that sex work is not inherently dangerous and described how soliciting services online facilitated their ability to enact personal safety strategies and remain in control of client interactions. However, participants also described how end-demand criminalization, sex work stigma, and restrictive website policies compromise their ability to solicit services online and to enact safety strategies. Conclusions: Alongside calls to decriminalize sex work, these findings emphasize the need to normalize sex work as a form of labour, promote access to online solicitation among men and non-binary sex workers, and develop standards for online sex work platforms in partnership with sex workers that prioritize sex worker safety.