Posts filed under ‘sex work’
The NSWP : sex workers rights in action.
by Cheryl Overs
At the Vienna Aids Conference earlier this year I arrived to the finale of the NSWP pre-meeting for sex worker delegates. It was a great moment to go in to a room with over a hundred activists from all over the world who had been working all day planning sex worker participation in the conference. There were many I have known for many years, some of whom I have had the opportunity to see working in their own countries, and lots of exciting new faces, and bodies ( as the conference was soon to find out ! ) I was so struck by the mix of activists from different cultures, generations and genders and by non sex workers there who were all true allies who have earned sex workers trust by contributing their skills and time. I so well remember when the entire NSWP pre meeting could fit around a single table. And there was no money for translation. What a long way the NSWP has come. While most of the credit goes to sex workers themselves, OSI deserves huge credit for the resources they have provided to sex worker networks and their commitment to our rights agenda.
That meeting wasn’t an isolated good moment for sex workers networks. Since then the APNSW has pulled off a wonderful meeting with UNFPA and UNAIDS in Thailand where sex workers voices from 9 countries were truly heard and treated as full partners, many people thought for the first time in such a UN meeting. Again most of the credit goes to sex workers themselves and to their leadership who have sometimes been treated badly, but a lot of it goes to Jenny Butler and Steve Kraus of UNFPA, Michele Sidibe and other UN folks who are taking partnership with the APNSW and NSWP seriously.
The NSWP board is meeting this week in Amsterdam and I am sure that this diverse and vibrant group that had everyone amazed in Vienna will have a great meeting that takes the NSWP and the regional networks forward at the same cracking pace as we have seen these last few months. The NSWP has a great new website thanks to communications officer Audacia Ray and preparations are underway for the next edition of Research for Sex Work whose editor is long time ally Nell Beelan.
Great credit goes to NSWP Co-ordinator Ruth Morgan Thomas whose leadership, dedication and sanity in the face of chaos is remarkable. Thanks to Ruth and Andrew Hunter the president and other leaders, the NSWP is in great shape to deal with persistent challenges in international policy – Pepfar, the anti-trafficking movement, travel restrictions, access to HIV meds etc. Crucially it now has many of the partnerships and support needed to address them.
Every day brings news on sex work and law from one country or another. We are seeing law reform and recognition of sex work as an occupation expanding not just through legislatures but through courts that are giving weight to human rights and constitutional obligations. Although much of the news is still about crackdowns of course, it is more and more frequently about conversations about decriminalisation. The Commission on HIV and Law is looking at criminalisation of sex work so there is work to do there to ensure that sex workers demands around human rights and law are well understood by the Commission. Its all about opportunities and challenges.
See NSWP website for more news. ( www. nswp.org)
What bought on thinking about the NSWP this week as its new board is meeting was pictures I came across while doing some much overdue filing. This is a previous board of the NSWP at Robin Island, Cape Town in 2002. Dr Melissa Ditmore (USA) ; Shane Petzer ( Sth Africa) ; Dr Smarajit Jana (India) (EU) Khartini Slamah (Malaysia); Paulo Longo ( Brazil) ; Dr Anna Lopez (EU) . Dr Penny Saunders ( USA) ; Dr Jo Doezema. And lots of gorgeous people at an
APNSW meeting in Yokohama in ?
STOP – feminist violence against sex workers
By Leena Neena
“ The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) has been for years delivering a clear political statement committed to work towards a Europe free from prostitution, by supporting key abolitionist principles which state that the prostitution of women and girls constitutes a fundamental violation of women’s human rights, a serious form of male violence against women, and a key obstacle to gender equality in our societies. The EWL Centre on violence against women is now working on an EWL campaign to deliver a strong message towards a Europe free from prostitution.”
It is beyond belief that this kind of campaign can take place in this day and age. How do these people feel when they sit around deciding to do things like this without speaking to sex workers ? No sex worker, no matter how they came to the sex industry, could mistake what this fist means. It means violence. No doubt the euro feminists fantasise about the punch they are recommending landing on bad men – the fantasy pimps of their imagination – and helping innocent girl victims who also live in their imaginations. But every sex worker knows that every punch lands on her /him no matter what fantasies are in the heads of the punch throwers.
That this is a group that says it opposes violence is a joke. These middle class women who think they know better than us should be made to take responsibility for the violence they advocate. This campaign is what the Americans call ‘ hate speech’ But who will stop it ? Who can raise a voice in the face of the millions of dollars and euros driving violence against sex workers all over the world.
Read anti trafficking superstar Leela Neena’s blog at http://thisisleelaneena.tumblr.com/
Fancy picking Cheryl’s brains?
This month, AIDSLEX will host an “Ask the Expert” session on sex work with our very own Cheryl Overs and Valerie Scott (pictured). They will respond to user questions on the human rights of sex workers and on how laws can support efforts to respond to the HIV epidemic, including providing HIV prevention and health care services to sex workers. Users are also invited to pose questions concerning an Ontario court ruling in September 2010 in which sections of Canada’s Criminal Code related to sex work were deemed unconstitutional.
To submit a question, please write to experts@aidslex.org. Deadline is 15 November.
Cheryl Overs is a noted advocate for the rights of sex workers and has written widely on the subject. Valerie Scott is Executive Director of Sex Professionals of Canada (http://www.spoc.ca/), which campaigns for the rights of sex workers. She was one of the applicants in the Ontario Superior Court case. More information on that ruling can be found at http://aidslaw.ca/publications/interfaces/downloadDocumentFile.php?ref=1096.
Is the Lancet advocating Universal Access without universal justice ?
Leela Neena wants the price of sex raised, not ARV.
‘The criminalisation of homosexuality and the exclusion of illegal drug users and sex workers from health services have made more difficult the tailoring of interventions to these populations”
The Lancet
‘http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473309910702280.pdf
This statement can be read as the Pepfar compliant position : “it is Ok for sex work to be illegal so long as we can HIV test sex workers and tell them they are responsible for making their clients use condoms’
Well that may be cynical but this statement seems to me to be yet more evidence that the stage is being set for the UN to recommend that homosexuality be decriminalised but not sex work, in line with US policy and the misperception or ideology that sex work is trafficking (or they are so entwined that no morally responsible person would consider decriminalising sex work).
It is very worrying to see even the Lancet separating homosexuality out from other relevant criminalised behaviours in this way. As Matt Greenall says ” if it is possible to achieve Universal Access for sex workers and drug users even in contexts of criminalisation, then surely it is also possible to do so for men who have sex with men in the context of criminalisation? From a public health and service provision point of view, I don’t understand the logic behind the different positions in each case. As programme managers, service providers and outreach workers all know, any sort of criminalisation severely compromises the ability to deliver programmes – it’s not worse for some groups than for others.”( http://mngreenall.posterous.com/aids-universal-access-and-the-lancets-equivoc)
Pattaya Draft Declaration on Sex Work in Asia and the Pacific 2010
Pattaya Draft Declaration on Sex Work in Asia and the Pacific 2010
This Declaration has been agreed by sex workers representing regional, national and local networks of sex workers present at Pattaya Thailand 12-16 October 2010. APNSW will be conducting a consultation to finalise this document.
It represents a unified and rights based approach to the reduction of HIV among adult sex workers.
Preamble
Recognising that:
Sex workers of all genders are subject to violence, both in their personal lives and at work. This violence is a manifestation of stigma, discrimination and judgemental attitudes.
International and national trafficking law and policy has resulted in increased violence against and oppression of sex workers.
United Nations organisations and specialised agencies have previously agreed that criminal and other laws that lead to dangerous settings for commercial sex and limit access to services must be repealed.
In many parts of the world, sex workers are amongst the most vulnerable to HIV and STIs.
Twenty years of experience has shown that effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for sex workers is possible only with their meaningful and active involvement.
Collective organising and community mobilisationand community led processes are key to ensuring that sex workers benefit from HIV policies and programmes.
Building capacity within sex worker networks and communities must be understood as part of the commitment to the respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of sex workers.
Sex workers who are socially included, have better economic and social status and are less vulnerable to human rights abuses and HIV.
It is necessary to provide and scale up access to rights based HIV programming for sex workers and their clients of all genders, HIV positive or negative.
Successful rights based interventions that have been shown to reduce HIV and STIs among female, male and transgender sex workers and clients must be strengthened and scaled up.
Coercive efforts to control or reduce sex work are contrary to human rights. Mandatory medical treatment or procedures, raids, forced rehabilitation, or programmes implemented by police or based upon detention of sex workers are all examples of coercive programming and in some circumstances may constitute torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
To be effective, HIV programming needs to be devised in true partnership with sex workers, and be dynamic, participatory, non-coercive and must address the diverse realities of human sexuality and sexual expression.
Article 1 Responsibilities of States
1(a) The human rights protection provided to those who are recognised as persons before the law is often unavailable to sex workers. States must address these failings and respect, protect and fulfil the rights of all people including sex workers.
1(b) States must recognise and regulate sex work as a form of labour (work).
1(c) Human rights are central to the response to HIV in any population. A rights based response requires that rights are not denied because a person is a sex worker, a client of a sex worker or is otherwise financially or personally related to a sex worker. This specifically includes the children of sex workers.
1(d) The procedural aspects of a rights-based approach which include participation, accountability and transparency are central to working with sex workers. The starting point for a rights based approach to HIV and sex work is the formation of a partnership in which sex workers’ contributions to policy and programme development is encouraged, supported, recognised and valued. This cannot occur in coercive environments such as those created by the 100% Condom Use Programme or where sex work is governed by laws that address trafficking.
1(e) Laws and policies must not directly or indirectly limit the rights of sex workers, or restrict their access to comprehensive HIV and SRH services.
Article 2 Support and Capacity Building
2(a) Sex workers must have free and meaningful participation in the research, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes that affect their lives.
2(b) Capacity building includes the provision of adequate funding and training for sex worker groups and networks to build organisational strength and expertise to effectively operate and to communicate and share good practices with each other and to external bodies.
Article 3 Respectful Attitudes and Behaviour
3(a) Policies and programmes must be implemented that foster respectful attitudes and behaviour by officers and practitioners in law enforcement, health services, religious institutions, judicial and government sectors, civil society organizations and the public.
3(b) Officers, practitioners and others, including clients, who discriminate against sex workers or violate their rights or dignity must be subject to penalties responses that are in proportion to the act in question and remedies made available to sex workers.
Article 4 Advocacy
4(a) Sex worker organisations and networks must be supported and sufficiently resourced to address the discrimination, stigma, violence, and injustices experienced by sex workers.
4(b) Sex worker organisations must be supported and sufficiently resourced to develop coalitions with others to address discrimination, stigma, violence, and injustices experienced by sex workers.
4(c) Peer education and peer support networks must be regarded as a key means to promote the rights of sex workers and to reduce risk behaviours among sex workers.
Article 5 Strategic partnerships
5(a) Governments, labour organizations, religious institutions, the private sector, civil society organisations and local communities in association with sex worker groups, must address the risks associated with HIV and sex work, especially the elimination of violence against sex workers.
5(b) Governments, labour organizations, religious instiutions, the private sector, civil society organisations and local communities in association with sex worker groups must address barriers to sex workers organizing, improving health and safety within sex work settings and accessing HIV prevention and other health and social care services.
Article 6 Migrant Sex Workers
Special attention must be paid to meeting the needs of migrant sex workers, including those who may be refugees, internally displaced and undocumented persons.
Article 7 Ethnic and Religious Minorities
Special attention must be paid to meeting the needs of sex workers belonging to ethnic and religious minorities.
Article 8 Elimination of violence against sex workers
8(a) Sex workers must be able to safely report violence and abuse, and receive protection under law.
8(b) Violence is linked with increased incidence of STIs and HIV. Programmes must be developed to prevent and minimise violence and its effects.
8(c) Safe spaces, such as drop-in centres, and community-based and cultural activities must be available to sex workers.
Article 9 Sex Workers and Clients
9(a) Specific campaigns must be developed and targeted at clients to:
- encourage clients to behave respectfully and responsibly towards sex workers, and
- deliver messages about health, safer sex, and condom usage.
9(b) HIV prevention, treatment, care and support programmes and services must be provided to clients, and others associated with the sex industry.
9(c) Funding for campaigns and programmes for clients must be derived from funding streams other than those intended for policy development and programmes for sex workers.
Article 10 Provision of Services
10(a) Sex workers must have access to respectful, adequate and culturally-relevant legal and health services.
10(b) Health services include but are not limited to:
- sexual and reproductive health services,
- a continuum of HIV prevention options such as information and education,
- voluntary counselling and testing,
- support for community mobilization,
- prevention commodities, and
- drug and alcohol harm reduction programmes.
10(c) For programming to be effective, barriers to providing services must be addressed, including discrimination by and stigmatising treatment from health care services, social services, legal services and law enforcement agencies.
10 (d) HIV programmes must be neither mandatory nor coercive. The participation of sex workers must be voluntary and informed.
Article 11 Expand economic and social opportunities for sex workers
11(a) Sex workers must have access to programmes that expand economic and social opportunities. In this regard training must be provided for sex workers who remain in sex work, and those seeking an economic alternative to sex work.
11(b) Strategies designed to provide sustainable supplementary incomes for individuals and households must address at a minimum:
- lack of secure housing,
- lack of access to education,
- banking services and credit, and
- control of family assets
Article 12 Accurate Data
Accurate data obtained ethically and in partnership with sex workers, using sound research methods are required ar national and local levels concerning, but not limited to:
- sex work settings,
- mobility and migration trends,
- patterns of violence,
- good practice examples of HIV treatment, care and support for sex workers,
- barriers to access to existing services,
- design of sex worker friendly services,
- microfinance, income-generating activities, supplementary and alternative livelihoods, and business start up opportunities, and
- laws, policies, enforcement processes and their impact on vulnerability.
Article 13 Sex Workers Living with HIV
13 (a) Sex workers living with HIV must have access to at a minimum the highest available standard of HIV treatment, care and support services in the country.
13(b) Programmes must provide: quality counselling that addresses issues such as potential discrimination and loss of income, care and treatment for sex workers living with HIV, including antiretroviral therapy, when medically indicated, and treatment of opportunistic infections.
13 (c) Barriers to service provision, including health professionals and service providers who discriminate against sex workers living with HIV, inadequate access to HIV and sexually transmitted infections testing, counselling and treatment services must be remedied.
13(d) HIV prevention for and with sex workers living with HIV must not involve coercion.
Article 14 International Law and Policy
14(a) International trade and aid must not be conditional on national legislative, policy and enforcement responses to trafficking or intellectual property.
14(b) Access to affordable generic drugs must not be limited by international, bilateral or plurilateral agreements.
14(c) International law* concerning trafficking and prostitution must be given a limited interpretation and must not be relied upon to support coercive responses to sex workers, or to limit the operation of commericial sex as a form of labour.
14(d) Funding for HIV programming should not be linked to statements opposing the “legalising” of sex work.
* Article 6 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Article 35 Convention on the Rights of the Child
Convention Against Transnational Origanized Crime, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children
Consultation on Sex Work and HIV in Asia and the Pacific
The Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers and UNFPA are holding a consultation on Sex Work and HIV in the Asia and the Pacific Region in Pattaya Thailand. On October 10 and 11th the APNSW held a meeting of its members to prepare for the consultation.
Sex workers from Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Fiji, Papua, New Guinea; Cambodia and China are attending.
On the first day each country reported on human rights, health and law. Although there are some variations in details the same circumstances
- Raids and arrests
- Violence and rape by police
- Unfair practices and exploitation by the people sex workers turn to for protection from arrests and violence.
- Condoms confiscated and used as evidence
- Lack of access to justice
- Lack of mechanisms for challenging violations of rights
- Unfriendly and inappropriate health services persist.
Some messages are being developed. So far they are :
- Lack of access to primary health care.
- Sex work is not trafficking
- Trafficking is not sex work
- Sex work is not for only women
Several sex workers are presenting at the consultation over the next couple of days. Each afternoon sex workers will meet in country groups with the delegates from their country.
Decriminalisation is the starting point : what next for Canada?
I really like the following extract from an editorial on Prostitution and the Law in the Ottawa Citizen (Sep 30 2010.) It captures an issue that I think is not well understood – that removing criminal laws against sex workers is only the first stage of the reform needed to improve sex workers lives. Many people in the movement are struggling to respond to the demand for ‘evidence’ that removing the criminal law will itself achieve a whole lot of desirable outcomes, such as reducing HIV or human rights abuses. But no such evidence exists. The question is wrong. The fact that sex workers are subject to abuses where sex work is legal, as well as where it is semi legal and completly prohibited, tells us that more than absence of criminal law is needed.
Removal of the criminal law is essential. It removes the main barrier to sex workers achieving justice. It creates a space that can be filled by effective rights based policy and labour regulations and law. This is what happenned in the much touted example of New Zealand. But ‘decriminalisation’ is not a solution in itself, and it is not a solution if the gap it creates is filled with wrong policy and law. Good regulations and policy don’t automatically kick in when criminal laws are removed – even in rich and well governed countries, let alone where regulatory systems generally are not well organised. The process of struggling for effective rights based policy and labour law must now take place in Canada and it’s regrettable that the energy of activists there will first be diverted by an appeal against Justice Himel’s judgement. What happens next in Canda will be important for the world and we are lucky indeed to have such strong and determined sex workers activists there to drive that process. Forward and Upward !
Cheryl Overs
The judge who struck down Canada’s prostitution laws was doing her job, and doing it well. It will be up to our elected officials to ensure that the removal of those laws does not create new problems…Justice Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court found that the laws “force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
She did not take it upon herself to rewrite Canada’s prostitution policy. In fact, she went to great lengths to explain that her job was merely to determine whether government had overstepped its constitutional bounds in creating the current laws. She admitted that in removing those laws, she is opening the door to unlicensed brothels. “It is legitimate for government to study, consult and determine how best to address this issue,” she concluded, and therefore stayed her decision for 30 days. That stay could be extended.While the Ontario and federal governments have vowed to appeal, Parliament still needs to update the prostitution laws. Constitutionality aside, it’s clear that these laws have done nothing to make marginalized women less vulnerable to the monsters who prey on them.
Criminal law that targets the prostitutes themselves might not be the best way to protect prostitutes and their neighbours, but that doesn’t mean that anything goes. The ruling does not require cities to set up red-light districts. There are many ways to regulate prostitution to minimize the harm to women and to their neighbours. And there is certainly nothing in the ruling to prevent governments, at all levels, from working to help prostitutes get out of the business and, in many sad cases, get off of drugs and alcohol.
While Himel did provide a review of practices and policies in some other countries, it’s not her job to choose among them. Parliament should consider which model would work best for Canada. The city governments should have a voice in that discussion and, perhaps, a role in implementing any new policy regime.
The worst mistake would be for Parliament to avoid this question, as it has avoided abortion, same-sex marriage, polygamy and other difficult social issues. In the absence of appropriate regulation, communities could find themselves powerless to stop dangerous activity. This is a conversation Canadians need to have
Sex work laws struck down by Canadian Court
An Ontario court has thrown out key provisions of Canada’s anti-prostitution laws in response to a constitutional challenge by a Toronto dominatrix and two prostitutes in 2009. Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice ruled Tuesday the Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers.
In her ruling, Justice Susan Himel said it now falls to Parliament to “fashion corrective action.” “It is my view that in the meantime these unconstitutional provisions should be of no force and effect, particularly given the seriousness of the charter violations,” Himel wrote.”However, I also recognize that a consequence of this decision may be that unlicensed brothels may be operated, and in a way that may not be in the public interest.”
‘This decision means that sex workers can now pick up the phone, and call the police and report a bad client.’— Valerie Scott
The judge suspended the effect of the decision for 30 days. It does not affect provisions dealing with people under 18. Rona Ambrose, minister for the status of women, said the government is concerned about the decision and is “seriously considering appealing it.”
Terri-Jean Bedford and Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch had argued that prohibitions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force them from the safety of their homes to face violence on the streets. The women asked the court to declare legal restrictions on their activities a violation of charter rights of security of the person and freedom of expression.
The women and their lawyer, Alan Young, held a news conference Tuesday afternoon and expressed elation. “It’s like emancipation day for sex-trade workers,” said Bedford, adding the ball is now in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s court. “The federal government must now take a stand and clarify what is legal and not legal between consenting adults in private.” Scott called it an amazing victory, saying the decision lessens the risk of violence for sex workers.
Michael Turschic/CBC
Willing Brides and Consenting Homosexuals ? : why we must unite against the trafficking paradigm.
by Cheryl Overs.
Over the last few months I have been reading and writing about sex work and law. I have had the chance to comment on several excellent papers as they are being written and had some wonderful opportunities to work with skilled and knowledgeable activists in human rights, the women’s movement, HIV and sexual and reproductive health. I have also had some great opportunities to learn from sex workers and hear the conversations that are taking place within the movement.
Of course there is plenty to say about so many aspects of sex work and law globally. Much of it is being said by far more articulate people than me andthe PLRI website is dedicated to making that information accessible. www.plri.org. Here I want to mention two issues that strike me as high priorities.
1. A BIG MESS : Sex workers have almost no say in research and it is a mess of competing agendas and assumptions.
Research standards are appalling and we don’t even know what laws affect sex workers in various jurisdictions or have common definitions of decriminalisation, regulation, legalisation, semi decriminalisation etc . Every day a new conceptual framework for sex work law appears in my inbox. The only thing they seem to have in common is they are all written by non sex workers ( see http://www.plri.org/resource/17-different-frameworks-sex-work-law-and-still-counting)
This, combined with ideologically driven faux-research, distorts the information base and renders sex work virtually a fact free area. This is illustrated by the incomprehensible mix of law reform that is taking place around the world.
2. A BIG MISTAKE : the Trafficking Paradigm.
My second issue is about the polarised battle that is seeing sex work sredefined as ‘trafficking and sexual explotati0n’. Sex workers are frustrated by the ideologies that have driven destructive and abusive attacks on sex industries disguised as raids and rescues of exploittion victims. Recently this has gone to a new and more dangerous level. In the course of exchanging ‘track-changed’ documents with colleagues and fellow activists from different disciplines and backgrounds I have noticed emergence of a new term “willing sex workers.
The danger here is that this term signifies that even those who support decriminalisation of sex work are now accepting the trafficking paradigm by repositing willing sex workers as a subset of this broader category ‘sex worker/victim of trafficking or sexaul explotation. Male and transgender sex workers are invisibilised in this discourse , perhaps because they are not so easily labelled as exploited/trafficked. (Although why leave a lucrative market untapped? Proposals to end an imaginary scourge of trafficking of men are no doubt being written as we speak.)
The implications of this slow but clear shift are enormous. Health and human rights promoting programmes f – in other words successful sex worker interventions – can now be seen as applicable only to ‘willing sex workers’ while ‘unwilling’ sex workers deemed to be trafficked or sexually exploited need raids, rehabilitation and anti-trafficking programmes.
Perhaps the most depressing thing about this is that sex workers themselves and other well meaning folks are buying into the trafficking paradigm. People are rightly concerned about slavery, child sexual abuse and people smuggling. I am not going to argue about how many people are forced into sex work, but even in that overstudied ‘hotbed of sex trafficking’ Cambodia, the only credible study, less than 2% of sex workers say they had been sold or co-oerced. ( CACHA 2008) How might this compare to the percentage of married women who were forced into marriage – even in the ‘hotbeds’ of forced marriage ? What percentage of gay men have been forced into sodomy ? We don’t know, but clearly both happen. But it would be absurd to preface the words ‘bride’ and ‘gay man’ with ‘willing’ or ‘consenting’. Can you imagine reports that say that condoms should be distributed to ‘consenting homosexuals’ ? Can you think of anything more absurd, more homophobic or more stigmatising ? Can you think of anything more absurd than describing Kate Middleton as a ‘willing bride’ ?
Positioning ‘willing’ and ‘unwilling’ doesn’t contribute to justice for people who have been raped, beaten imprisoned in the course of either marriage, homosexuality and no-one would suggest that. Nor would anyone suggest that rejecting the terms ‘willing brides’ and ‘consenting homosexuals’ amounts to a denial that those things happen. Yet this is exactly what the trafficking paradigm sets out for sex workers.
I was very surprised recently to see a US sex worker group congratulating a state government in the US for wiping the prostitution convictions of ‘trafficking victims’. This confirms to the government that ‘innocent victims’ deserve kinder treatement than the ‘willing sex workers’ whose convictions will stand. To me this was a very disappointing piece of advocacy.
Labour rights are the main demand that flows from the idea that sex work is work. These demands for human and labor rights apply equally to the willing and the unwilling – and everyone in between, which is most sex workers.
Perhaps the highest priority for the sex workers rights movement should be to unite to reject the entire paradigm of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Only by doing this can we focus on convincing the public and policy makers that public health, human rights and social development outcomes for sex workers depend on justice for all. The duped innocent, for the incorrigible slut, for the happy hooker; for the screaming queen and for the ‘sex slave’ – and for the other 99% of adult sex workers who dont fit these sterotypes – all need the same thing and our slogan says it perfectly – ‘only rights can stop the wrongs’
Why Pimping Must Be Legal Too. by Cheryl Overs with special thanks to Marc of Frankfurt for giving this article a much better name.
Sex workers rights activists are living in exciting times. We now have a formal mechanism for inputting into UN policy, the NSWP UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work and the Commission on HIV and Law convened by UNDP is a golden opportunity for an authoritative recommendation that sex work be decriminalised. Substantial support for such a recommendation has already come from senior UN officials including the Secretary General and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.
When sex work began to be decriminalised in Australia more than 20 years ago I thought we were the first in a domino effect of collapsing sex work laws globally . I knew hardly anything of the outside world then. I now understand much better why the opposite has happened and why, with a couple of exceptions, laws against sex work have worsened for sex workers globally. Although those reasons are obviously varied and complex, I think the issue of removing laws against living off immoral earnings, brothel keeping etc has functioned as a ‘deal breaker’ that has impeded us forming the alliances we need to move the decriminalisation agenda forward globally.
Most of the agencies who support removing the offences that are used against women who sell sex ( and less often against men and transgenders) at the same time support retention of the offenses that are used against people that operate or service the sex industry. (pimps)
Why is this ? It’s the fashion in literature on sex work and law to follow any mention of sex business operators with (pimps) in brackets. At first I just thought the use of bracketed American slang to clarify who is being discussed was just another amusing folly fromAmerican friends. But perhaps by invoking this stigmatising term authors are providing a clue to better understanding the disconnect between sex workers and the allies we need to support our demands if we are to be successful. That we don’t have that support is clear. Of all the agencies and individuals calling for ‘removal of punitive laws against sex workers’ almost none are expressing support for removal of the laws against operating or servicing sex businesses ( pimping) . The ‘best’ we get is a call for better enforcement to ensure that innocent family members are not ‘wrongly’ charged with living off immoral earnings ( pimping ) .
Like all movements the sex workers rights movement is diverse so there are few policy positions that everyone in the global sex workers rights movementfully agrees on beyond the basic principles of the Network of Sex Work Projects. ( www.NSWP.org). However there is one proposition that stands out as universal – sex work is work. It’s written on our placards, chanted at our demonstrations quoted on our websites and publications. What this slogan means is that sex workers demand that labour law not criminal law is used to govern the sex industry and protect the conditions of the workers in that industry. For this to happen sex businesses and brokering commercial sex must be legal. To benefit from labour rights sex workers who are employees must have legal employers. To benefit from health and safety regulations self employed sex workers must have access to legal workplaces and the same legal structure around their work as other self employed workers. There is no point the sex workers role in commercial sex being legal while her employers or people from whom she rents space or advertises are criminalised. In fact in many countries where sex work highly criminalised in reality, the law on the books only contains brothel keeping, recruiting ( pimping) type offenses.( See http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772)
It’s not surprising that sex workers look to labour law. Labour law and regulations and their important corollary, trade unions, are the mechanisms that have actually delivered improved working conditions to hundreds of millions of workers as they have been introduced over the last two centuries. Labour law is not a magic bullet, especially in poor countries, and sex workers know that. I remember I was fascinated when I first heard Cambodian sex workers passionately demanding ‘we must come under labour law’. They had learned a lot about workers rights issues from garment workers. ( in one of the most inspiring ‘civil society’ alliances I have ever seen) They knew that Cambodian garment factories haven’t transformed into perfect workplaces but equally they understood the role of labour law in garment workers’ journey from near slavery in dangerous sweatshops via the contemporary garment factory to their vision of the factory of the future. In this context the sex workers could very easily locate two primary differences between their struggle and that of the garment workers – the stigma and the law that criminalises ‘sexual expolitation and trafficking’ .
So why can’t our allies among academics, feminists and human rights agencies accept this ? Why do we so so many advocates argue for repeal of laws against soliciting and selling sex but not laws against brothel keeping and profiting from, organising or brokering commercial sex ? ( pimping) . Why do they make an argument for ‘decriminalisation’ of sex workers and suport laws that prevent ‘economic exploitation of sex workers’ (pimping) ? ( eg Canadian HIV/Aids Legal Networkhttp://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/publicationsdocEN.php?ref=199)
I have been surprised to see human rights abuses associated with anti-trafficking/sexual exploitation law attributed to poor enforcement of otherwise sound laws against people that operate sex businesses ( pimps) ( e.g. Off the Streets by Human Rights Watchhttp://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/07/20/streets-0) Why do human rights advocates dismiss sex workers view that the trafficking paradigm itself is flawed and the demands to repeal laws that prohibit sex buinsiness (pimps) ? I can’t understand support for banning sex work advertisements because the advertisers ( pimps) have failed to prevent the abuse of women. ( see about 2 million internet posts about Craigslist )
What do people want for sex workers ? A cosy cottage industry of all female sex worker collectives in which no sex worker facilitates or profits from the prostitution of another ? ‘ (pimps) ( or ‘pimps herself’ – I have actually read people talking about women trafficking themselves !) Although some sex workers might agree that a cottage industry of worker collectives would be nice, there is no sex worker in the world who doesn’t know that if you work in a criminalised environment you are affected by that criminalisation even if there is no specific law against what you are doing.
Of course I understand that people feel sorry for sex workers who work in horrible conditions and feel angry about the people that exploit them. We all do. I am sure the same well intentioned people feel sorry for garment workers too but the difference is they recognise their right to be employees and they don’t advocate criminalising the people that run garment factories . It doesn’t help sex workers struggle for rights to work these sentiments into professional policy advocacy. After all, sex workers know (pimps) best and they are demanding a fully legalised sex industry. The DMSC in India, the well known sex worker rights group, challenged (pimping) laws in court.
So here is an open message to all those who are advocating around sex work law reform. Please use precious advocacy opportunities to support sex workers position that sex work is work. This means that sex workers, like all other workers, need labour rights to reduce their vulnerability including to unscrupulous and abusive service providers and employers. To reach our agreed goal of being governed by labour law not criminal law, organising sex work and employing sex workers must be legal. Please don’t give expression to understandable disdain for the stereotypical violent male pimp by supporting laws against organising commercial sex or providing services and workplaces to sex workers.
There are excellent laws against kidnapping, assault, robbery and rape. Please use precious advocacy opportunities to press States to use them properly to address criminal abuse of sex workers, including by police who are the main perpetrators.
And please, please stop using the term (pimp).
