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In the context of a fiercely polarized battle on the correct legal response to prostitution, sex workers and their advocates often advance decriminalization as a policy that can protect rights and provide improved health and safety for those involved in the sex industry. And yet this policy, after an initial implementation in New South Wales in 1995, has failed to gain much legislative support in jurisdictions outside Australia and New Zealand. This article moves beyond normative arguments regarding the benefits and limits of decriminalization. Drawing on governmentality approaches, it asks: What discursive conditions made decriminalization possible? In doing so it examines the construction of sex work as a health problem and the normalization of "sex work," arguing that both can be grounded in a neoliberal problematic of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, red umbrellas have increasingly appeared in campaigns to end violence against sex workers, oppose harmful legislation, advocate for decriminalization, commemorate lost community members, and broadly express sex worker pride. Originating with the work of the artist/activist Tadej Pogačar and the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art's contribution to the 2001 Venice Biennale ("The Prostitute Pavilion"), red umbrellas were originally presented as a visual symbol of self-help, organization, and protection for sex workers. Since then the red umbrella has been adopted and adapted to a broader range of meanings related to sex worker activism, including decriminalization, opposition to antitrafficking discourse, and more. The umbrella has also come to convey the "big tent" concept—that all sex workers are together under its canopy, unified as one coalition. But like any symbol, the red umbrella's use has limitations. The red umbrella risks amplifying negative rhetoric employed by the antitrafficking movement, which casts sex workers as passive victims in need of salvation, or of oversimplifying a complex, multifaceted political movement. The Curated Spaces section of this issue presents a brief history of the red umbrella as a symbol for sex workers' rights and images that demonstrate its varied uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex worker organizations in South Africa have engaged in significant advocacy to eliminate the current laws that criminalize the sale of sexual services there. Advocates argue that criminalization stigmatizes sex workers by labeling their conduct as unlawful, pushing them further to the margins of society, and making it difficult for sex workers to access health and welfare services. They claim that removing the threat of imminent arrest and caging would improve the material conditions under which sex workers live. But South Africa is a nation that struggles with income inequality, and many people live in poverty. There is xenophobia. There is social inequality. There is sexism. Decriminalization of sex work would not eliminate all these systemic problems. However, it might be a necessary first step for sex workers to live in a material world where they feel safer and in better control of their lives: a world where they are free to imagine a better future for themselves without the threat of state confinement for their labor choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no early colonial common law crime of prostitution, yet societal attitudes today would suggest the criminal suppression of sex work is as old as the United States. Contrary to these assumptions, modern state laws criminalizing prostitution are relatively new and little research has been devoted to understanding these laws’ development despite a century-old debate on whether and how to criminalize sex work. The most influential legal authority, Section 251.2 of the Model Penal Code, is one such example. At least twenty jurisdictions have adopted some portion of Section 251.2 in their prostitution-related criminal statutes, but no scholarship has examined its creation. This Article addresses this dearth of knowledge by conducting archival analysis of the drafting process behind Section 251.2 and reviews the four stated rationalizations for criminalizing prostitution: suppressing venereal disease, decreasing organized crime’s profit and power, preventing the corruption of government and law enforcement, and maintaining stability of the home and family. After evaluating available social science research, this Article concludes decriminalizing all aspects of sex work— including sex workers, their clients, and non-exploitative third [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have conducted a lot of research into policies regulating commercial sex. This study is a scoping review aiming to characterize the research field as well as finding research gaps and suggest directions for future research. Nine electronic databases and a key journal (Sexuality Research and Social Policy) were searched using Boolean operators to identify studies containing "prostitution AND policy" or "sex work AND policy" in the title and/or abstract. A total of 3663 studies were identified, and of them, 351 were deemed eligible after duplicates were removed and the title and abstract had been assessed according to the study's inclusion criteria. The studies on sex work policy were often conducted in English-speaking countries, the majority of which were about streetwalkers, criminalization of sex work, and trafficking policies. Interestingly, few empirical studies were conducted and stigmatization was frequently mentioned. There is an unmet need for studies addressing the lived experiences of sex workers under the Swedish Model, as well as studies about migrant sex workers and studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Researchers should direct additional efforts into understanding the lived experiences of sex workers under the Swedish Model as well as into studies covering Africa, Asia, and Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most countries, sex-work is criminalized and frowned upon. This leads to human rights abuses, especially for migrant female sex workers. The burden is heavier on migrant female sex-workers whose gender and foreign citizenship intersect to produce a plethora of adverse health, social, and legal outcomes. This phenomenological study explores the intersectionality of individual factors leading to human rights abuses among migrant Cameroonian female sex workers in N'Djamena, Chad. Ten female sex workers and two key-informants were interviewed, and being a small sample, they gave detailed information about their experiences. The data was later analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants narrated experiences of social exclusion, exposure to diverse abuses, and health risks due to gender, immigrant status, and illegality of sex work. The experiences of female migrant sex workers, within contexts of sex work criminalization, are exacerbated by the intersectionality of these factors. Women endure several vulnerabilities in many African countries, more so when they have to survive on sex work as foreigners in a country where the act is illegal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for decriminalization of sex work in response to recent legislation restricting sex workers' access to online platforms and to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a feminist economic lens, we summarize the current understanding of sex work markets and analyze how agency and stigma are affected by increasingly limited access to online platforms as well as by the social and economic restrictions of COVID-19. We analyze sex work from the point of view of the same labor economics that would be applied to any other industry, rather than as a romanticized or demonized group of sexual deviants, finding destigmatization of the sex work industry as central to the increased agency and well-being of sex workers and their clients. This paper also employs the libertarian philosophy, according to which all acts should be legal except those that employ, or threaten, violence against innocent people. According to this perspective, murder, rape, theft, arson, kidnapping, and fraud, should be prohibited; but, everything else, certainly including sex work, should be decriminalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research study is informed by anticarceral feminism to understand and highlight the experiences of violence and oppression that individuals in the sex trade experience as a result of police stings, raids, and incarceration. We present findings from 23 in-depth, qualitative interviews with men, women, and trans individuals who were arrested in the Los Angeles sex trade. More specifically, we explore experiences of violence that occurred interpersonally, systemically, and institutionally. Such experiences examine police violence, arrest and incarceration, coercion, and client violence. The findings from this research shed light on the impact the criminalization of sex work has had on research participants in terms of their physical health and mental health, economic security and opportunities for growth and education, and their sense of freedom and autonomy. We also attend to the role that intersecting identities might have played during their encounters with the police. This study explored these aspects while being mindful that the policies and procedures followed by the police are born out of a carceral state. We conclude with antioppressive and antiviolent implications for social work practice, policy, research, and education as we imagine the next decade of social work in relation to sex trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the regulation of sex work in South Africa and follows the trajectory of the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) in investigating whether sex work should be decriminalized. The legal regulation of sex work is a hotly contested topic. South Africa currently criminalizes the selling and buying of sex, but policy reform has been on the cards since the SALRC launched its project on the topic in the early 2000s. As most sex work policy responses are grounded in feminist theory, the article analyses the main theoretical ideologies and questions the influence of these ideologies in structuring sex work law reform in the South African context. The author calls for a more inclusive understanding of feminism and sex work, and the need to acknowledge the importance of rights discourse in furthering political growth and protecting sex workers' constitutional rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prostitution is illegal while pornography is constitutionally protected. Modern technology, however, is complicating the relationship between prostitution and pornography. Recent technological advances make the creation and distribution of recorded material more accessible. Within our smart phones we carry agile distribution networks as well as the technical equipment required to produce low-budget films. Today, sex workers may be paid to engage in sexual activities as part of performances that are recorded and broadcast to a public audience. No longer confined to the pornography industry, this form of sexual performance can be created by anyone with a cell phone and access to the internet. In addition, modern popular culture recognizes the expressive value of reality and ordinary life. Technological advances will only continue to make broadcasting and sharing everyday life possible, raising the possibility that there will be a growing audience for, and communities organized around, sexually expressive materials online. This Article is the first to analyze this increasingly important and common phenomenon that it defines as reality porn. It argues that reality porn is pornographic paid sex work that should be accorded First Amendment recognition, notwithstanding the criminalization of the underlying act of prostitution. This Article redefines pornography and provides a framework for analyzing this sexual expression. As long as the conduct is consentable--both consented to in fact and consensual in nature--it should not be deprived of constitutional protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, im/migrant sex workers face stigma, health access barriers, and overlapping marginalisation, with end-demand law reforms in 2014 postulated to exacerbate these inequities. Yet, little quantitative evidence on how immigration status shapes HIV/STI risk exists. Drawing on community-based longitudinal cohort data (AESHA, 2010–2018), we used multivariable confounder models with logistic regression to model (1) the independent effect of precarious immigration status (any status revocable under criminal charges: permanent residency/temporary residency/undocumented) on client condom refusal, and (2) the moderating effect of precarious status on the relationship between condom refusal and exposure to end-demand law reform (2015–2018). Over this 8-year study involving 758 sex workers in Metro Vancouver, 16.0% were im/migrants, of whom 57% had precarious immigration status at baseline. 16.5% of participants experienced client condom refusal. Precarious immigration was associated with increased odds of facing condom refusal (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.37–4.68), and these odds were heightened post-end-demand law reforms (AOR 4.35, 95%CI 1.21–15.66). Our findings suggest that lack of citizenship rights may enhance barriers to safer sex negotiation and increase HIV/STI risk among sex workers, highlighting the need for sex work and immigration policy reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The study shows that apprehensions conducted on the suspicion of a purchase of sex target men purchasing sex from women, regardless of geographical location or arena of the local prostitution market. This support and legitimise a present norm within Swedish prostitution policy, regarding who is buying and who is selling sex. Findings: The results show that the three largest cities in Sweden have been targeted by the police, with a focus on a specific arena of the prostitution market in each city. Because of this, there are local differences in how the law is implemented, creating local consequences for individuals involved in prostitution. However, the results also show that gender and sexual orientation (i.e. heterosexuality) appear to be the two main factors for identifying individuals who are later apprehended on the suspicion of purchasing sex. Application: As certain norms and practices are established and reproduced through the implementation of Swedish prostitution law, professionals within social work, particularly within initiatives targeting individuals buying sex, must consider how this potentially influences their work. In terms of whom they meet, what kind of help and support they offer and what may fall outside the present norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem-solving courts such as prostitution courts are becoming an important feature of the American court landscape. Internationally, while there is a great deal of skepticism regarding problem solving courts, at least five countries (e.g., England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, and Canada) are deliberating whether this "revolutionary panacea" which has swept America's criminal justice system is the right approach for them. Few studies have explored the benefits and challenges of problem solving courts (i.e. prostitution court) using an interprofessional collaborative framework. The purpose of this case study is to examine contemporary issues related to prostitution courts using Bronstein's model of interprofessional collaborative framework which identifies five components that facilitate optimum IPC: 1) interdependence, 2)newly created professional activities, 3)flexibility, 4)collective ownership of goals, and 5) reflection on the process. Some benefits of IPC include working collaboratively, adaptability, adjusting expectations, investment in the process and making changes as needed. Some of the challenges of IPC were coercive power, dual roles, bait and switch, hierarchy, and push for outcomes at the expense of clients. As criminal justice systems nationally and internationally contemplate widespread implementation of different kinds of problem-solving courts, these benefits and challenges need to be considered before states and countries adopt these courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article uses the term sex work throughout its discussion of how history can be used to motivate systemic change. Topics include considered that it discusses the legalization and decriminalization of sex work as paths toward a healthier future and concludes that a global health pandemic is the perfect time for America to consider one of these measures.

In recent years, New York has re-focused on the widely debated topic of how to best manage and regulate prostitution in the United States. As a state-level issue, the debate presents an invaluable opportunity to re-examine how New York as a society views sex work. The answer in New York focuses on the idea that sex work is real work, where workers should be able to carry out their profession without stigma or fear of arrest. As it stands, the proposed reform largely focuses on decriminalizing both the purchase and sale of sex. This approach contrasts with the legal structure in Sweden, which criminalizes only the purchase or the patronizing of prostitution. The New York proposal still criminalizes patronizing prostitution from a minor but offers a mistake-of-age defense thereto. New York should close this loophole with an eye toward the Swedish model and refocus on strictly enforcing the statute against patrons. Such a solution represents a compromise between legitimizing sex work as a legal avenue toward a livelihood, while simultaneously targeting those who most threaten the safety of sex workers outside of law enforcement: male patrons soliciting sex from vulnerable minors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford to strike down criminal law provisions related to the regulation of sex work, the government passed Bill C-36, ultimately reaffirming the project of criminalizing prostitution. Also known as the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), Bill C-36 is part of a global trend that shifts the state's attention away from regulating sex work as a societal nuisance, and instead, puts forth a carceral agenda which situates sex workers as victims of an inherently exploitative and coercive sex trade – pivoting the punitive elements of criminal law onto clients and mythologized profiteers of the sex trade. Focusing on the testimonies of neo-abolitionists leading up to the implementation of Bill C-36, this article critically explores the ways sex work is constituted as a problem of 'trafficking' and how attachments to victimhood allow for renewed criminalization within this new regulatory framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyze the role of the Israeli online arena in attempts to challenge attitudes toward sex work and the sex industry. By exploring the short history of the "feminist sex wars" that are being conducted on public feminist Facebook pages, I ask whether online activism can really avoid being drawn into the realm of conventional offline politics. The article argues that while the various Facebook pages aimed to alter the landscape of political and public discourse around sex work and the sex industry, they were in fact sucked into the vortex of the existing public discourse surrounding sex work in Israel, forcing them to choose sides in the dialectic sex wars. I conclude that they nonetheless succeeded in establishing a "narrative of influence" which should be analyzed beyond the disappointment of specific policy outcomes. Online activism thus becomes a key platform for both the construction and contestation between different narratives within the sex industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whorephobia is the fear or hatred of sex workers. Whorephobia manifests in various ways in official legislation, popular consciousness, the medical literature, law enforcement and public responses to sex work. All aspects of sex work are fully criminalised following its origins in archaic colonial law. International and local literature has documented how the criminal law on adult, consensual sex work renders sex workers vulnerable to murder, rape, exploitation and other forms of violence, while increasing their risk of HIV and other forms of ill health. This vulnerability impacts directly on public health, while making society less safe. Deeply worryingly, recent recommendations from the South African Law Reform Commission (2017) urged the Department of Justice to maintain this status quo. This article explores whorephobia in the South African context through two case studies of violence in Cape Town in 2013: the high-profile criminal case of the artist Zwelethu Mthethwa who kicked sex worker Nokuphila Kumalo to death, and Tim Osrin's assault of domestic worker Cynthia Joni. The analysis provides a critique of the power structures created by the criminal law and draws on the theoretical framework of stigma-mitigating strategies within sex work developed by Weitzer. We conclude by arguing that the criminal law supports the radical dehumanisation of sex workers which contributes to manifestations of extreme hatred in the form of hate crimes and torture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Building on a broader sociological discourse around policing approaches towards vulnerable populations, increasing public health and human rights evidence points to policing practices as a key health determinant, particularly among street-based sex workers. Despite the importance of policing as a structural health determinant, few studies have sought to understand the factors that underlie and shape harmful policing practices towards sex workers. This study therefore aimed to explore the drivers for policing attitudes and practices towards street-based cisgender female sex workers. Methods: Drawing on ethnographic methods, 280 h of observations with police patrol and 10 stakeholder interviews with senior police leadership in Baltimore City, USA were carried out to better understand the drivers for policing strategies towards cisgender female sex workers. Analysis was data- and theory-driven, drawing on the concepts of police culture and complementary criminological and sociological literature that aided exploration of the influence of the ecological and structural environment on policing practices. Results: Ecological factors at the structural (e.g., criminalization), organizational (e.g., violent crime control), community and individual level (e.g., stigmatizing attitudes) emerged as key to shaping individual police practices and attitudes towards cisgender female sex workers in this setting. Findings indicate senior police support for increased alignment with public health and human rights goals. However, the study highlights that interventions need to move beyond individual officer training and address the broader structural and organizational setting in which harmful police practices towards sex work operate. Conclusions: A more in-depth understanding of the circumstances that drive law enforcement approaches to street-based sex work is critical to the collaborative design of interventions with police in different settings. In considering public health-police partnerships to address the rights and health of sex worker populations in the U.S. and elsewhere, this study supports existing calls for decriminalization of sex work, supported by institutional and policy reforms, neighborhood-level dialogues that shift the cultural landscape around sex work within both the police and larger community, and innovative individual-level police trainings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the hierarchy, or whorearchy, in sex work and the use of webcamming in prostitution and the sociopolitical discourse about sex work and prostitutes as victims. Topics discussed are history and popularity of webcamming and the camgirl industry, society's attitude towards prostitution in the U.S. and its criminalization versus legalization, and the legality of webcamming as opposed to the non-legalization of prostitution.

Despite hundreds of thousands of individuals currently living in modern slavery within the United States, there are relatively few active human trafficking cases in the United States, and efforts to combat trafficking tend to overemphasize the trafficking of foreign nationals and focus too intensely on prosecution, and not prevention, efforts. In order to more effectively reduce sex trafficking within the United States, states should move away from the criminalization of sex work, which prevents victims from seeking assistance from or offering information to authorities. Rather than full decriminalization, which could lead to an inflation of demand for trafficking along with all commercial sex in general, states should instead explore regulatory policies regulatory policies which would protect the rights of sex workers and reduce the stigma surrounding sex work, while also actively working against an increase in the incidence of trafficking. However, in order for this to be a viable policy option for decisionmakers, there needs to be a shift in the American public away from examining prostitution as a "morality policy," either through an acknowledgment that commercial sex is not an inherently immoral act or that personal moral bounds should not dictate law. Overall, this paper seeks to demonstrate the failure of the United States' current actions against sex trafficking and highlight how prostitution policy can be altered to combat this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frontline service providers are often tasked with providing services to criminalized populations, including individuals involved in the sex trade. These providers have been working to transform services to this population, proposing what they believe to be socially just responses in helping individuals in the sex trade transition from "criminals" to a "victims." While frontline service providers have been advocating for trauma-informed and compassionate responses to working with individuals involved in the sex trade, they regularly temper this work with collaboration with law enforcement, propagating carceral (punishment-oriented) logics in order to "protect" vulnerable clients. This qualitative study, completed in a Midwestern U.S. state, used interviews with 30 frontline service providers who work with individuals in the sex trade to understand service providers' perceptions around their work with this population, and how this shapes collaborations with law enforcement. Findings reveal that as most frontline service providers assume that individual trauma and drug use are present in the sex trade, these individual characteristics have legitimated paternalistic service responses provided in collaboration with law enforcement. However, a minority of frontline service providers denounce these collaborations as harmful to their clients, revealing that responses to law enforcement are not homogenous across service providers. I conclude by discussing what these law enforcement–social service collaborations mean for the social work profession and provide a discussion of alternative methods to work with individuals in the sex trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues on human trafficking and prostitution, particularly on why the U.S. should use the Palermo protocol in judging other countries' efforts to fight trafficking and consider the impact of legalized prostitution on trafficking. Also cited are the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, and the U.S.' four-tier system of rating the human trafficking prevention efforts by other countries.

Sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking in which a trafficker compels a victim to engage in commercial sex acts. Traffickers often control victims using physical violence, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, isolation, and by introducing victims to illegal drugs. Throughout the course of their victimization, many victims of sex trafficking experience such distress that they turn to drugs to cope or steal to meet their basic needs. Unfortunately, the trauma of trafficking is prolonged and exacerbated when victims are prosecuted for and convicted of crimes they committed as a direct result of trafficking. In addition to prostitution convictions, many victims of trafficking accrue criminal records for "collateral" offenses such as drug possession, theft, disorderly conduct, or weapons offenses. When victims of trafficking have criminal records, they encounter barriers to housing and employment, subjecting victims to lives of poverty, which increases their risk of being re-trafficked. Wisconsin provides victims of sex trafficking with two forms of decriminalization: (1) an affirmative defense to avoid conviction of any crime committed as a direct result of being a victim of trafficking and (2) a pathway for victims of sex trafficking to expunge or vacate prostitution convictions that were a result of being trafficked. Both pathways are insufficient remedies for victims because victim identification is poor and, more importantly, only prostitution convictions are eligible for vacatur or expungement, which leaves victims with criminal records for the collateral crimes they committed as a direct result of being a victim of sex trafficking. Wisconsin should expand its vacatur statute for victims of trafficking to allow victims to vacate or expunge any nonviolent conviction committed as a direct result of being a victim of trafficking. Moreover, an expansion of the vacatur statute for victims of trafficking would better protect victims and help them to reintegrate into life outside of trafficking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, Amnesty International joined over 200 sex worker organisations in the call for nations to decriminalise sex work. Despite this, only two jurisdictions in the world, New Zealand and New South Wales (NSW; Australia), have adopted this approach. This article examines the role that sex worker activists played in sex work law reform in NSW through their representative organisation, the Australian Prostitutes Collective (APC). The APC produced and submitted groundbreaking research to the Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Assembly on Prostitution (1983-1986) whose recommendations laid the foundation for the decriminalisation of sex work in NSW. This article contributes to a developing history of the contribution of sex worker activism to law reform. It explores why it is so important that sex worker voices are included in the process of reform, and how meaningful consultation with sex workers helped shape and invoke a radical policy and legal transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an Editorial, Ligia Kiss and Cathy Zimmerman discuss the need for research on the prevention of human trafficking and mitigation of its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sex workers are at disproportionate risk of violence and sexual and emotional ill health, harms that have been linked to the criminalisation of sex work. We synthesised evidence on the extent to which sex work laws and policing practices affect sex workers' safety, health, and access to services, and the pathways through which these effects occur.Methods and Findings: We searched bibliographic databases between 1 January 1990 and 9 May 2018 for qualitative and quantitative research involving sex workers of all genders and terms relating to legislation, police, and health. We operationalised categories of lawful and unlawful police repression of sex workers or their clients, including criminal and administrative penalties. We included quantitative studies that measured associations between policing and outcomes of violence, health, and access to services, and qualitative studies that explored related pathways. We conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the average effect of experiencing sexual/physical violence, HIV or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and condomless sex, among individuals exposed to repressive policing compared to those unexposed. Qualitative studies were synthesised iteratively, inductively, and thematically. We reviewed 40 quantitative and 94 qualitative studies. Repressive policing of sex workers was associated with increased risk of sexual/physical violence from clients or other parties (odds ratio [OR] 2.99, 95% CI 1.96-4.57), HIV/STI (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.60-2.19), and condomless sex (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.03-1.94). The qualitative synthesis identified diverse forms of police violence and abuses of power, including arbitrary arrest, bribery and extortion, physical and sexual violence, failure to provide access to justice, and forced HIV testing. It showed that in contexts of criminalisation, the threat and enactment of police harassment and arrest of sex workers or their clients displaced sex workers into isolated work locations, disrupting peer support networks and service access, and limiting risk reduction opportunities. It discouraged sex workers from carrying condoms and exacerbated existing inequalities experienced by transgender, migrant, and drug-using sex workers. Evidence from decriminalised settings suggests that sex workers in these settings have greater negotiating power with clients and better access to justice. Quantitative findings were limited by high heterogeneity in the meta-analysis for some outcomes and insufficient data to conduct meta-analyses for others, as well as variable sample size and study quality. Few studies reported whether arrest was related to sex work or another offence, limiting our ability to assess the associations between sex work criminalisation and outcomes relative to other penalties or abuses of police power, and all studies were observational, prohibiting any causal inference. Few studies included trans- and cisgender male sex workers, and little evidence related to emotional health and access to healthcare beyond HIV/STI testing.Conclusions: Together, the qualitative and quantitative evidence demonstrate the extensive harms associated with criminalisation of sex work, including laws and enforcement targeting the sale and purchase of sex, and activities relating to sex work organisation. There is an urgent need to reform sex-work-related laws and institutional practices so as to reduce harms and barriers to the realisation of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regardless of primary population served, human service organizations are likely to come into contact with individuals who have been currently or formerly involved in the sex trade. In the United States, social workers have had a fraught history with this population, either treating them like delinquents or like victims in need of rescue. Sex worker activists in the United States continue to decry the negative treatment provided by individuals in the helping professions, even as harm reduction, the practice of reducing the harm of risky behaviors, has entered the service provision lexicon as an antidote to abstinence-only services. This article uses qualitative interviews with managers of human service organizations in the city of Chicago to determine how they think about their work with sex workers and how they perceive the proposed solutions to “fixing” the sex trade: abolitionism and decriminalization. Findings show that despite the dominant discourse of abolitionism in the United States, most of managers in this project believe full decriminalization of sex work will best assist their sex worker clients. Future research needs to understand how this finding holds in different settings and how this affects current efforts to advocate for decriminalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American law has historically treated prostitution as a victimless crime, a moral trespass between two consenting individuals, rather than a potential act of violence, a product of fraud or coercion. However, growing awareness of the international sex-trafficking epidemic has brought long-settled prostitution law once more under the critical eye of academics and lawmakers as a potential tool in curbing the stillgrowing demand for illicit commercial sex. Whether prostitution law reform may in fact be effective remains a matter of academic debate in the United States; however, such reform has gained substantial ground abroad, with compelling results. This Note argues for "demand-centric" prostitution law reform in the United States that prioritizes enforcement efforts and sentencing against pimps and purchasers of commercial sex. Moreover, this Note argues that Texas, already a pioneer of late in state prostitution and sex-trafficking legislative reform, is the ideal jurisdiction to initiate such legal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the social stigma associated with sex workers and the conditions necessary for eliminating them. Topics include the types of sex workers who face social stigmas, how the legal system can bring about change, and the challenges faced by activists in bringing about destigmatization of sex workers.

Sex workers have reported a history of stigma associated with their identity and labor, which has resulted in numerous barriers to justice, social services, and healthcare. The current study aimed to experimentally investigate the effects of sex work stigma on observers’ victim blame and empathy toward sexual assault survivors. The participants included 197 undergraduate students from the Midwestern US who were randomly assigned to read a newspaper article reporting a sexual assault in which the victim’s identity was manipulated as a sex worker or a non-sex worker between the conditions. Results indicated participants assigned to the article describing the rape of a sex worker responded to the article with statistically less victim empathy and more victim blame than participants who read an article describing the rape of a non-sex worker. Integrating stigma theory and qualitative research on sex work stigma, the implications of the results demonstrate a significant barrier sex workers may face within the criminal justice system when reporting acts of violence against them. Recommendations for sex work decriminalization, changing the conversation of academic discourse on sex work, and educational initiatives are proposed to reduce the stigma of this marginalized population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, attention has increasingly shifted towards the buyers rather than those who provide sexual services. At the same time women involved in prostitution are increasingly coming to be seen as victims in need of support rather than offenders deserving punishment. This article aims to deconstruct the notion of male ‘demand’ for commercialized female sexual services and examines some of the measures that have been adopted in different countries to address and reduce this form of demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most governments in the world, including the U.S., prohibit sex work. Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offences, and sexually transmitted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offences fall by 30% and female gonorrhoea incidence declines by over 40%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in tourism in popular destinations often leads to a growing need for various services, including sex-related services, which can exacerbate or accelerate social problems in the host community. Although often addressed in tourism studies within broad-ranging social impact research, prostitution in tourism destinations deserves independent investigation due to its complex nature. This study was conducted to investigate the opinions of Macau residents on prostitution and related social issues. We collected data using a questionnaire, which revealed the following results. Respondents tended to regard prostitution as a permanent part of the Macau community and believed that the likelihood of the government being able to eliminate prostitution through legislation was extremely low. Their perceptions of prostitution could be placed within the dichotomy of deviance and normativeness. Regarding prostitution as a normative existence was positively related to the acceptance of sex tourism. A tolerance of negative tourism impacts was associated with residents’ perceived quality of life. We ultimately draw conclusions from these findings and consider their implications for government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out a women’s human rights approach to the legal regulation of sex work developed through an analysis of feminist perspectives, international human rights standards—in particular, the approach of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979 (CEDAW)—and the voices of female sex workers within India. It categorises sex work into four legal models, namely, prohibition which criminalises all aspects of the sex trade, partial decriminalisation which criminalises only those who force women into sex work and those who trade in under-age sex workers, social control legalisation which decriminalises but regulates the sex trade with the aim of containing through (often punitive) restrictions, and finally pro-work which approaches sex work as valid employment by extending the legal and human rights of other workers to sex workers. The article places India’s current regulatory framework into the prohibition model and argues that the legal response to sex work that most closely accords with a women’s human rights approach is partial decriminalisation coupled with a pro-work model. Although the introduction of this model in India poses considerable challenges, it has the greatest capacity to first, reduce the crime and corruption that surrounds the sex trade; second, to enhance, promote and protect public health and third, provide appropriate legal and human rights protection to sex workers as international obligations require. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present the German Hurenbewegung ('Whores' Movement'). I will explain the circumstances under which the first self-help groups for prostitutes and their supporters have formed since 1980, examining how they worked as a network while introducing the journals they published, which are used as primary sources in this historical overview. I will shed light on the claims the movement made and on the forms of its political action and examine how it argued for prostitutes' legal and social equality. Focal points include their activism and, specifically, how the activists dealt with HIV, which became an important issue in the 1980s. The exchange with political parties in the 1990s intended to promote legal reform will be described, as will the movement's reaction to the new prostitutions law of 2002; a reform which was influenced by the sex workers' movement, as I discuss. In these years of activism the Hurenbewegung became institutionalised, and its focus shifted from political to social work. I will explore the circumstances which caused this shift, as well as the consequences that followed. Additionally, I will shortly demonstrate that there is a close link to feminist movements and give a very brief outlook on current activities by prostitutes in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex work policy is a highly contentious topic. Various political approaches attempt to repress it, restrict it, or integrate it. This paper canvasses repressive approaches, restrictive approaches and the New Zealand model, which decriminalises sex work. The latter is then examined through a human rights lens, with five specific human rights discussed: the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, the right to safety, the right to respect for private and family life, the right to freedom of association, and the right to health. This is accompanied by an examination of how the New Zealand judiciary have used the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 and other laws to protect and promote the rights, welfare and health and safety of sex workers. The article concludes by expressing a hope that the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 and New Zealand case law can serve as precedent for other jurisdictions when considering sex work law and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, New Zealand passed the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA), becoming the first country in the world to decriminalise sex work. Aotearoa/New Zealand's model of decriminalisation is internationally regarded as an ideal model for prioritising sex workers' rights and safety, and is understood to have had several positive impacts in these areas. The decriminalised model is often described as 'full decriminalisation', to distinguish it from legal frameworks which decriminalise sex workers while still criminalising clients and/or third parties. However, an infrequently discussed aspect of the Aotearoa/New Zealand model of 'full' decriminalisation is that it prohibits migrant sex work as an anti-trafficking measure. In this paper I discuss the contradictory nature of Aotearoa/New Zealand's sex work law in relation to the precarious legal status of migrant sex workers. I explore the disconnect between the intention and consequences of this policy, outlining the challenges this poses for sex workers, and those committed to the full realisation of sex worker rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a risk environment framework to qualitatively examine pathways into substance use and abuse among Mexican female sex workers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Life history interviews and ethnographic observations were conducted with female sex workers to uncover how the border context shapes patterns of substance use. The findings illustrate that, for many women, initiation into sex work is contextualized within immigration, the global economy, and demands and desire for financial autonomy. Paradoxically, many find autonomy within sex work as they increase their ability to support their families and themselves. As women become more entrenched in sex work, however, they are put on a path toward substance abuse beginning with alcohol then cocaine and heroin. This identification of specific substance use pathways and trajectories has important implications for the development of prevention and intervention programs that can help curtail problematic drug use that can lead to negative health consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, states have tended to opt for one of three prostitution policy regimes: prohibition, regulation or the abolition of state regulation with a view to providing social support to the individuals involved. This is the approach France has espoused since 1960. Nevertheless, while the state has remained committed to abolitionism, the policies and laws adopted in the name of French abolitionism have varied considerably. This coexistence of stability and change challenges current assumptions of how policy regimes behave and evolve. This is because internal policy change suggests that the regime is weak, and weak regimes that experience strong political challenges are assumed to wither away or collapse. Consequently, this article presents the historical case study of contemporary French prostitution policy, and seeks to explain how and why this policy regime has changed the way it has since World War II. It describes the three phases that have contributed to the evolution of policy in this area, from sex workers’ rights protests in the mid 1970s, to the introduction of a demand-side ban on prostitution in 2016. In doing so, it explains how strong commitment to policy ideas can help sustain an otherwise weak or ineffective policy regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the laws governing sex work in India. Topics discussed include an account of trafficking laws and policies in the country for regulating trafficking Victim with the sex worker such as Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act; reformation of the sex work industry; and an account of sex work and labor rights in the country.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the leaders of the quarter-century-old Women With A Vision (WWAV) collective launched a coordinated campaign to expose and challenge the criminalization of Black cisgender and transgender women working in New Orleans' street-based economies. For the simple act of trading sex for money to survive, hundreds were convicted of a felony-level Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS) and forced to register as sex offenders for periods of fifteen years to life. After five years of organizing, WWAV successfully overturned the statute, thereby securing the removal of more than 800 people from the Louisiana sex offender registry list. This article brings a fine-grained analysis to WWAV's process of organizing against CANS in order to trace the making of this criminalization crisis and to clarify the terrain of the organization's victory. It argues that WWAV organized through a distinct southern Black feminist tradition in order to disrupt the use of CANS as a technology of post-Katrina predatory policing. By refusing their erasure from the city of their birth, WWAV staff and participants not only rendered visible the mundane terror of targeted criminalization against Black women; they also opened new horizons for Black feminist struggle and collective liberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses Jonathan Simon’s concept of ‘governing through crime’ as a framework to argue that the state has framed sex work, and its surrounding problems, as issues of crime. There has been a privileging and proliferation of criminal justice responses to sex work in England and Wales, at the expense of more social or welfare-based responses and at the expense of creating safer environments for sex workers to work. Criminal law is used to manage and control sex work, to reinforce other policies, such as immigration and border control, and to appear to be doing something about the ‘problem’ of sex work without providing rights to sex workers. By framing sex work as an issue of crime, with sex workers being both the perpetrators of crime and the potential victims of exploitative crime, the state is able to legitimise its actions against sex workers, while ignoring the harm done to sex workers by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]