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Sex workers in Europe have been dramatically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated measures. Ignored by most governments, excluded from social and economic measures put in place to protect other workers, sex workers were left to fend for themselves. The article, an abridged version of a previous report by the ICRSE, illustrates the impact of COVID-19 on sex workers by focusing on how the pandemic affected the socio-economic, health and safety conditions of sex worker communities and how they pro-actively responded to the first waves of the crisis in 2020. Based on data gathered through community research, the authors outline the specific ways in which sex workers living under different sex work legal regimes were hit by the crisis. Crucially, in countries such as France, Sweden and Ireland, where an 'End Demand' legislation is in place to supposedly 'rescue sex workers', these did not benefit from any state support. The article suggests that sex worker community organisations helped limit the spread of the virus through peer support and peer education, protecting not only sex workers' health, but society at large and showing similarities to the role of chaperones of public health sex workers had during the AIDS crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers' Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas found to be working as sex workers are liable to deportation by Immigration New Zealand (INZ). Drawing on original ethnographic and interview data gathered over 24 months of fieldwork, our study finds that migrant sex workers in New Zealand are vulnerable to violence and exploitation, and are too afraid to report these to the police for fear of deportation, corroborating earlier studies and studies completed while we were collecting data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

System-involvement resulting from anti-trafficking interventions and the criminalization of sex work and migration results in negative health impacts on sex workers, migrants, and people with trafficking experiences. Due to their stigmatized status, sex workers and people with trafficking experiences often struggle to access affordable, unbiased, and supportive health care. This paper will use thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with 50 migrant sex workers and trafficked persons, as well as 20 key informants from legal and social services, in New York and Los Angeles. It will highlight the work of trans-specific and sex worker–led initiatives that are internally addressing gaps in health care and the negative health consequences that result from sexual humanitarian anti-trafficking interventions that include policing, arrest, court-involvement, court-mandated social services, incarceration, and immigration detention. Our analysis focuses on the impact of criminalization on sex workers and their experiences with sexual humanitarian efforts intended to protect and control them. We argue that these grassroots community-based efforts are a survival-oriented reaction to the harms of criminalization and a response to vulnerabilities left unattended by mainstream sexual humanitarian approaches to protection and service provision that frame sex work itself as the problem. Peer-to-peer interventions such as these create solidarity and resiliency within marginalized communities, which act as protective buffers against institutionalized systemic violence and the resulting negative health outcomes. Our results suggest that broader public health support and funding for community-led health initiatives are needed to reduce barriers to health care resulting from stigma, criminalization, and ineffective anti-trafficking and humanitarian efforts. We conclude that the decriminalization of sex work and the reform of institutional practices in the US are urgently needed to reduce the overall negative health outcomes of system-involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]