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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]

While sex work has been incrementally decriminalized in New York City, statutes that criminalize some forms of sex work remain good law in New York City and generate potentially life-altering penalties for sex workers who are arrested or convicted under these laws. This leads to complications for sex workers who seek to rent apartments. The New York City Human Rights Law, the City's anti-discrimination statute, does not offer explicit protection to sex workers against housing discrimination, and two criminal laws penalize property owners for allowing sex work to occur on or near their premises. This Note explores the shortcomings of the New York City Human Rights Law as it applies to housing discrimination faced by sex workers, and names the dangers faced by sex workers whose landlords are criminally penalized for allowing sex work to occur on or near their properties. It emphasizes that the sex workers most likely to be criminalized and shut out of housing are Black and brown women who perform street-based work. This Note's solution is the decriminalization of sex work in all aspects. Doing so is one straightforward way to improve sex workers' access to housing, as nearly every rental application requires a criminal background check. This Note calls attention to current legislation that would decriminalize sex work in New York City, and other legislation that would allow sex workers to clear their criminal convictions. As an alternative solution, this Note suggests that criminal background checks be prohibited in housing applications, a step that would remove a major hurdle to obtaining safe, stable housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania is a major source country of labor migration to other EU countries, being commonly perceived as a source country for sex workers operating in more prosperous economies. However, very little is known about population attitudes in relation to prostitution in Romania. Based on nationally representative data from the Romanian Gender Barometer (2018) survey, we analyzed data on 860 individuals to examine the predictors of policy preferences for legalizing prostitution. We considered individual-level socio-demographics and household-level indicators such as the presence of children and migrants, as well as socio-cultural beliefs and behaviors related to social liberalism and religiosity. The findings suggest that male gender and higher education are strong predictors of preferences for the legalization of prostitution. However, living in a household with migrants and attending church regularly were negatively associated with the legalizing policy option. Moreover, social liberalism-expressed as both favorable attitudes toward the introduction of sex education in school curriculum, and as a rejection of traditional gender roles-increased the odds of supporting the legalization of prostitution. The interaction between presence of children under 18 in the household and respondents' occupational status also revealed a significant effect. Such findings are relevant in order to correctly develop and orient prostitution policy in a way that works for citizens. [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]

The article explains the rationale behind the violation of the U.S. sex work regulation on the international law. Topics mentioned include the issues concerning the sex work trade, the partial legalization of sex work in Nevada, the ways on how the U.S. can comply with the internal legal obligations, the inability of the U.S. government to provide women's rights, the protection of citizens from despotism, and the success and failures in legal advocacy for sex workers' rights.

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 article highlights the value of sex positivity as a framework for thinking about law and demonstrates this value by applying a sex positive legal approach to the regulation of sex work in Australia. This article begins by explaining sex positivity, identifying its central principles and responding to some of the criticisms of it. It then charts the emergence of a distinct line of sex positive thinking within legal commentary, catalogues sex positivity’s various uses for legal analysis and explores what the sex positive commitment to sexual autonomy means in terms of law. This article ends by generating a series of reform proposals for sex work regulation in Australia that model the operationalisation of sex positive legal thinking in practice. Ultimately, this article argues that the adoption of sex positive legal thinking allows law to contribute towards the development of a society in which access, information, resources, decision-making and accountability around sex are better facilitated and more equitably facilitated across social groups. In terms of the regulation of sex work in Australia, this would involve not just decriminalisation but also sweeping legal reforms around education, access, work and oppressive social structures. [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]

Researchers examining prostitution and trafficking in the sex industry have polarized views on the consequences of the legalization of prostitution. Some researchers have asserted that prostitution is hardly a choice, alluding to the possibility that most incidents of prostitution occur due to force, fraud, or exploitation. Others have argued that the prohibition of prostitution leads to the creation of underground markets for trafficking for sexual exploitation. Relatedly, it has been suggested that a likely solution to the problem of trafficking in the sex industry is the legalization of prostitution. As calls for legalization increase, it becomes pertinent to examine the likely unanticipated consequences of legalization before large scale legalization is implemented in multiple countries across the globe. The current study utilizes an overarching norms-based approach to identify potential unintended consequences at both macro as well as micro levels. [End Page 659] [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]

In the United States, child sex trafficking has run rampant for decades. Minors who are in poverty or apart of the foster care system are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking. Despite the fact that these children are victims of their traffickers, states across the nation have consistently detained and charged sex trafficked minors with prostitution and related offenses, and in more grave circumstances, murder. This Article examines the notable. recent case involving child sex trafficking victim, Cyntoia Brown, and identifies the necessity to implement robust Safe Harbor laws in each state throughout the country. Adopting Safe Harbor laws will decrease prosecution of minor child sex trafficking victims for prostitution and related offenses, and increase rehabilitation services to prevent recidivism of victims. [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]

Commonly reported sex trafficking indicators have been disseminated widely by government and non-governmental organizations in trainings aimed to increase identification and referral to resources. However, very little research evaluates such indicators. Drawing from survey responses of 86 social service providers, health care practitioners, and justice system officials in a Midwestern City, this pilot study aimed to examine: (a) the pervasiveness of the commonly reported indicators, (b) the salience of domains of indicators, and (c) the extent to which indicators differ across service populations (U.S.-born minors, U.S.-born adults, foreign born minors, and foreign born adults). The most commonly identified indicators included mental health symptoms of depression (M = 3.82); low self-esteem (M = 3.59); anxiety (M = 3.55); low levels of interpersonal trust (M = 3.52); sense of fear (M = 3.36); feelings of shame or guilt (M =3.34); isolation from family, friends, and communities (M = 3.3); and fear/distrust of law enforcement (M = 3.80). The least commonly identified indicators included exhibiting low English proficiency (M = 1.62), previous history of loitering charges (M = 1.74), presenting false documents (M = 1.85), presence of tattoos or branding (M = 1.89), presenting delayed cognitive development (M = 1.91), being unaware of one's location (M = 1.94), owing large debt (M = 1.95), previous history of prostitution or drug charges (M = 1.98, M = 2.01), and physical evidence of torture (M = 2.07). The mental health domain was identified as especially common among U.S.-born adults (M = 3.07). Criminal justice involvement was identified as less common among foreign-born minors (M = 1.82) and foreign-born adults (M = 1.96). The most commonly identified indicators, according to the service providers, health care workers, and justice system officials who work with them, are inconsistent with many of the indicators that are used frequently across governmental and community trainings. Trainings focusing on diverse case examples of trafficking may be important in strengthening identification of sex trafficked individuals, as well as accounting for regional contexts. [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]

Usage of the phrase "modern day slavery" to describe human trafficking, especially sex trafficking, is widespread despite work by numerous scholars and activists to point out how such usage harms attempts to remedy both slavery and trafficking. In order to more clearly recognize the continuing harms of this usage, it is imperative that we know its history. This Article describes two origin points in American law, the 1875 Page Act and the 1910 White Slave Traffic Act, that can be understood as the precursors to contemporary usage of "modern day slavery" as well as to contemporary usage of criminal and immigration law to address trafficking. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, claims of a "new slavery" that was depicted as "worse" than chattel slavery were used to create restrictive, racialized immigration laws and racialized federal policing of domestic movement that in fact exacerbated the harms of chattel slavery while also expanding the reach of anti-Asian stereotypes and solidifying white supremacy in the structure of U.S. government. This same impact continues with the use of "modern day slavery" language today. By examining the rhetoric used by activists and politicians in both 1875 and 1910, this Article illustrates how contemporary usage of "modern day slavery" upholds and furthers the white supremacist tropes and racist stereotypes created to justify immigration restriction in 1875 and federal criminalization of Black and immigrant men in 1910. Further, this Article shows how these white supremacist stereotypes were used immediately after the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments and into the early 20th century toward the same ends that they are often used toward today in discussions of human trafficking. First, to claim that slavery is most importantly a harm to whiteness and that redressing the continuing impact of hundreds of years of enslavement of Africans and African Americans must be put aside in order to address the ostensibly more urgent impact of "modern day slavery" fashioned as a harm to white women. Second, to solidify U.S. imperialism and racial capitalism through anti-Asian stereotypes depicting Asian women as vulnerable and submissive and Asian people as the source of contagious illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring of 2018, Congress passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA), which combined a House bill of the same name with provisions from a Senate bill, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA).1 FOSTA as passed makes changes to three federal statutory schemes: the Communications Decency Act (Section 230), the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and the Mann Act. Congressmembers claimed FOSTA would fix loopholes in those statutory schemes through which they believed websites such as Backpage.com had avoided liability for sex trafficking. This Article analyzes the legal reality of FOSTA, fully exploring its changes to the Mann Act and the TVPA in context along with the more broadly discussed changes to Section 230. When contextualized, the changes to 230 are far less broad than initially reported, with a strict textual reading of the amendments resulting in relatively little change to immunity in most circumstances. The new criminal provisions, on the other hand, have the potential to criminalize vast amounts of speech and advocacy. This Article is the first piece to comprehensively analyze the scope of all of these various components of the law. What it finds is that the legal effects of FOSTA have been far outstripped by its policy outcomes. More than two years after its passage, only one prosecution has been brought under the new criminal provision, and very few lawsuits have been brought against online platforms for sex trafficking, despite a lack the lack of immunity. However, FOSTA has had widespread effects on internet companies. Social media, video messaging, and other online communication platforms have changed their terms of service, categorically excluding people in the sex trades and people profiled as being in the sex trades. Though these actions by internet companies may be more restrictive than is necessary to avoid liability under the new law, much remains unclear because of the lack of judicial interpretation and the law's lack of clarity. What is clear is that these changes have and will continue to make working in the sex trades more dangerous, reducing workers' access to harm reduction methods and safety information, causing more workers to work outdoors, increasing stigma, and decreasing workers' access to online spaces that enabled organizing and self-advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada (AG) v Bedford, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a landmark decision unanimously striking down Canada's prostitution laws, finding that they violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In response, Parliament enacted the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), making prostitution itself unlawful for the first time in Canada. This paper considers the published peer-reviewed empirical evidence about prostitution, sex work, and sex trafficking in Canada since the PCEPA was enacted. Canada's new policy approach focusses on the activity of prostitution rather than on the interests of sex workers, based in part on claims that prostitution cannot be made safe and is inconsistent with a gender equal society. This paper argues that the body of peer-reviewed empirical scholarship identified reflects what policy studies scholars call "issue bias" by failing to account for all of the populations and concerns in the contemplation of Parliament in enacting the new policy. The paper is organized into four parts. First, the author describes Canada's new policy approach to prostitution. Second, the author sets out the methodology used to identify scholarly empirical literature on the topic. The author considers the scope of the peer-reviewed empirical literature and identifies areas in need of future research. These include, among others: the experiences of individuals who engage in prostitution as a result of trafficking; information on individuals who have exited prostitution; the impact of prostitution on females and on communities where prostitution takes place; and more comprehensive geographic coverage. Lastly, the author argues that what is known about prostitution, sex work, and sex trafficking in Canada remains incomplete, with the empirical knowledge demonstrating issue bias. The author holds that this issue bias occurs as the peer-reviewed literature does not meaningfully include some populations and concerns in the contemplation of Parliament in choosing its current policy approach. The author concludes with observations about future empirical research to fill the gaps in knowledge about sex work and prostitution, and how to ensure the legitimacy of the court processes in which this evidence is used. [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]

In the first decade of the new Italian Republic (1948–1958), debate over the abolition of regulated prostitution, or state-controlled prostitution, led to the re-emergence of anthropological and scientific-medical theories regarding the origins of criminalisation of prostitutes. The notion of biological predetermination of the prostitute, codified by Cesare Lombroso at the end of the nineteenth century, impacted the political-institutional and scientific-medical debate surrounding the Merlin law which, in 1958, ordered the suppression of the 'closed houses'. The Italian state invoked biological predeterminism to legitimise a double-standard sexual moral code that required the existence of repressive institutions in which to marginalise a category of women dedicated to the sale of sex. This article shows how Italian public institutions, in a strategic alliance with the scientific-medical world, constructed discriminatory policies that materialised in forms of physical and moral mortification, denying women the fundamental rights enshrined in the new Italian Republican Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine how men who sell sex to men perceive the risks in this activity and what experiences they have of actual denigration, threats, and violence in their relations with customers. We also discuss the self-defense strategies they have used to protect themselves. The study is based on an Internet survey on Swedish websites. Statistical analyses have been carried out, and in interpreting the results, Finkelhor and Asdigian's revised routine activities theory has been used. The results show that the vulnerability of sellers of sex is greatest during the time when the sexual act is being performed, and that this is primarily linked to the customer's antagonism and seeking gratification by overstepping agreed boundaries, particularly with regard to sexual services including BDSM. Their vulnerability was also connected to the seller's diminished capacity for self-protection due to personal and external pressures. A smaller proportion of the men described risk prevention activities. These involved refusing a customer after an initial contact, protecting themselves from infection, being on their guard during the whole process, selecting the place, and deciding not to carry out certain sexual acts. An important implication concerns the occupational health and safety that men who sell sex to men can develop for themselves, while remaining within the law. International studies have demonstrated that selling sex in collective, indoor forms provides the greatest security. For decades, Swedish prostitution policy has had the ambition of reducing prostitution through targeting those who purchase sex, and those who promote prostitution in criminal legislation. This effectively prevents more systematic and collective attempts to create safer conditions for selling sex. In conclusion, it can be stated that while it is legal to sell sex in Sweden, this is done at the seller's own risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have recently increased their efforts to find more effective strategies to reduce the gap between the production of academic knowledge and its uptake in policy and practice. We focus attention on sex workers in Canada who have limited access to societal resources and are hampered by punitive laws prohibiting their work. The initial aim of our study was to work with sex worker organizations and allied agencies to develop a training program for sex workers to help them understand Canada's most recent criminal justice approach to adult sex commerce. What has emerged from our integrated knowledge translation process during the first year of the study's operation has been a change to a broader focus on mobilizing sex workers around their occupational and social rights. In this paper, we first give an overview of recent changes in Canada's prostitution laws and then report qualitative findings from interviews with members of our partner organizations. Interviewees appreciated the change in research direction and the emergent collaborative process among themselves and the authors, but also noted challenges regarding shifting research timelines, balancing power between themselves and the academic researchers, and reaching consensus on research plans among community partners themselves. We discuss the findings in relation to successful knowledge translation strategies that aim to ensure the research questions we ask, and the empirical processes we engage in, are advantageous to those we aim to benefit. [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]

Sex workers globally face high levels of violence. In Canada, im/migrant sex workers who work in indoor venues may be uniquely targeted by police due to immigration policies, racialized policing, and the conflation of trafficking and sex work. In 2014, Canada passed end-demand legislation that purportedly encourages sex workers to report violence to police; however, little research has evaluated its impact. Using interrupted time series and multivariable logistic regression, we examined proportions of reporting violent incidents to police among sex workers who had experienced workplace violence (2010-2017), including potential changes prior to and following end-demand legislation. We then modeled the independent effects of im/migrant status and place of work on reporting violence. Among sex workers who experienced recent violence during the 7.5-year study (n=367), 38.2% of all participants and 12.7% of im/migrants reported violence to police, and there was no significant change in violence reporting after end-demand legislation. Our results suggest that end-demand laws do not remove barriers to justice faced by sex workers and instead actually perpetuate harms, particularly for racialized im/migrant and indoor workers. Policy reforms to decriminalize sex work, address discriminatory policing, and promote access to safety and justice are urgently needed. [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 the late 1970s, a campaign was mounted to reform the legal landscape faced by sex workers, which had remained unaltered since a series of recommendations made in the Wolfenden Report were implemented by the government two decades earlier. While Wolfenden is commonly associated with the arrival of Britain's 'permissive' 1960s, when it came to the issue of prostitution, it helped usher in even more restrictive conditions for sex workers. This article looks at attempts to challenge this status quo by focusing on the Programme for the Reform of the Law on Soliciting (PROS), which was founded in Birmingham in 1976 and became one of the most visible groups advocating for a change in the law. Its activities culminated with the 1982 Criminal Justice Act, which ostensibly abandoned the policy of imprisoning prostitutes on soliciting offences. The case of PROS, I argue, offers a further reminder of the afterlife of the liberalizing ethos associated with the 1960s. Moreover, it provides a different way of engaging with a historical conjuncture more commonly associated with themes such as rising individualism, the fragmentation of left-wing activism, and the arrival of Thatcherism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) has provoked criticism from free-speech advocates, people involved in the commercial sex trade, everyday internet users, and scholars who deem the Act dangerous and ineffective. This Note helps to explain how such a controversial law came to be. Indeed, FOSTA is part of a legacy of failed attempts at reforming laws to comport with feminist goals--in this case, ending online sex trafficking and providing relief for sex-trafficking survivors, a group that consists largely of women and other marginalized people. But FOSTA, like its predecessors, fails to provide real relief to its intended beneficiaries. Instead, it falls into the trap of punitiveness by prioritizing punishing offenders over providing meaningful relief for sextrafficking survivors. By shifting the focus away from punitiveness and toward actual aid, this Note proposes a solution that helps sex-trafficking survivors without endangering free internet speech, consensual sex workers, or others currently affected by FOSTA's speech restrictions. This solution accords with both First Amendment doctrine and much of the feminist consensus on improving the lives of women, girls, and other marginalized communities. [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]

What was the actual status and sovereignty of the Tsushima state under its "ritual subjection" and what seems an "(almost) tributary relationship" to Joseon? What were the implications of Joseon being unable to apply its own criminal code on its vassals, that is, Tsushima residents in the waegwan? This article examines the dispute over judicial sovereignty between Joseon and the Tsushima state--something insufficiently explained by the conventional Joseon-Tokugawa Japan neighborly relations model--by focusing on the illegal prostitution issue that regularly provoked political feuds between the two countries. This article uses the report of the incident of Magistrate Kwon I-jin to focus on the issue of disparities in sentencing for the same crime between Joseon and the Tsushima state. This case exemplifies the complex relations between a suzerain and its vassal and an analysis of it promises a better understanding of the realities of international relationships in traditional East Asia. [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.

The article looks at the dilemmas of regulating prostitution in the U.S. It compares decriminalization, criminalization and legalization as the approaches for regulating prostitution. The emergence of the sex workers' rights movement is discussed, as well as the challenges for the criminal justice system caused by prostitution decriminalization. Local governments worldwide are urged to stop arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating sex workers.

Stella Benson was a well-known writer and feminist of her time but she is less well known as a campaigner against the licensing of prostitution in 1930s Hong Kong. Her involvement grew out of a League of Nations enquiry into the trafficking of women into prostitution that included Hong Kong in its remit. Benson kept meticulous diaries, recording her visits to brothels and conversations with prostitutes as well as with those who sought to rescue the girls and by paying close attention to her diaries, I shall explain how she perceived her role and explore how her work and findings fitted into the League of Nations enquiry and other women's work. I shall consider how her position in Hong Kong society enabled her to interact with the powerful in Hong Kong and how she reconciled the competing demands of local, national and international government. I shall also look at how others responded to her work and how she responded to them in turn. This will provide a valuable insight into female agency, activism and organisation in the colonial world of Hong Kong and the international worlds of the British Empire and the League of Nations in the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]