Rights NOT Rescue

I went to a really amazing panel discussion tonight regarding sex worker rights and the current legal state of affairs in Europe (and in Uganda).

The four women who spoke on the panel were amazing and they were either currently sex workers or retired sex workers, which is extremely important and often, I believe, more valuable than having academics speak about this topic.

The women were from the following Organizations:

1. The Scottish Prostitute Education Project

2. The Rose Alliance (no website, but here is a great video of the woman who was on the panel)

3. Soa Aids Netherlands

4. Wonetha (Ugandan sex workers organization)

There is a Dutch law that is currently up for being passed which will include mandatory registering of sex workers and also potential criminalization of the client. The criminalization of the client is the current legal situation in Sweden, in which it is legal for a sex worker to solicit, but it is illegal for the client (and the sex worker also has to pay taxes, from money that comes from illegal clients).

Many of the women spoke about the fact that the legal restrictions isolate the sex workers from one another and so they are not able to network and communicate very well.

They also spoke about the fact that trafficing and sex work have been conflated, so many of the laws that have been put in place to prevent the trafficing of women also infringe on sex worker rights, which is an unfair conflation. There is a presupposition in place that only migrant women would want to be sex workers, and individuals who are residents of a country would not work that profession.

The woman from Uganda said a really great thing, which was that "you can't make change unless you make other people uncomfortable", and I think this is so true and something that we should always remember. The situation in Uganda is quite different because of the different socioeconomic situation but also because sex work is completely illegal there and even more stigmatized then it is in European countries.

The problem with the law that is being pushed forth, that will criminalize unregistered sex workers, is that it does not deal with the trafficing situation at all. The first thing that someone who is trafficing women will do is register them as sex workers so as to fly under the radar by integrating them into the system. There is also the added problem that the criminalization of unregistered sex workers will add to the vulnerability of an already vulnerable group of sex workers who are unable to register for whatever reasons.

The fact that sex workers have to register, not just as residents of a country, but specifically as sex workers (which no other profession has to do, at least in the Netherlands) is problematic. It also perpetuates the paternalistic nature of the government system which wants to take care of and 'save' all the sex workers from themselves. As if women cannot make their own choices and decisions and take care of themselves.

The criminalization of clients, which is already an absurd law since it does nothing to protect sex workers and actually makes it quite difficult for them to work, is also problematic because there is anecdotal evidence that is actually the clients who often call the police if they believe that a woman is being trafficed or working against her own will. The example that they gave was Turkey, which set up a phone line to call regarding suspected trafficing, and seventy-five percent of the phone calls came from clients who believed that the women they had gone to see were involved in sex work against their will.

One of the solutions given was unionizing within the trade union labour movement. Some trade unions have included sex workers but it is a very difficult process because of the stigma that is attached to sex work and the legal issues around it as well. I know that the IWW does sex worker organizing as well.

The women spoke about the funding, or complete lack of funding, that their organizations receive in order to aid the effort of organizing sex workers and change working conditions, etc. Much of the funding for organizations that deal with sex work comes from harm reduction programs around HIV and other STDs. One of the largest harm reduction strategies is the ABC strategy (Abstinence, Be faithful, us a Condom), which many US aid organizations employ. The issue with this strategy is it has an anti-prostitution pledge within it and so countries that take money from organizations that employ this strategy are not able to fund any sex worker organizations with it. Notably, Brazil did not take 40 million dollars of aid money because of the anti-prostitution aspect of it.

The government is attempting to 'rescue' sex workers without addressing their human rights and freedom to make choices about their employment. The woman from Sweden made a very important point when she said that there is no 'free will' in any of the jobs that people choose. When a woman is working in a hospital cleaning up people's shit, that choice did not come from complete free will, she had to pay the rent. How is this choice any different then the choice that a sex worker has to make? Especially in a capitalist wage economy.

xoxo,

m