Re: Better health for sex workers: which legal model causes least harm?
It is always possible to find sex workers who have similar stories to Harriet and feel that they have been forced to work because of personal circumstances, and have as a consequence experienced psychological harm. However, this is not the dominant story. I have spoken to hundreds of sex workers over my career in researching sex work which has spanned over twenty years. Most of the stories I have heard are contrary to this – they are strong women who talk of numerous other choices they could have made but chose sex work because it suited their needs. They enjoy their work and only want their human rights to be respected and have the same access to justice as any other citizen.
Street-based sex workers are more vulnerable, they are a different demographic to those working in indoor settings and do experience more adverse events in their work. However, it must be remembered that they constitute only about 10% of the sex worker population [1-3]. Yet much research done to support the push for the Nordic Model is carried out with street-based sex workers and only the stories from sex workers who provide the most traumatic accounts are published, conflating all sex workers’ experiences as harrowing and damaging. Indeed, Harrington [4] has argued that experts who support the Nordic model “do encounter women who say they want to remain in the sex industry but feel no responsibility to incorporate such women’s perspectives into their research findings” (p347). Weitzer [3] termed this a ‘moral crusade’ and that many of the studies done are analytically and methodologically flawed.
There is no evidence to back up claims that the numbers of sex workers have decreased in Sweden as a result of their prostitution laws, but there is evidence to show the harms that have been caused as a result of the criminalisation of clients [5, 6]. Both the United Nations and the World Health Organisation support the decriminalisation of sex work to ensure sex workers’ human rights. What Evans et al. failed to illuminate when citing the review of the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) which decriminalised sex work in New Zealand was the review committee’s conclusion: “On the whole the PRA has been effective in achieving its purpose, and the Committee is confident that vast majority of people involved in the sex industry are better off under the PRA than they were previously” [7].
1. Abel, G., L. Fitzgerald, and C. Brunton, The impact of decriminalisation on the number of sex workers in New Zealand. Journal of Social Policy, 2009. 38(3): p. 515-531.
2. Vanwesenbeeck, I., Burnout among female indoor sex workers. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2005. 34(6): p. 627-639.
3. Weitzer, R., Flawed theory and method in studies of prostitution. Violence Against Women, 2005. 11(7): p. 934-949.
4. Harrington, C., Prostitution policy models and feminist knowledge politics in New Zealand and Sweden. Sexuality research & social policy, 2012. 9: p. 337-349.
5. Levy, J. and P. Jakobssen, Sweden's abolitionist discourse and law: Effects on the dynamics of Swedish sex work and on the lives of Sweden's sex workers. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2014. 14(5): p. 593-607.
6. Ostergren, P. Sex workers critique of Swedish prostitution policy. 2006 [cited 2006 24 October]; Available from: http://www.petraostergren.com/content/view/44/38/.
7. Prostitution Law Review Committee, Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. 2008, Ministry of Justice: Wellington.
Rapid Response:
Re: Better health for sex workers: which legal model causes least harm?
It is always possible to find sex workers who have similar stories to Harriet and feel that they have been forced to work because of personal circumstances, and have as a consequence experienced psychological harm. However, this is not the dominant story. I have spoken to hundreds of sex workers over my career in researching sex work which has spanned over twenty years. Most of the stories I have heard are contrary to this – they are strong women who talk of numerous other choices they could have made but chose sex work because it suited their needs. They enjoy their work and only want their human rights to be respected and have the same access to justice as any other citizen.
Street-based sex workers are more vulnerable, they are a different demographic to those working in indoor settings and do experience more adverse events in their work. However, it must be remembered that they constitute only about 10% of the sex worker population [1-3]. Yet much research done to support the push for the Nordic Model is carried out with street-based sex workers and only the stories from sex workers who provide the most traumatic accounts are published, conflating all sex workers’ experiences as harrowing and damaging. Indeed, Harrington [4] has argued that experts who support the Nordic model “do encounter women who say they want to remain in the sex industry but feel no responsibility to incorporate such women’s perspectives into their research findings” (p347). Weitzer [3] termed this a ‘moral crusade’ and that many of the studies done are analytically and methodologically flawed.
There is no evidence to back up claims that the numbers of sex workers have decreased in Sweden as a result of their prostitution laws, but there is evidence to show the harms that have been caused as a result of the criminalisation of clients [5, 6]. Both the United Nations and the World Health Organisation support the decriminalisation of sex work to ensure sex workers’ human rights. What Evans et al. failed to illuminate when citing the review of the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) which decriminalised sex work in New Zealand was the review committee’s conclusion: “On the whole the PRA has been effective in achieving its purpose, and the Committee is confident that vast majority of people involved in the sex industry are better off under the PRA than they were previously” [7].
1. Abel, G., L. Fitzgerald, and C. Brunton, The impact of decriminalisation on the number of sex workers in New Zealand. Journal of Social Policy, 2009. 38(3): p. 515-531.
2. Vanwesenbeeck, I., Burnout among female indoor sex workers. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2005. 34(6): p. 627-639.
3. Weitzer, R., Flawed theory and method in studies of prostitution. Violence Against Women, 2005. 11(7): p. 934-949.
4. Harrington, C., Prostitution policy models and feminist knowledge politics in New Zealand and Sweden. Sexuality research & social policy, 2012. 9: p. 337-349.
5. Levy, J. and P. Jakobssen, Sweden's abolitionist discourse and law: Effects on the dynamics of Swedish sex work and on the lives of Sweden's sex workers. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2014. 14(5): p. 593-607.
6. Ostergren, P. Sex workers critique of Swedish prostitution policy. 2006 [cited 2006 24 October]; Available from: http://www.petraostergren.com/content/view/44/38/.
7. Prostitution Law Review Committee, Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. 2008, Ministry of Justice: Wellington.
Competing interests: No competing interests