Designing out vulnerability, building in respect: violence, safety and sex work policy

Abstract

One recent finding about the prostitution market is the differences in the extent and nature of violence experienced between women who work on the street and those who work from indoor sex work venues.This paper brings together extensive qualitative fieldwork from two cities in the UK to unpack the intricacies in relation to violence and safety for indoor workers. Firstly, we document the types of violence women experience in indoor venues noting how the vulnerabilities surrounding work-based hazards are dependent on the environment in which sex is sold. Secondly, we highlight the protection strategies that indoor workers and management develop to maintain safety and order in the establishment. Thirdly, we use these empirical findings to suggest that violence should be a high priority on the policy agenda. Here we contend that the organizational and cultural conditions that seem to offer some protection from violence in indoor settings could be useful for informing the management of street sex work. Finally, drawing on the crime prevention literature, we argue that it is possible to go a considerable way to designing out vulnerability in sex work, but not only through physical and organizational change but building in respect for sex workers rights by developing policies that promote the employment/human rights and citizenship for sex workers. This argument is made in light of the Coordinated Prostitution Strategy.

Strategies and Challenges in Preventing Violence Against Canadian Indoor Sex Workers

“…8,32 Future research should explore the development of occupational safety and health regulations that would be inclusive of workers' needs and develop and test interventions to educate workers, clients, and other stakeholders about risk management and violence prevention strategies in the diverse locations where sex work occurs. Finally, and as has been discussed elsewhere, 17,[33][34][35] public health must work to reduce sex work stigma, particularly the factors that contribute to fears of being outed. For these initiatives to succeed, sex workers and sex work organizations need to be engaged in the process and have their knowledge recognized and valued.…”

Fatores associados à violência contra mulheres profissionais do sexo de dez cidades brasileiras

“…Most of these studies have focused on potential transmission of these infections from female sex workers to clients and partners and thus the spread of sexually transmitted infections to the general population 3 .…”

Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

“…The limited-enforcement, protection-based sex work partnership in Leeds is a clear example of how efforts can be made to 'design out' vulnerability in sex work (see Sanders and Campbell, 2007). Yet in the context of wider 'discourses of disposability' (Lowman, 2000), national policy frameworks which criminalise the sale of sex, and a broader austerity and responsibilisation agenda, progressive local initiatives can only achieve so much.…”

“…Although the majority of sex workers sell sex indoors (see Sanders, 2009;Scoular, 2016), on-street sex work is the most often hazardous and most publicly visible sector of the sex industry, and is therefore a key focus in vulnerability debates. Yet wide-ranging research has shown important diversity and differentiation of sex work vulnerability across street/indoor (Sanders and Campbell, 2007), male (Whowell, 2010) and trans (Laing et al, 2015) markets -these tend to be obscured in overly simplistic vulnerability narratives. Like all governance philosophies, designing and delivering provision based on 'vulnerability' has normative implications which play out on a day to day basis through the delivery of interventions (see Bevir, 2013;4), but these textured implications remain little understood.…”

“…Whilst some argue this vulnerability narrative can offer a basis for countering individualising 'neo-liberal' discourses through attention to systemic gender inequalities in violence (see Hewer, 2015), controversially, such accounts leave little room for recognition of sex worker agency. Scholars focussing more on the institutions and environments which structure the risks attached to sex work tend to use vulnerability to highlight difference and variations of individual experience shaped by environmental, social and political factors (see Sanders and Campbell, 2007;Carline, 2009) with stigma and prejudice being key. Multiple vulnerability narratives operate alongside one another in this field, offering a rare point at which different ways of describing and understanding sex work intersect and overlap.…”