Therapy for a sex worker

This article first appeared in the September 2022 issue of University & College Counselling, published by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/university-and-college-counselling/ ©BACP 2022

Veronica Smith* challenges therapists not to perpetuate society’s stigma about sex workers, and, if they want to support this community, to see beyond the job, and value their clients as complete human beings

About me

I’ve been a sex worker for five years –and I’m currently training as a therapist. As part of my training, I’m required to be in weekly personal therapy and attend supervision, so I have a lot of personal experience navigating sex work in a therapeutic context. In the former, I’m ‘out’ as a sex worker, but I don’t always feel comfortable disclosing this to supervision groups because of the stigma surrounding sex work, from both peers and tutors.

My current therapist is great, but I’ve had some bad experiences with previous practitioners, who’ve made assumptions about what I need therapeutically as a sex worker and how I feel about my work. This is one reason I’m training to be a therapist: I feel that the context of sex work in the UK is deeply misunderstood. The slogan, ‘Sex work is work’ doesn’t mean that sex work is a job like any other. Rather, it means that sex workers are workers and, as such, deserve labour rights. Sex workers need access to high-quality, informed therapy from people making efforts to understand the industry, while also being willing to learn and meet clients where they are, rather than trying to impose a particular outcome on them, such as exiting sex work.

I wish to share some lessons from my experience, both as a sex worker in therapy and as a therapist-in-training.

Don’t make assumptions about how people feel regarding their job

Like most people, sex workers have a range of feelings about their work: positive, negative and ambivalent. I know few people who love the work – we don’t do sex work because it’s empowering or exciting, but because it pays the bills. As someone training to be a therapist, this is particularly important, as training is expensive! Some sex workers may hate their job, but don’t want to stop because it’s the best choice they currently have.

Assuming all sex workers either love or hate what they do doesn’t allow for nuance, undermining therapists’ facilitation of a robust working alliance. Therapists need to walk a challenging line between taking responsibility for keeping themselves informed, and remaining open to trusting in the expertise of their clients regarding their positionality and feelings about this. I feel therapeutic disciplines have yet to realise the potential – inherent in concepts like countertransference, projective process and enactment – to explore how societal stigma and our responses to it emerge in our work. Even a well-meaning desire for a ‘good’, objective position on sex work perpetuates conditions where the therapeutic profession doesn’t truly have to ‘see’ or engage with clients who sell sex in their complexity. The safety of a ‘position’ appears preferable to contact. From personal experience, I feel this preference is evident to clients, either through a clear therapeutic agenda, pushing them to ‘exit’ work, or the non-verbal communication of therapists’ discomfort with exploring together. The message is clear: ‘We don’t go here’.

Don’t try and persuade us to stop

One of my previous therapists couldn’t understand that while I didn’t really enjoy my job, it worked for me and supported other things I liked to do. They kept trying to persuade me to stop working, and whenever I tried to explore other problems in my life, they would always relate them back to my job. This was very painful for me, and in the end, I had to stop seeing them.

 It also made it very difficult for me to discuss any trauma I had experienced at work, because they assumed the job itself was traumatising – they viewed all the sex I had at work as unwanted, and couldn’t understand the complex nature of consent within

this type of work’s context. This denied space for the instances of real harm I’ve suffered in my job, and ultimately was detrimental to the therapeutic process. Therapists shouldn’t be approaching clients with an agenda, and working with sex workers is no different. Increasingly, I wonder whether therapists doing so project their feelings of fear and anxiety, preventing engagement with clients’ resilience and resources that makes this work possible.

 Not everything is about our jobs

I eventually felt as if I was only seen through the lens of my work, rather than in a well-rounded way, as a complete human being. My job is a part of my life, but by the therapist solely focusing on it, other aspects of my experience were left out – for instance, I couldn’t discuss relationships without my therapist asking what the person I was in relationship with thought about my job. This made the therapy feel narrow and ultimately unhelpful. In my training, we have been taught that therapists’ open and warm curiosity is the basis for ‘meeting’ a client at relational depth, and this is

what felt lacking. Their curiosity was limited to one thread. This made me feel objectified and prevented me from experiencing the therapy as a supportive relational space.

 Conclusion

It is undeniable that sex work can be a difficult topic for people to approach, on both sides of the therapeutic relationship. I believe that therapists who want to do meaningful work with sex workers need to be able to work through whatever they notice is arising for them in working with sex workers, so it can be processed and not interfere with the work. Whether the therapist feels shocked or saddened, or curious in a way that feels prurient, they should be able to reflect on what is coming up for them, because their clients will feel it in the transference, and this experience can easily mirror society’s stigmatising view of sex work. I feel my experiences are reflective of precisely such processes. Therapists’ attitudes about my work have been projected onto my lived experience; my autonomy and agency regarding my work have been defocused in favour of my therapists’ beliefs; and, ultimately, I could not bring important material outside of this area.

It is also important that therapists educate themselves on the topic, ideally from learning from the wealth of resources created by sex workers themselves, without relying on their clients to do this work. Therapists should also look at their reactions,

biases and beliefs concerning bodies, sex and consent more generally, as these are all areas that can be touched upon when working with sex work. Through further training and education, we can develop our capacity to notice our supervisors’ blind spots in this area, and potential parallel processes. Supervision is both a site of personal reflection and one where we as practitioners, when safe, can advocate against stigma. This is why I would also suggest that therapists who work with sex workers look out for supervisors with specialist awareness around the topic. Finally,

I feel therapists need to be aware of the limits of their competence around working with sex workers, which is an ethical requirement across specialisations.

* Veronica Smith is a pseudonym

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Veronica Smith* is a sex worker, a trainee therapist, and a member of SWARM, a sex workers’ rights collective, founded and led by sex workers who believe in self-determination, solidarity and co-operation for this community.

MONKEYPOX: What do sex workers need to know? updated 25/72022

UPDATE: Monday 25th July 2022

Good news, vaccine access in the UK is now much wider than when we wrote this blog on 4th July.

Our advice to in-person sex workers of all genders is to phone up your local sexual health clinic now and ask for an appointment to get the Imvanex vaccine for protection against monkeypox. Don’t wait for them to call you. If your local clinic says they don’t have it, push them to find out and tell you where you can get it. If you manage to get an appointment, spread the word among other sex workers you know.

Should I be worried?

There’s no reason to panic. The best thing to do is stay calm and well informed.

At the moment [4th July 2022] the number of confirmed cases in the UK is relatively low, but they are rising. The sex worker community will probably start seeing increasing cases over the next few weeks.

 Most people who get monkeypox will have relatively mild symptoms and recover within 2-4 weeks. It’s good to be aware of the virus so you can minimise your risk exposure and seek treatment if you need it.

 Who can get monkeypox?

It is possible for anyone to get it. Sex workers who see in person clients are more likely to encounter it than the general non-sex working population because it is transmitted via close physical contact.

 Most diagnosed cases so far have been in London.

Most people with diagnosed cases so far have been gay or bisexual men. This is because there have been outbreaks in spaces where some gay and bi men come into close contact, like saunas and sex parties, and the virus then spread to the people they have sex with.

 There is nothing inherent to gay sex that results in higher transmission, and it’s very likely that sex workers who aren’t gay or bi men will start seeing more cases of the virus as cases rise. So while male sex workers need to be particularly aware of the higher risks of transmission in their community at this present moment, other sex workers also need to be alert.

 It is absolutely vital that we reject stigma and homophobia when talking about monkeypox.

 What symptoms should I look out for?

Look out for new spots, ulcers or blisters anywhere on the body, particularly the face and genital area. Other symptoms are fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion.

You can find pictures online in news reports of what monkeypox rash typically looks like, but it can vary so do still get it checked out if you have a rash that looks different.

The incubation period for monkeypox is usually between 6 and 13 days. This is the time between catching the virus and starting to show symptoms.

How is it transmitted?

Monkeypox is usually transmitted by close, skin-to-skin contact. This means that sex is a common way it is transmitted, but it is not a sexually transmitted infection in the way chlamydia or gonnorhea are.

Rashes, bodily fluids such as pus or blood, lesions and scabs are particularly infectious. If an infected person has lesions or sores in their mouth, it can also be transmitted through saliva.

Transmission can also take place through contact with clothing, bedding, towels, cutlery or other objects used by someone with monkeypox, provided their bodily fluids have been transferred to that item. The risk of surface transmission from other types of surfaces that people may have briefly touched with their hands (e.g. cash money or a door handle) seems to be very low or maybe non-existent.

There has been no reported airborne transmission of the virus. There have been several cases where people with monkeypox have been on international flights and nobody has been infected around them.

This means that monkeypox is less easily transmitted from person to person than COVID-19.

We don’t know yet whether it’s possible for people to transmit monkeypox if they are infected but have no symptoms.

Managing stress and anxiety

Because of the stigma surrounding infections associated with sexual transmission, a lot of people feel much more anxiety and fear of this virus than they would of other types of illness.

Scaremongering media stories aren’t helping.

And we know that for sex workers, any health situation that could mean you can’t work for a few weeks while you recover is an additional stress.

As a sex worker community, we can help counter the stigma by talking openly and non-judgmentally about this virus, and being caring and supportive to each other. We can also build confidence in advocating for our rights to healthcare. There’s a long history of sex workers having to push very hard to access the healthcare services we need.

How can I protect myself?

Depending on your situation, some sex workers will be better able to minimise risk than others. If you’re able to do any of the following, these steps can help reduce the risk of transmission:

●       Examine your clients for any unusual lesions, rashes or blisters - particularly on the face or genitals.

●       Try to get the Imvanex vaccine if you might be eligible - see below for more info.

●       Put down a towel or new top sheet on the bed and change this between clients.

●       Wash bedding and towels on a high heat.

●       Avoid brushing your teeth immediately before or after seeing clients, as this can cause small cuts on your gums, increasing risk of transmission.

●       Make a plan for how you might manage taking time to isolate / stop in person work if you get monkeypox. Could you start putting some extra income aside in savings? Could you look into offering more online services? If making this kind of plan is starting to really stress you out, take a break and come back to it when you’re in a calm headspace.

Is there a vaccine?

Yes, there is a vaccine called Imvanex but the NHS is currently only offering it to people considered to be at highest risk. At the moment, supply is very restricted but we are hopeful that will soon change and access will get easier. The government’s guidelines say that eligibility will be assessed on criteria similar to those for PreP - so that should include all in person sex workers.

However, vaccine supplies are currently being mostly restricted to men who are having sex with multiple male partners. If you’re a sex worker and you would be classed in healthcare terminology as being in the category ‘MSM’ (men who have sex with men), you should be able to access the vaccine now. Availability varies from clinic to clinic but if you get turned away, keep trying. If you come up against gatekeeping or get turned away at first, be prepared to be politely pushy.

Cis women are less likely to be prioritised for the vaccine right now, but if you’re a sex worker seeing multiple in-person clients you should be able to make a case for being prioritised over the next few weeks as vaccine supplies increase. Keep asking your local sexual health clinic when you will be able to get access.

For trans sex workers, we don’t know yet how healthcare services will assess eligibility. If your clients are in the ‘MSM’ group, you should be able to make a very strong case for getting the vaccine now. If not, do still advocate with your local clinic for access to the vaccine as soon as possible.

The vaccine is effective in reducing the risk and seriousness of a future infection but won’t reduce symptoms of people who are already infected. If you think you are already infected, then you should phone NHS 111 and ask about immediate treatment options.

What should I do if I think I have been exposed to Monkeypox?

Stay calm, and contact your local sexual health clinic and/or one of these helplines below.

The official advice is to isolate for 21 days if you are infected. This is not legally binding.

 If you have a confirmed case, the health service will do contact tracing and they may offer you a post-exposure vaccine (PEP).

NHS 111 - this is a free, 24/7 NHS-run phone service which can connect you directly to NHS services.

Terrence Higgins helpline: 0808 802 1221.

THT also run a live chat service: https://www.tht.org.uk/our-services/support-services/tht-direct-helpline

Where can I get more information?

Terrence Higgins Trust:

https://www.tht.org.uk/news/monkeypox-uk?gclid=CjwKCAjwzeqVBhAoEiwAOrEmzV6O94efPgoUmYkIw5qAIY2PnMtMLTuwivioTFQvrNUhuIE1fobV8hoCevIQAvD_BwE

UK Government information:

Guidance for isolating with monkeypox symptoms:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-for-people-with-monkeypox-infection-who-are-isolating-at-home

UK vaccine strategy:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/monkeypox-outbreak-vaccination-strategy

World Health Organisation factsheet:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/monkeypox

 

Sex Workers as Collateral Damage, Once Again: a critique of the new ‘sex trafficking identification matrix’ tool

This article is a guest post by Victoria Holt, Emily Kenway and Addy Berry, with thanks to Lydia Caradonna

Context and background

Evidence-based research is necessary to help improve the lives and working conditions  of sex workers and this is especially the case where research lies at the intersection of anti-trafficking and the sex sector. Some discourses and discussions end up positioning people who are trafficked as mere victims of crime, forgetting the whole social, economic and political context that puts people in that situation, often in a voluntary and conscious way. 

Responses to both sex work and trafficking, such as the Swedish/Nordic model are ideology based and have proven harmful to everyone in the sex industry, consenting or otherwise. Anti-trafficking measures are routinely used against sex workers under the guise of protection, resulting in intrusive or destabilising ‘rescue missions’ such as Operation Lanhydrock (2016), or Operation Pentameter (2009). The article critiques a ‘bespoke tool of analysis', created to flag ‘risk indicators’ on sex worker advertising profiles for use in police investigation. The tool of analysis is the Sex Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM) by Xavier L’Hoiry, Alessandro Moretti & Georgios Antonopoulos

The aims of this article are threefold:

  1. To highlight the risks of adding to a body of anti-trafficking research which is ideologically driven and methodologically flawed, whether or not the researchers are aware of these issues.

  2. To highlight the importance of sex worker involvement in sex work related research, and to articulate the shortcomings of research which knowingly sidesteps sex worker involvement at any stage. We do this in part by examining distorted inferences of data taken from Adult Service Websites (ASWs).

  3. To explore the use of the STIM and to lay out the danger posed by creating a tool to strengthen police intervention.

We take each of these points in turn. 

  1. Ideology and its flawed understandings of the sex industry

In brief, the Sex Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM) is a tool created with the aim of aiding law enforcement to distinguish between independent sex worker adverts, and those created by traffickers. STIM refers to a list of ‘risk indicators’ allowing police to sift through profiles and categorise them as ‘low priority’, ‘considered for investigation’ or ‘high risk’.  STIM was created to tackle an extremely specific view of sex trafficking, backed by ‘experts’ in the field. We show how their vision is not supported by evidence. 

STIM is made to target the ‘industrial scale’ commercial sexual exploitation it has been claimed is happening via Adult Service Websites (ASW). The authors’ claims of this ‘industrial scale’ have been taken from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation (APPG CSE) which has recommended bringing in FOSTA/SESTA (1) style laws to shut down ASW as well as promoting the criminalisation of the purchase of sex. The APPG CSE’s research and reports are widely recognised to be based on flawed evidence and are ideologically driven, evidenced by the report considering all forms of transactional sex to be commercial sexual exploitation, a far reaching accusation and against all evidence such as that provided in the recent report commissioned by the Home Office. The APPG CSE’s views are also not matched by those of prominent anti-trafficking experts (for example here and here).

The APPG report cited in L’Hoiry et al contains numerous fundamental flaws. First, it fails to differentiate between migrant sex workers and victims of trafficking: the existence of foreign sex workers is adopted as proof of sex trafficking, whereas it is well known that economic migration is a source of foreign-born sex workers. Further, it presents the reported increase in the number of brothels (324 according to the APPG) as indicative of ‘industrial scale’ sex trafficking, but offers no evidence of this. Over the same period, the number of construction sites in the UK has also increased, but few would accept this as evidence of human trafficking.

Further, the STIM risk indicators are informed by the research of Diba et al, but Diba acknowledges that most women know that they will be working in the sex industry and willingly wish to travel; most of the time there is no actual coercion during recruitment and so police intervention will disrupt workers not victims..

Indeed, trafficking is a field notorious for hyper-inflated figures and dubious research methods, justified by claims that the true figures can never be known. One notorious example of this is research by Kelly and Regan (2000) found 71 cases of trafficked women,but this was extrapolated without justification up to 4000 cases, a figure reported and repeated; a figure then used to justify invasive/violent measures and over-policing.

Further indication of the problematic basis for the L’Hoiry research is to be found in the article referenced as ‘gathered knowledge’ The article, Latonero (2011), examines sporting events and sexual exploitation, and tracks an increase of ASW listings during the 2011 Superbowl 2011, taking this as evidence of forced sexual exploitation at the time of the event. However, Latonero does not distinguish between forced sexual exploitation and consensual commercial sex meeting an increase in client demand. 

In fact, there is ample research disproving the link between sexual trafficking increasing around major sports events, including Finkel and Finkel, Dolinsek in Al Jazeera, and the Anti-Trafficking Review.  It is therefore surprising that, while the link between sexual trafficking and sports events has been proven to be an ideological myth, it is  considered “gathered knowledge” by L’Hoiry et al. 

 

2. Shortcomings of no sex worker involvement


No sex workers were consulted in L’Hoiry et al’s research. The authors claim that this is a result of lack of available time, although they did have time to interview 26 experts. Research which aims to identify people at risk within an industry, but which does not gather information from anyone within that industry, may at first sight be exposed to shortcomings. And concerns may further be raised in the light of other research showing that policing often harms sex workers, so a study using police input without the input of sex workers may be subject to charges of bias and ethic. 

All of the research they reviewed to inform the creation of STIM was research that excluded knowledge from sex workers. The absence of sex workers in the research becomes most apparent when they discuss the ‘established’ indicators of trafficking. When sex workers are not involved in the research at any stage, there is no opportunity to intervene in their analysis of ASW and say “Hey, that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Let me explain”. 

The vast majority of the risk indicators of the STIM, as well as the underlying assumptions around victimhood or sexual exploitation used to create them, would also capture independent sex workers if applied. This implies that the tool will not achieve its anti-trafficking aims. The lack of sex worker involvement, and dangerous assumptions, has resulted in a set of potentially useless ‘risk indicators’. To demonstrate, we go through the list of risk indicators below, and interrogate the misinformation of each.

Repetitive and distinct patterns of behaviour: Antonopoulos and colleagues claim that traffickers display ‘repetitive and distinct’ patterns of behaviour and the STIM’s risk factor is based on this. However, we know that sex workers display ‘repetitive’ behaviours that could easily be picked up by STIM, such as use of specific words that they know work well to attract clients; similar spelling mistakes because one worker can speak English well and does the text for other all the profiles; sex workers copying and pasting from other workers for ease, etc. 

Poor English language on profiles was listed as a risk indicator, but this is often just a feature associated with migrant workers, not trafficked people. Also for some reason STIM assumes that most traffickers are also migrants, when data does not currently exist to demonstrate that.

‘Inconsistency of story across different profiles’ is based on research by Ibanez and Suthers and considered to be indicative of trafficking. Different ages, ethnicities or names for the same worker across different profiles are somehow suspect. In reality, this is extremely common because it’s advertising. Sex workers often have separate personas to try and capture more markets. 

Lying about ethnicity or nationality is also common, and while it may seem dubious, it is usually in response to customers shaping the demand, and the racist policies of ASW, such as not allowing people from some South Asian or Eastern European countries to register.  One of our authors has worked in outreach with sex workers in their local community and assessed a ‘rapid respond needs assessment’ of sex workers by the local council.  Even though the assessment was fully anonymised, often the Eastern European sex workers lied and said they were Italian or Greek because - they said - if they wrote their Eastern European or South Asian nationality, they feared that the police would assume they were part of criminal networks or trafficked and thus arrest them or issue closure orders of their working flats. Lying about nationality may not be an indication of being trafficked, but rather a way of avoiding intrusion and possible further harm. 

‘Frequent movement/advertising in more places’. Every sex worker who is willing to travel to their clients will advertise in more than one place - in fact, some people don’t work locally because they don’t want to feel too visible sex working in their own community. Even people who are incall only (meaning that they only work from their own premise, or a hotel which they book) will advertise in more than one location to attract more profile views, and to gauge interest in a city before organising a working tour there. It is not indicative of anything except trying to attract more clients.

Somehow, both travelling and not travelling are risk indicators. ‘Restricted movement’ is also listed as an indication of trafficking, but in the context of sex woker advertisements this simply means sex workers not offering outcalls to clients (outcall is when a sex worker goes to the client’s place of residence or a hotel they have booked). This example in the STIM makes absolutely clear the abject failure of the research to speak with sex workers. Outcalls are more dangerous for sex workers as they will be alone in the home of a stranger, and so many workers do not provide them and so will not travel. How can both travelling and not travelling be risk factors? Who, then, are the only ‘real’ sex workers?

‘Profile posted by third party’/language suggesting it isn’t posted by workers themselves. Some workers have fake assistants or pretend that they’re not directly responding to things themselves to weed out time wasters. This is also true of the point we made earlier about sex workers asking others to write their profiles, or copying from other profiles. 

Phrases indicative of ‘youth’ e.g new in town, fresh. Firstly, service providers often advertise as new or create new profiles to access the new client rush - many clients enjoy seeing ‘new’ workers. But also, advertising ‘youth’ is a response to cultural fetishisation of youth. Iin some gay communities talking of “boys” means adult twinks (18-21) and doesn’t mean literal boys. Youth is not necessarily indicative of trafficking. 

Weights under 115lbs. The authors seem to think that low body weight is an indication of either starvation or of a literal child, but it is one example of many that we found in L’Hoiry et al’s paper of taking ad copy at face value without sex worker input. Sex workers lie about their weight because of social fatphobia: often men want to sleep with slim, young women. Also, skinny women exist, and we refer to our point above about fetishisation of youth.

Links to external websites, which sex workers do all the time to bolster their traffic and remove third party interference. 

References to ‘spa massage therapy’ is listed as a risk indicator with no justification. Many workers will either actually offer it or say they do it because of criminalisation. Spas and massage parlours are convenient and socially accepted fronts for the sex industry and migrant workers often work together there for safety.  

Subjects from countries associated with high levels of trafficking -  we contend that ultimately, the STIM is based on racist and racially coded algorithms, just like in the Foxglove case.  The English Collective of Prostitutes has previously highlighted that their Romanian members are erroneously and harmfully targeted by this kind of assumption - an assumption upheld by the APPG report cited earlier - and this further proves our point above about why sex workers lie about their nationality or country of origin. 

Low cost - Poverty can push people into sex work, and low cost of services is an indicator of desperation. Desperation is not linked to trafficking but more likely to be due to being caught up in the Universal Credit waiting time issue or client scarcity because of the COVID pandemic.  

PAYG phones suggest ‘involvement with criminal networks’ - sex work is criminalised, and sex workers use burner phones to avoid stalking and harassment.

Analysis of photos  - overly explicit photos are listed in the STIM as being indicative of trafficking, along with uneasy facial expressions of women. Without wanting to sound crude, these are photos of actual, literal prostitutes, so the contention of photos being ‘overly-explicit’ is oddly paternalistic.  Further, uneasiness is incredibly subjective and not conclusively indicative of trafficking. It is possible to feel uneasy in front of a camera without being forced in front of it. Low quality/resolution was listed as well, but having a cheap work phone is not the same as being trafficked, it’s just taking photos on a cheap phone to save money. Multiple workers having similar backgrounds is not indicative of trafficking either, because workers will visit the same hotels, in-calls or shoot locations. They may all be working from the same location. 

Subject appears to be between 18- 24 years old - Sex workers, along with many other people in appearance focused work, lie about their age all the time. It’s so common that it’s simply ludicrous to suggest that listing one’s age as being between 18-24 is suggestive of trafficking. Even if the workers are not lying, it is not de facto suspicious to be working in the sex industry between 18-24. Many sex workers enter the industry in this age bracket. 

Wide range of services advertised such as anal or bareback - again an indicator of poverty, not trafficking. Also people will just tick all of the boxes/services so that they show up in searches, and then negotiate these with clients outside of the website. 

Non-itemised’ or ‘all inclusive pricing’ is seen as a risk factor, when actually people negotiate their boundaries and costs with each client even if only one price is listed on the profile. When offering lots of services as a strategy to earn more is considered by police to be a sign of trafficking, it means that the workers most likely to be caught up in the policing outcomes of STIM are the ones who are at their most vulnerable.

3. Potential Harms of a trafficking tool

L’Hoiry et al argue that a ‘key challenge’ for law enforcement is being able to differentiate between independent workers, and trafficked persons. No definition of trafficking is given in the article, and while the authors state that they do not want the STIM to replace the ‘craft’ of policing, it is clear that the STIM is intended to act as a convenient tool for the police to increase the power of their ‘craft’ – a craft, which we will show to have been effective neither in preventing trafficking nor in responding to it. 

Failure of police intervention 

Policing is one of the main drivers of violence and displacement of sex workers. STIM is a tool for further police intervention and involvement, which, we believe, is harmful to sex workers, especially those most vulnerable to police violence. In this last section we assess the failures of police intervention in suspected trafficking cases, and show how the STIM as a tool will fail in its aims of assisting them. STIM should not be employed as a tool for law enforcement, nor should the paper be cited in further research, for risk of propagating false notions of trafficking, victimhood and rescue. 

‘Welfare’ checks  and brothel raids by the police posit sex workers as being physically trapped in their circumstances, or imprisoned in brothels, in need of being freed through closure orders and arrests. Assistant Chief Constable Dan Vajzovic – who also acts as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on sex work and prostitution – has acknowledged that “these welfare visits [can] appear to some as a raid”.  We argue that police intervention through checks or raids are are frightening and violent intrusions. We have heard reports of sex workers having their earnings and passports confiscated or being forcibly repatriated. Is this outcome really in the best interests of victims?

Research conducted by Laura Connelly and the English Collective of Prostitutes found that growing numbers of migrant workers changed their working practices due to a perceived risk of deportation and arrest. The same report showed that nearly half (44%) of respondents said their existing relationship with the police was ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. 

Pop up brothels, identified by the APPG, is hardly an indication of trafficking, but more likely to be in response to destabilizing and non-consensual police interventions. Sex workers wish to hide from the police so they move around before they can be located. Worryingly, police often conflate workers with managers and this results in increased arrest of sex workers for managing a brothel or pimping when they are really only working with a friend or colleague, and sharing a premise for safety. 

Increased policing has been shown time and again to result in sex workers being less safe, not more safe. We strongly advocate against any tools being utilised which increase police power to intrude on the lives of sex workers in the name of safety. 

Failures of the STIM

We have shown that the STIM is the result of research based on incorrect assumptions about the industry, and uninformed by contact with workers in the industry. If used by law enforcement, police will be attempting to locate ‘victims’ in the wrong place. 

We already know that the vast, vast majority of ‘suspected’ trafficking cases lead to no victim being identified. For example, out of 501 Modern Slavery Helpline calls referred to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority in 2018, there were 51 investigations and only 1 victim referred.  The authors acknowledge the probability of false positives, and stress the need for the STIM to be used alongside existing knowledge and technology. They do not, however, acknowledge whether any legitimate trafficking victims have been discovered with the help of STIM. The tool has no validity, even if it were based on sound theoretical arguments, unless there is a way of testing it in the field and gathering evidence of its effectiveness, accuracy, and benefits. The authors present no methodology for any of these outcomes. Does the tool actually work, or is it just convenient? L’Hoiry et al also acknowledge that many risk markers are just risk markers of independent migrant workers which vitiates the tool, so why did they not attempt to improve the tool? Are they accepting them as collateral damage?

It must be acknowledged that the STIM does nothing to address the state’s own role in the construction and maintenance of the sexual labour market, such as low wages, precarious employment, or borders nor does it assess risks or vulnerabilities to trafficking or being trafficked. It is unfortunate that, while L’Hoiry et al acknowledge that there is a lack of empirical research into the accuracy of tools already used by law enforcement they risk exacerbating this problem by making yet another inaccurate digital investigation tool. 

Conclusion


Nowhere, at any point, did the authors of the STIM consult those who would be affected most by the tool, and who would arguably contribute the most knowledge:  sex workers themselves. Perhaps this was simply an oversight or, perhaps, because sex workers are often reluctant to become involved in academic research, for reasons that have been explored elsewhere. The present authors, who have collective lived experience of sex work, as well as academic interests in the sex industry and trafficking, did approach L’Hoiry et al following their pre-publication announcement. We question, therefore, whether neglecting to include sex workers in their research is  is at best, a failure to respect the knowledge and agency of workers in the sex industry and, at worst, a deliberate attempt to reproduce knowledge which delegitimises sex work as a form of labour and further entrenches harm and violence against sex workers.

As discussed above, enhanced police powers makes vulnerable people –in this case migrant sex workers—increasingly fear the police. The tragic irony is that this plays directly into the hands of exploiters. If sex workers fear that the police are mining ASW for data, they will simply stop working on those sites, and turn to the streets or brothels where they will be less detectable, and also at greater risk. Working independently online allows sex workers to exercise agency over who they see and how. Instead of locating the problem, and thus any kind of solution, on ASW, we need to fully decriminalise the sex industry to empower women with rights. Decriminalisation creates the opportunity to strengthen anti-trafficking activities, as explained in this briefing

Like L’Hoiry et al, we wish that no person would be subjected to trafficking and associated harms.  However, for the reasons given above, it is clear that the STIM as a tool will fail in its stated aims and will quite likely lead to increased harm if it is deployed. We must therefore conclude that the STIM should not be employed as a tool for law enforcement. Further, researchers and practitioners must listen to ‘experts by experience’, that is, those with lived experience of the industry itself. 

Footnote

(1) This would mean websites would be responsible for the content that their users post, holding them accountable for potentially aiding human trafficking. To cover their backs many websites such as Backpage, removed all adult service advertising resulting in “dire financial situations” for sex workers.

About the authors

Adeline Berry is an MSCA fellow and PhD student researching the experiences of older intersex people as part of INIA. A former member of SWAI, they are a member of Red Umbrella Front and the author of How Sex Workers Understand Their Experiences of Working in the Republic of Ireland.

Emily Kenway is a PhD scholar in political science at Edinburgh University focusing on exploitation. Prior to this, she was a policy adviser on human trafficking. She is on the boards of the thinktank Commonwealth and the Public Interest Research Centre. Her first book, The Truth about Modern Slavery, was published in January 2021 and described as a 'powerful treatise' by the Guardian. She is currently working on her second book.

Victoria Holt is a PhD student at the University of Roehampton, researching sex workers' experiences of domestic violence and abuse. Her work has been published in The Independent, The Quietus and Novara Media. She is a member of SWARM and Decrim Now and campaigns for the full decriminalisation of sex work.

Call out for designers for SWARM merch

SWARM need new designs for the merch we sell! We currently sell t-shirts, tote bags, posters, badges and stickers to fundraise for SWARM & so people can show their support for sex workers in their homes or on the street. We're almost out of all our old stock & are looking for two new designs from two different people - could you be the one to create that artwork? Tell us your idea using the application form at the bottom of this page and we’ll choose our 2 favourite designs to go on our merch. Each successful designer will be paid £200 for 1 design.

The deadline for proposals is Friday the 26th of February 2021 at 11.59pm GMT.

Selected designs will be informed by mid-March and final designs will be expected in April.


Guidelines

- The design needs to be a single colour.

- The design needs to be able to work on both a black background and a white background.

- The design needs to make sense on a t-shirt or a tote bag.


You don't have to be a professional artist to submit an idea!

This call is open to everyone, regardless of if you are a sex worker. If you are a current or former sex worker and want to disclose this in your application this information will be kept completely confidential but won't necessarily factor into decision making.

We particularly encourage Black and/or trans artists to submit a design idea for this project.

​If you have any access needs or require any additional support in submitting your proposal please get in touch at contact@swarmcollective.org.

Fill out the "Form" form quickly and securely on Airtable.

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers 2020

17th December is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (IDEVASW), a day in which we honour and mourn the sex workers who have been murdered and abused because of the marginalisation and criminalisation that we experience. We are holding a digital vigil; asking workers and allies to post candles of remembrance onto social media.

Download this image below to post, tagging #IDEVASW and @swarmhive on Instagram or @sexworkhive on Twitter. You can also find GIFs/stickers to add to your story by searching ‘swarmhive’ in GIPHY.

Download this image below to post, tagging #IDEVASW and @swarmhive on Instagram or @sexworkhive on Twitter. You can also find GIFs/stickers to add to your story by searching ‘swarmhive’ in GIPHY.

This year, we want to draw attention to the multiple forms of violence that sex workers face, and the ongoing brutality we experience at the hands of clients, partners and of police, all of which have been exacerbated by the effects of COVID-19. Organisers in SWARM spent the first half of the pandemic creating a hardship fund, putting money directly into the hands of 1,255 sex workers in the UK who desperately needed it. Whilst our efforts - and the efforts of other mutual aid projects that have sustained communities throughout the crisis - should be celebrated, the need for such a hardship fund should be seen as a damning critique of the effects of a decade of racist and classist austerity measures, which have disproportionately affected Black people, people with no fixed abode, people of colour and women, as well as the government’s inadequate response to a pandemic which has killed over 60,000 people, and has disproportionately affected people of colour and women.

During the pandemic the police, armed with new powers, increased their surveillance on those who breached lockdown. The definition of ‘lockdown’ has been vague, and the police seem to enforce it at their discretion. This is not dissimilar to how police enforce prostitution laws in the UK, or in any of the countries where sex work is partially or wholly criminalised. We have heard reports of street-based sex workers being shouted at, spat at and reported to the police by vigilante members of the community. In turn the police, instead of helping the most vulnerable people stay safe, flexed their carceral muscles and arrested or handed out fines. Sex workers have been hesitant to report crimes committed against them in order to keep themselves below the “police radar”. Clients could abuse and assault with impunity, and they knew it. 

Around the country, brothels were raided and closed down, often with excessive, unjustifiable force. In October, a suspected brothel in Canterbury was raided by twelve heavily-armed police officers and a helicopter, arresting a migrant woman who was found there. We questioned the validity of such a violent response, and why, despite the police claims that brothel raids are carried out as a ‘safe-guarding measure’ for victims of trafficking, earnings are confiscated from workers and migrant women are then arrested and detained under immigration charges, often with their passports held. It is clear that the purpose of brothel raids has nothing to do with ensuring our safety, but rather is about re-enforcing police control and border violence. 

During the pandemic, sex workers experienced the effects of what an end-demand policy would look like - something which sex workers in Northern Ireland already endure. Since the implementation of the Nordic Model in 2017, violence against sex workers in Northern Ireland has increased by 92%. With the fall in the number of clients, parlours and brothels across the UK have closed their doors. With the fall in the number of clients, many of us have been forced to see clients we would otherwise refuse to see. We have to agree to offering services we would otherwise refuse to do. We are victims of neighbourhood vigilantism. We are caught in a cyclical trap, the brutal choice of avoiding poverty, or avoiding criminalisation. 

Poverty, criminalisation and lack of support and employment networks are key drivers of harm that increase violence experienced by sex workers. Poverty is violence, and its gendered and racist forms are insidious. Austerity pushes people into sex work, while increasingly harsh prostitution laws exacerbate the risks faced by sex working people. At a time in which most sex workers in the UK are destitute, a small, but loud and powerful group of middle-class, carceral ‘feminists’ are pushing for further criminalisation of the sex industry. In a letter to the Home Secretary, prominent politicians and other ‘feminist’ advocates in April accused SWARM and other sex-worker led organisations of ‘exploiting the COVID crisis to advocate for ‘legalised pimping’, by advocating for full decriminalisation. Accusing SWARM of exploiting the crisis as we handed out money to sex workers is nothing short of shameful. As we write this, a Bill that hopes to introduce the Nordic Model into the rest of the UK has been passed, and will be put before parliament on 29th January 2021. In September, the Scottish Government announced a new consultation concerned with gathering the public’s views on ‘ending the demand for prostitution’. We strongly oppose the criminalising of clients on the grounds that these legislative changes have nothing to do with keeping sex workers safe. Criminalising clients pushes us into more precarious, dangerous working conditions.

Many sex workers have been faced with an impossible decision: rely on insufficient state support and go hungry, or risk our health and return to work. Independent workers who are registered as self-employed have experienced the government’s inadequate furlough scheme – a system which has strict criteria in order to be eligible. It also requires us to register ourselves as sex workers, which comes with the risks to our housing, child custody and accessing service provisions. Some of us have turned to Universal Credit as a way of getting by, but the average monthly payment is disgracefully inadequate. Many of us are ineligible for Universal Credit, due to the UK’s hostile environment, which keeps people with precarious migrant status in precarious, often dangerous, situations to survive, or risk arrest and deportation. Victims of domestic violence have been locked in with their abusive partners; often their status as sex workers will be used to threaten child custody action against them. Many of us require healthcare, most specifically life-affirming trans healthcare, which has been hugely affected by the toll the pandemic has had on NHS services, while the risk to trans sex workers' lives due to violence remains. Sex workers made up 61% of trans people murdered in 2019 globally

This is why SWARM set up the hardship fund - to fill in the gaps which government and carceral feminists refuse to close. We must learn from this pandemic. Increased police presence jeopardises our safety. What stands between sex workers and viable routes out of prostitution is access to money and healthcare. Full decriminalisation could remove police from intervening in our lives, and remove barriers to justice, capital and healthcare. 


Further Resources & Other Events:

ECP - ‘No Bad Women, Just Bad Laws’ online event, details here

SWAI - Candlelit Vigil, details here

SWARM North - Candlelit Vigil, details here

Umbrella Lane - Vigil and Quiz, details here

National Ugly Mugs

Bent Bars

Abolitionist Futures

Tampep

Revenge Porn Hotline

SWARM Hardship Fund

Sex Worker COVID-19 Resources

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Swedish Model (aka The Nordic Model)

What is the Swedish Model?

The Swedish Model is a legal model that criminalises the purchase of sexual services and the clients of sex workers. Depending on where you are (and your perspective) it’s also known as the Nordic Model, the Equality Model and End Demand. It originated in Sweden in 1999 and is currently in place in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Canada. Sex workers across the globe have been protesting this model since its introduction and - in countries where it has been proposed or introduced - there has been huge resistance from the sex workers who are most impacted by this law.

If you’d like to get a better overview of the different legal models that are used to regulate sex work globally, you can’t do much better than this video from Juno Mac:

Why are sex workers against the Swedish Model? 

In theory, the Swedish Model is supposed to protect sex workers and end exploitation. In reality, most sex workers know that this isn’t how things really work. Supporters of the law say that it will only criminalise clients or third parties, that sex workers themselves will be decriminalised and exit services will support those who wish to leave the industry. While this seems like a fairly rosy picture, that’s not what actually happens.

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Demand doesn’t disappear

Sex workers’ clients still exist but there are far fewer than them which means that sex workers have a lot less freedom to turn down clients we don’t want to see, and have to take more risks at work to make up for the loss of income. 

In France, the Swedish Model was introduced in 2016, but even before the law was introduced the effects of extensive media coverage were being felt by French sex workers:

“I now do for 20 what I would not have even considered doing for 40 just a year ago. I get on cars I would not have gotten into. There are no clients. So you have to get what you can.” 

Following the introduction of the law a report by Medicins du Monde which surveyed 583 sex workers found that:

“The law has had a detrimental effect on sex workers’ safety, health and overall living conditions… It has led to increased impoverishment, especially among people already living precariously, namely undocumented migrant women working in the street… The law has pushed sex workers to operate under more risky conditions with dangerous implications for their health.”

A sex worker working in Ireland - where the law was introduced in 2017 - described the circumstances she now works in:

“Ever since the law changed the worst crimes - attacks, robberies, rapes - have increased. Potentially aggressive clients are more likely to call than genuine clients.”

The reality is that criminalising clients created more dangerous working conditions for sex workers.

Image created by Tamara-Jade Kaz

Image created by Tamara-Jade Kaz

Sex workers are still criminalised 

There is extensive evidence that criminalising clients afects sex workers’ safety. While sex workers are not directly criminalised under this model, they contnue to face police harassment as a party to a crime and are ofen dispersed and pushed into less visible and more isolated environments.

A report by Fuckforbundet details many of the ways in which sex workers are put in danger by the law. Across Sweden, police surveillance often targets sex workers in order to “catch” their clients, waiting outside their homes or hotel rooms and monitoring their activities. Selling sex is considered a grounds for deportation as it is not “legitimate” work and migrant sex workers caught up in raids have been detained and denied medical support. Some sex workers have lost their homes:

“A local police officer explained in an interview that if the police identified sex workers having offered sexual services more than 3 times, they would contact the landlord and threat them with pimping charges if they do not evict the sex workers.”

In Norway police have also used laws around sex work to evict sex workers from their homes, and migrant sex workers have been deported after they reported violence to the police. Similar to Sweden, Norwegian police use similar tactics of surveilling sex workers in order to identify their clients. This highly punitive approach causes direct harm to sex workers’ safety:

“Amnesty International heard testimony from service providers and individual sex workers that women who sell sex had been questioned by police for carrying condoms or felt apprehensive about carrying condoms in case it led to police action against them. A representative of Oslo police district confirmed to Amnesty that the existence of condoms in indoor premises would be considered contributory evidence that the sale of sex was occurring there. This approach can act as a de facto penalty on the possession of condoms by sex workers, creating a barrier to the realization of their right to sexual and reproductive health.”

In Ireland it’s still illegal for two or more people selling sex to work together from an indoor premises - this basic safety measure is considered ‘brothel keeping’. One worker in Ireland describes how this has affected her working practices:

“I’ve only ever worked alone because of this law. I wouldn’t like to be in the position where the Gardaí might arrest me, but it would definitely be safer to work with another girl.”

Furthermore, Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) report that since the introduction of the law in Ireland there have been 55 arrests of sex workers for working together included at least one incident of two migrant sex workers being arrested and charged with brothel-keeping due to working together. One of the workers was pregnant. They report that the change in the law to criminalise clients has increased police attention on sex workers and increased convictions for sex workers, despite the law having been sold as a way to protect us.

Image created by Tamara-Jade Kaz

Image created by Tamara-Jade Kaz

Criminalisation increases exploitation

In the popular imagination of sex work, third parties are often imagined to be shadowy ‘pimps’ who violently control vulnerable women. While we don’t deny that exploitation of this nature occurs, the reality of third parties is often more complex. Laws that criminalise third parties rarely differentiate between coercive or exploitative third party involvement or more practical and supportive third parties - such as drivers, security, cleaners, assistants, or friends and partners. 

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects notes that third party criminalisation obstructs HIV prevention, forces sex workers to compromise our safety, and can increase prosecutions for sex workers and our friends and families, as well as limiting our access to basic needs such as housing. These laws put sex workers in danger:

“Laws and policies which criminalise third parties fail to acknowledge that sex workers need protections to be put in place, in order to address cases of exploitative or harmful contractual or employment based relationships with others. Criminalising these relationships necessitates that they be hidden from authorities and placed outside the bounds of regulation. The blanket criminalisation of third parties assumes that all third party relationships, regardless of context and circumstance, are exploitative and leaves sex workers without access to legal measures to challenge exploitation or abuse when it does happen.”

Sex workers frequently report how laws around third parties make us afraid about the impact on the people we are close with:

“More scared to see cops, scared of the cops showing up to my house because my flatmate and I share a lot with my money, fear of my trans partner ending up in jail from benefiting off of my salary.”

The Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia pointed out the way that laws criminalising third parties function in practice are off absurd:

“The offence... is not limited to persons who actively seek to control or encourage prostitution for their own profit, but would apply equally to a child who knows what his mother or father or sibling does to get money for the groceries.”

In contrast to what was intended by the change in law, Swedish sex workers actually report an increased reliance on third parties:

“Because the pimping law also leads to sex workers’ eviction from their flats and landlords being potentially charged with pimping offenses, and with hotels actively working to identify and ban sex workers from their premises, it is very difficult to find a secure place to work. This is fertile ground for exploiters to abuse the most vulnerable in the industry, offering them clients or a place to work under precarious circumstances, in return for money and sexual services.”

The Swedish Model doesn’t stop violence, it makes it worse

We all want to stop violence against sex workers. As sex workers ourselves it is our biggest priority. And we know that the Swedish Model doesn’t do that.

The Medicin du Monde study found that since the introduction of the model in France:

“Cases of violence, of all kinds, have increased: insults in the street, physical violence, sexual violence, theft, and armed robbery in the work place. Impoverishment, increased health risks and increased exposure to violence form a vicious circle.”

Globally, sex workers report that criminalisation and increased police attention to clients has resulted in increased violence

“In Edinburgh, sex workers reported 66 incidents of violence in 2006, compared with 126 after the implementation of kerb-crawling measures the following year. In Montreal, during a three-month period of widespread anti-client sweeps in 2001, sex workers reported three times the amount of violent incidents, and five times the amount of violent incidents with a deadly weapon than prior to the sweeps. Thai sex workers have likewise reported that, since the prohibition on US soldiers purchasing sex, their working conditions have become more dangerous. Often, soldiers will only meet sex workers in isolated locations or request that one woman service multiple soldiers to avoid drawing attention.”

A sex worker in Canada described the circumstances she works under with increased police attention:

“It pisses me off that they [the police] are there because basically what it comes down to is the shortest time that I'm out there, the shorter I'm on the street and the better I'm paid. But you [police] stand out there and you fuck up my business and scare away my dates. The longer I'm out there my chances of getting sick, raped, robbed, beat up whatever are greater so.”

In Ireland it was found that crimes (including violent offences) against sex workers increased following the introduction of the Swedish Model. UglyMugs.ie, an app where sex workers can report incidents of abuse and crime, found that there was a 92% reported increase in violent crime against sex workers in the first year after the law came in, and this rate was sustained during the second year.

The Swedish Model harms sex workers and causes violence. 

Want to hear more about the daily reality of the Swedish model? This discussion from 2019 brought together sex workers from Ireland, Norway, Sweden and France to talk about the impact of the law on sex workers lives:

What are the other options?

In 2016 Amnesty International published a policy on sex workers’ rights. In it they made clear that decriminalisation is essential for the human rights of sex workers to be protected. When they released the policy they said:

“Extensive research, including four geographically specific reports published alongside Amnesty International’s policy today, shows that sex workers are often subject to horrific human rights abuses. This is in part due to criminalization, which further endangers and marginalizes them and impedes their ability to seek protection from violence and legal and social services.”

In a Q&A on the policy Amnesty said:

Under this model there is better scope for sex workers’ rights to be protected—whether that be:

- access to health care;

- their ability to report crimes to the authorities;

- their ability to organise and work together for increased safety;

- or the comfort of knowing that their family will not be charged for “living off the proceeds” of sex work.

Amnesty’s advice for legal and policy change on sex work? They say:

Laws on sex work should focus on protecting people from exploitation and abuse, rather than trying to ban all sex work and penalize sex workers. 

Amnesty isn't alone in this policy position. The World Health Organisation (WHO) agree:

Decriminalising sex work could lead to a 46% reduction in new HIV infections in sex workers over 10 years; eliminating sexual violence against sex workers could lead to a 20% reduction in new HIV infections.

So do UNAIDS:

Many of the human rights challenges, vulnerabilities and barriers sex workers face in accessing HIV services are due to criminalisation and the restrictive laws, regulations and practices they face.

ILGA (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) support decriminaliation:

Concerned by the high levels of violations, violence, discrimination and exclusion faced by sex workers, this global LGBTI network representing more than 1,500 organisations from each region of the world join a growing number of human rights, health and anti-trafficking organisations demanding governments recognise sex work as work, and protect sex workers’ labour and human rights.

The World AIDS Campaign says:

Arguing for the decriminalisation of sex work does not necessarily mean an endorsement of sex work. It shows an awareness of the dangers of the criminal law; an awareness that criminalising sex workers will neither eradicate the industry, nor alter the set of power relations that may be associated with it. It recognises that the laws that criminalise sex work punish women and particularly women living in poverty, and women of colour most severely and create a dangerous environment for working and living. A decriminalised sex work system is therefore the most effective and pragmatic way of addressing the conditions of women in the sex industry.

From Human Rights Watch:

Decriminalizing sex work maximizes sex workers’ legal protection and their ability to exercise other key rights, including to justice and health care. Legal recognition of sex workers and their occupation maximizes their protection, dignity, and equality.

STOPAIDS support decriminalisation on the basis that sex workers should be able to:

- have access to the highest attainable standard of health 

- be safe and live free from violence

- be able to earn a secure income

There are mountains of evidence internationally that shows that decriminalisation is the best practice to ensure the safety of sex workers at work. Sex worker rights organisations, academics, health workers, direct service providers, international health bodies: all agree that decriminalisation is the best legal model to ensure the health and safety of sex workers.

Supporters of the Swedish Model often try to paint those who oppose it as privileged, or as mere puppets of shadowy sex industry forces. The opposite couldn’t be more true. Sex workers across the world support decriminalisation. Sex workers know better than anyone what our working lives are like, and we know better than anyone what circumstances will improve them.

So what is decriminalisation?

This infosheet from Canadian sex worker group Stella helps explain the basics:

“At its core, decriminalization means the removal of all criminal laws that prohibit selling, buying or facilitating (procuring) sex work.”

Decrim-Now UK describe it this way:

“Decriminalisation means that sex workers are able to work without threat of criminal sanctions. Criminal and administrative penalties on prostitution are repealed. Sex workers’ workplaces are regulated through employment law, enabling workers to hold their bosses to account and form trade unions.”

And DecrimNow DC have a huge store of resources, articles, and myth-busting factsheets to help you really understand decriminalisation. In particular they link to this factsheet from the Asijiki Coalition about why it’s dangerous to conflate sex work and human trafficking.

Sometimes people are confused about the difference between decriminalisation and legalisation. This article from Frankie Miren breaks it down:

“Under legalisation, sex work is controlled by the government and is legal only under certain state-specified conditions. Decriminalisation involves the removal of all prostitution-specific laws, although sex workers and sex work businesses must still operate within the laws of the land, as must any businesses.”

When sex workers say we oppose the Swedish Model or we oppose the Nordic Model, we’re not just playing an ideological game, we are saying that our lives are at risk. We are saying the Swedish Model harms sex workers. We are saying that the Nordic Model harms sex workers. Believe us.

Decriminalise sex work now!

New Resource: 'How We Ran A Mutual Aid Fund'

In response to COVID-19, SWARM started up a Hardship Fund to support sex workers affected by the pandemic. This report details what we did and how we did it. It is a clear eyed detailing of the logistics, funding sources and process of delivering the fund, incorporating reflections from the organisers on the experience. We hope this report can be helpful to others who wish to run a similar project.

 
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