Sex Work Criminalization or Legalization?
The world holds different perspectives on this. Most countries indeed criminalize sex work (and/or sex workers), or at least restrict it. First, what is criminalization of sex work defined as?
“Criminalization includes everything from criminalizing the sale and purchase
of sexual services, to blanket prohibitions on management of sex work.”
— Open Society Foundations, Understanding Sex Work in an Open Society
Some advocate for sex work to be decriminalized, which means the “removal of criminal and administrative penalties that apply specifically to sex work”. Some claim that considering sex work a crime drives sex work underground thus making sex workers powerless, exposed and in the line of fire.
The American Civil Liberties Union states that “Sex workers deserve the same legal protections as any other worker. They should be able to maintain their livelihood without fear of violence or arrest, and with access to health care to protect themselves. We can bring sex workers out of the dangerous margins and into the light where people are protected — not targeted — by the law.” Basically, as long as sex work is not acknowledged as a real job, sex workers will continue to lack basic legal protections.
Where is sex work a crime or restricted occupation?
The USA and China criminalize “all activities associated with sex trade”. Countries like France, Canada, Norway and Sweden use the Nordic Model, which means that they aim to abolish the sex industry “by ending the demand for it.” Basically, anyone who buys sex or associates in any way with a sex worker is penalized—yes, that includes sex workers themselves.
On the other hand, countries like Germany and the Netherlands legalize it, which means there are “strict regulations of what’s considered legal and illegal.” HOWEVER, practicing sex work often requires “licensing and registration,” with criminalization of “immigrants/migrants, street-based workers, and HIV/AIDS-affected people, who are disproportionately Black, POC and/or trans.”
According to the ACLU, decriminalizing sex work would:
📌Reduce police violence against sex workers.
📌Make sex workers less vulnerable to violence from clients.
📌Allow sex workers to protect their own health.
📌Advance equality for the LGBTQ community.
📌Reduce mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
According to Nina Luo, organizer, media strategist, writer and member of both Decrim NY and Survivors Against SESTA; decriminallizing sex work:
📌Reduces state-based violence.
📌 Removes people from cycles of arrest, incarceration, criminal records, and/or deportation.
📌 Allows people in the sex trades to seek legal remedies for violence and exploitation.
📌 Encourages sex workers to negotiate and organize for safety and better working conditions.
Are you a promoter of decriminalizing sex work? Some argue it won't make a difference—even some sex workers. New Zealand ruled that “prostitution is inherently violent and abusive” after many sex workers revealed they did not feel that “decriminalization had curbed the violence they experience.”
“Criminalizing adult, voluntary, and consensual sex – including the commercial exchange
of sexual services – is incompatible with the human right to personal autonomy
and privacy. In short – a government should not be telling consenting adults
who they can have sexual relations with and on what terms.”
— Human Rights Watch, Why Sex Work Should Be Decriminalized
A major governmental report in New Zealand reviewing the outcomes of decriminalization also noted “continuing stigma” and “harassment by the general public” towards sex workers. Not only that, but “little difference in disclosure of occupation to healthcare professionals before and after decriminalization.”
As mentioned earlier, individuals often link sex work with human trafficking and, a 2013 study of 150 countries concluded that “Countries with higher GDP per capita, larger populations, larger stocks of pre-existing migrants, and a democratic political regime experience a larger reported incidence of trafficking inflows” when prostitution is legalized, which is worrisome and the reason some strive to maintain penalization in sex work.
The Cultural Revolution in 1960s China and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had commercial sex “quantitatively suppressed”. Within some time, sex work just moved from or “into a different kind of working arrangement”. Sex work has shaped history. Would it be accurate to think that, even if sex work was abolished, it wouldn’t find its way around? Be reinvented?
