The laws that sex workers really want

I want to talk about sex for money.

I'm not like most of the people

you've heard speaking
about prostitution before.

I'm not a police officer
or a social worker,

I'm not an academic, a journalist
or a politician,

and as you've probably picked up
from [arian's] blurb,

I'm not a nun, either.

(Laughter)

Most of those people would tell you
that selling sex is degrading,

that no one would ever choose to do it,

that it's dangerous:

women get abused and killed.

In fact most of those people would say
there should be a law against it.

Maybe that sounds reasonable to you.

It sounded reasonable to me
until the closing months of 2009,

when I was working two dead end,
minimum wage jobs.

Every month my wages would just
replenish my overdraft,

I was exhausted

and my life was going nowhere.

Like many other before me,

I decided sex for money
was a better option.

Now don't get me wrong,

I would have loved to have
won the lottery instead,

but it wasn't going
to happen any time soon,

and my rent needed paying,

so I signed up for my
first shift in brothel.

In the years that passed,

I've had a lot of time to think.

I reconsidered the ideas
I once had about prostitution.

I've given a lot of thought to consent

and the nature of work under capitalism.

I've thought about gender inequality

and the sexual and reproductive
labor of women.

I've experienced exploitation
and violence at work.

I've thought about what's needed

to protect other sex workers
from these things.

Maybe you've thought about them, too.

In this talk

I'm going to take you through
the four main legal approaches

applied to sex work around the world,

and explain why they don't work;

why prohibiting the sex industry

actually exacerbates every harm
the sex workers are vulnerable to.

And then I'm going tell you about
what we, as sex workers, actually want.

The first approach is full criminalisation.

Half the world,

including Russia, South Africa
and most of the US,

regulate sex work by criminalizing
everyone involved.

So that's seller, buyer and third parties.

Lawmakers in these countries
apparently hope

that the fear of getting arrested
will deter people from selling sex.

But if you're forced to choose

between obeying the law and feeding
yourself or your family,

you're going to do the work anyway,

and take the risk.

Criminalisation is a trap.

It's hard to get a conventional job
when you have a criminal record.

Potential employers won't hire you.

Assuming you still need money,

you'll stay in the more flexible,
informal economy.

The law forces you to keep selling sex,

which is the exact opposite
of its intended effect.

Being criminalized leaves you exposed
to mistreatment by the state itself.

In many places you may be coerced
into paying a bribe,

or even into having sex with a police
officer to avoid arrest.

Police and prison guards
in Camodia, for example,

have been documented
subjecting sex workers

to what can only be described as torture.

Threats a gun point,

beatings,

electric shocks,

rape

and denial of food.

Another worrying thing:

if you're selling sex in places like
Kenya, South Africa or New York,

a police officer can arrest you
if you're caught carrying condoms.

Because condoms can be legally used
as evidence that you're selling sex.

Obviously this increases HIV risk.

Imagine knowing that if you're
busted carrying condoms,

it'll be used against you.

It's a pretty strong incentive
to leave them at home, right?

Sex workers working in these places
are forced to make a touch choice

between risking arrest
or having risky sex.

What would you choose?

Would you pack condoms to go to work?

How about if you're worried

the police officer would rape you
if he got you in the van?

The second approach
to regulating sex work,

seen in these countries,

is partial criminalisation;

where the buying
and selling of sex are legal,

but the surrounding activities,

like brothel-keeping or soliciting
on the street are banned.

Laws like these,

we have them in the UK and in France,

essentially say to our sex workers,

"Hey, we don't mind you selling sex,

just make sure it's done
behind closed doors

and all alone."

And brother-keeping by the way,

is defined as just two or more
sex workers working together.

Making that illegal means
that many of us work alone,

which obviously makes us
vulnerable to violent offenders.

But we're also vulnerable

if we choose to break the law
by working together.

A couple of years ago,

a friend of mine was nervous
after she was attacked at work,

so I said that she could see
her clients from my place for awhile.

During that time,

we had another guy turn nasty.

I told the guy to leave
or I'd call the police,

and he looked at the
two of us and he said,

"You girls can't call the cops,

you're working together,

this place is illegal."

He was right.

He eventually left without
getting physically violent,

but the knowledge that we were breaking
the law empowered that man to threaten us.

He felt confident he'd get away with it.

The prohibition of street prostitution
also causes more harm than it prevents.

Firstly, to avoid getting arrested,

street workers take risks
to avoid detection,

and that means working alone

or in isolated locations like dark forests
where they're vulnerable to attack.

If you're caught selling sex outdoors,

you pay a fine.

How do you pay that fine
without going back to the streets?

It was the need for money that saw
you in the streets in the first place.

And so the fines stack up,

and you're caught in a vicious cycle

of selling sex to pay the fines
you got for selling sex.

Let me tell you about Mariana Popa
who worked in Redbridge, East London.

The street workers on her patch
would normally wait for clients in groups,

for safety in numbers,

and to warn each other about how
to avoid dangerous guys.

But during a police crackdown
on sex workers and their clients,

she was forced to work alone
to avoid being arrested.

She was stabbed to death

and the early hours of October 29th, 2013.

And she had been working later than usual

to try to pay off a fine
she had received for soliciting.

So if criminalizing
sex workers hurts them,

why not just criminalize
the people who buy sex?

This is the aim of the third
approach I want to talk about,

the Swedish, or Nordic model
of sex-work law.

The idea behind this law

is that selling sex
is intrinsically harmful

and so you're in fact helping
sex workers by removing the option.

Despite growing support

for what's often describe
as the "End Demand" approach,

there's no evidence that it works.

There's just as much prostitution
in Sweden as there was before.

Why might that be?

It's because the people selling sex
often don't have other options for income.

If you need that money,

the only effect that a drop
in business is going have

is to force you to lower your prices,

or offer more risky sexual services.

If you need to find more clients,

you might seek the help of a manager,

and so you see,

rather than putting a stop to what's
often descried as pimping,

a law like this actually gives oxygen
to potentially abusive third parties.

To keep safe in my work,

I try not to take bookings from someone
who calls me from a withheld number.

If it's a home or a hotel visit,
I try to get a full name and details.

If I worked under the Swedish model,

a client would be too scared
to give me that information.

I might have no other choice

but to accept a booking from a man
who is untraceable

if he later turns out to be violent.

If you need their money,

you need to protect
your clients from the police.

If you work outdoors,

that means working alone
or in isolated locations,

just as if you were criminalized yourself.

It might mean getting into cars quicker,

less negotiating time
means snap decisions.

Is this guy dangerous or just nervous?

Can you afford to take the risk?

Can you afford not to?

Something I'm often hearing is,

"Prostitution would be fine if we
made it legal and regulated it."

We call that approach Legalisation,

and it's used by countries
like the Netherlands,

Germany

and Nevada in the US.

But it's not a great
model for human rights.

And in state-controlled prostitution,

commercial sex can only happen in certain
legally-designated areas or venues,

and sex workers are made to comply
with special restrictions,

like registration
and forced health checks.

Regulation sounds great on paper,

but politicians deliberately make

regulation around the sex industry
expensive and difficult to comply with.

It creates a two-tiered system:
legal and illegal work.

We sometimes call it
backdoor criminalisation.

Rich, well-connected brothel owners
can comply with the regulations,

but more marginalized people find
those hoops impossible to jump through.

And even if it's possible in principle,

getting a license or proper venue
takes time and costs money.

It's not going to be an option

for someone who's desperate
or needs money tonight.

They might be a refugee
or fleeing domestic abuse.

In this two-tiered system,

the most vulnerable people
are forced to work illegally,

so they're still exposed to all
the dangers or criminalistion

I mentioned earlier.

So ...

it's looking like all attempts to control
or prevent sex work from happening

makes things more dangerous
for people selling sex.

Fear of law enforcement makes them
work alone in isolated locations,

and allows clients,

and even cops,

to get abusive with the knowledge
they'll get away with it.

Fines and criminal records force
people to keep selling sex,

rather than enabling them to stop.

Crackdowns on buyers drive sellers
to take dangerous risks,

and into the arms
of potentially abusive managers.

These laws also reinforce stigma
and hatred against sex workers.

When France temporarily brought in
the Swedish model two years ago,

ordinary citizens took it as a cue

to start carrying out vigilante attacks
against people working on the street.

In Sweden,

opinion surveys show

that significantly more people want sex
workers to be arrested now

than before the law was brought in.

If prohibition is this harmful,

you might ask,

why it so popular?