-
I want to talk about sex for money.
-
I'm not like most of the people
you'll have 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'll probably have
picked up from Maryam'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 others 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 anytime soon,
-
and my rent needed paying.
-
So I signed up for my first
shift in a brothel.
-
In the years that have passed,
-
I've had a lot of time to think.
-
I've 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'll take you through
the four main legal approaches
-
applied to sex work throughout the world,
-
and explain why they don't work;
-
why prohibiting the sex industry
actually exacerbates every harm
-
that sex workers are vulnerable to.
-
Then I'm going tell you about what we,
as sex workers, actually want.
-
The first approach
is full criminalization.
-
Half the world,
-
including Russia, South Africa
and most of the US,
-
regulates 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.
-
Criminalization 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 Cambodia, for example,
-
have been documented
subjecting sex workers
-
to what can only be described as torture:
-
threats at gunpoint,
-
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 legally be used
as evidence that you're selling sex.
-
Obviously, this increases HIV risk.
-
Imagine knowing 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 tough 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
when he got you in the van?
-
The second approach to regulating
sex work seen in these countries
-
is partial criminalization,
-
where the buying and selling
of sex are legal,
-
but 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 us sex workers,
-
"Hey, we don't mind you selling sex,
-
just make sure it's done
behind closed doors
-
and all alone."
-
And brothel-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 a while.
-
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 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
in the early hours of October 29th, 2013.
-
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 described
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 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.
-
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.
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To keep safe in my work,
-
I try not to take bookings from someone
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who calls me from a withheld number.
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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 Legalization,
-
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 criminalization."
-
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
and 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 of criminalization
-
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 in 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?
-
Firstly, sex work is and always
has been a survival strategy
-
for all kinds of unpopular
minority groups:
-
people of color,
-
migrants,
-
people with disabilities,
-
LGBTQ people,
-
particularly trans women.
-
These are the groups most heavily profiled
-
and punished through prohibitionist law.
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I don't think this is an accident.
-
These laws have political support
-
precisely because they target people
-
that voters don't want
to see or know about.
-
Why else might people support prohibition?
-
Well, lots of people have
understandable fears about trafficking.
-
Folks think that foreign women
kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery
-
can be saved by shutting
a whole industry down.
-
So let's talk about trafficking.
-
Forced labor does occur
in many industries,
-
especially those where the workers
are migrants or otherwise vulnerable,
-
and this needs to be addressed.
-
But it's best addressed with legislation
targeting those specific abuses,
-
not an entire industry.
-
When 23 undocumented Chinese migrants
-
drowned while picking cockles
in Morecambe Bay in 2004,
-
there were no calls to outlaw
the entire seafood industry
-
to save trafficking victims.
-
The solution is clearly to give
workers more legal protections,
-
allowing them to resist abuse
-
and report it to authorities
without fear of arrest.
-
The way the term trafficking
is thrown around
-
implies that all undocumented
migration into prostitution is forced.
-
In fact, many migrants
have made a decision,
-
out of economic need,
-
to place themselves into the hands
of people smugglers.
-
Many do this with the full knowledge
-
that they'll be selling sex
when they reach their destination.
-
And yes, it can often be the case
-
that these people smugglers
demand exorbitant fees,
-
coerce migrants into work
they don't want to do
-
and abuse them when they're vulnerable.
-
That's true of prostitution,
-
but it's also true of agricultural work,
-
hospitality work and domestic work.
-
Ultimately, nobody wants
to be forced to do any kind of work,
-
but that's a risk many migrants
are willing to take,
-
because of what they're leaving behind.
-
If people were allowed to migrate legally
-
they wouldn't have to place their lives
into the hands of people smugglers.
-
The problems arise
-
from the criminalization of migration,
-
just as they do from the criminalization
-
of sex work itself.
-
This is a lesson of history.
-
If you try to prohibit something
that people want or need to do,
-
whether that's drinking alcohol
or crossing borders
-
or getting an abortion
-
or selling sex,
-
you create more problems than you solve.
-
Prohibition barely makes a difference
-
to the people actually doing those things.
-
But it makes a huge difference
-
as to whether or not
they're safe when they do them.
-
Why else might people support prohibition?
-
As a feminist, I know
that the sex industry is a site
-
of deeply entrenched social inequality.
-
It's a fact that most buyers of sex
are men with money,
-
and most sellers are women without.
-
You can agree with all that -- I do --
-
and still think prohibition
is a terrible policy.
-
In a better, more equal world,
-
maybe there would be far fewer
people selling sex to survive,
-
but you can't simply legislate
a better world into existence.
-
If someone needs to sell sex
because they're poor
-
or because they're homeless
-
or because they're undocumented
and they can't find legal work,
-
taking away that option
doesn't make them any less poor
-
or house them
-
or change their immigration status.
-
People worry that selling
sex is degrading.
-
Ask yourself: is it more degrading
than going hungry
-
or seeing your children go hungry?
-
There's no call to ban rich people
from hiring nannies
-
or getting manicures,
-
even though most of the people
doing that labor are poor, migrant women.
-
It's the fact of poor migrant women
selling sex specifically
-
that has some feminists uncomfortable.
-
And I can understand
-
why the sex industry provokes
strong feelings.
-
People have all kinds
of complicated feelings
-
when it comes to sex.
-
But we can't make policy
on the basis of mere feelings,
-
especially not over
the heads of the people
-
actually effected by those policies.
-
If we get fixated on
the abolition of sex work,
-
we end up worrying more
about a particular manifestation
-
of gender and inequality,
-
rather than about the underlying causes.
-
People get really hung up on the question,
-
"Well, would you want
your daughter doing it?"
-
That's the wrong question.
-
Instead, imagine she is doing it.
-
How safe is she at work tonight?
-
Why isn't she safer?
-
So we've looked at full criminalization,
-
partial criminalization,
the Swedish or Nordic Model
-
and legalization,
-
and how they all cause harm.
-
Something I never hear asked is:
-
"What do sex workers want?"
-
After all, we're the ones
most affected by these laws.
-
New Zealand decriminalized
sex work in 2003.
-
It's crucial to remember
-
that decriminalization and legalization
are not the same thing.
-
Decriminalization means
the removal of laws
-
that punitively target the sex industry,
-
instead treating sex work
much like any other kind of work.
-
In New Zealand, people
can work together for safety,
-
and employers of sex workers
are accountable to the state.
-
A sex worker can refuse
to see a client at any time,
-
for any reason,
-
and 96 percent of street workers
-
report that they feel the law
protects their rights.
-
New Zealand hasn't actually
seen an increase
-
in the amount of people doing sex work,
-
but decriminalizing it
has made it a lot safer.
-
But the lesson from New Zealand
-
isn't just that its particular
legislation is good,
-
but that crucially,
-
it was written in collaboration
with sex workers;
-
namely, the New Zealand
Prostitutes' Collective.
-
When it came to making sex work safer,
-
they were ready to hear it straight
from sex workers themselves.
-
Here in the UK,
-
I'm part of sex worker-led groups
like the Sex Worker Open University
-
and the English Collective of Prostitutes.
-
And we form part of a global movement
-
demanding decriminalization
and self-determination.
-
The universal symbol of our movement
is the red umbrella.
-
We're supported in our demands
by global bodies like UNAIDS,
-
the World Health Organization
-
and Amnesty International.
-
But we need more allies.
-
If you care about gender equality
-
or poverty or migration or public health,
-
then sex worker rights matter to you.
-
Make space for us in your movements.
-
That means not only listening
to sex workers when we speak,
-
but amplifying our voices.
-
Resist those who silence us,
-
those who say that a prostitute
is either too victimized,
-
too damaged to know
what's best for herself,
-
or else too privileged
-
and too removed from real hardship,
-
not representative of the millions
of voiceless victims.
-
This distinction between victim
and empowered is imaginary.
-
It exists purely to discredit sex workers
-
and make it easy to ignore us.
-
No doubt many of you work for a living.
-
Well, sex work is work, too.
-
Just like you,
-
some of us like our jobs,
-
some of us hate them.
-
Ultimately, most of us
have mixed feelings.
-
But how we feel about our work
-
isn't the point.
-
And how others feel
about our work certainly isn't.
-
What's important is that we have
the right to work safely
-
and on our own terms.
-
Sex workers are real people.
-
We've had complicated experiences
-
and complicated responses
to those experiences.
-
But our demands are not complicated.
-
You can ask expensive
escorts in New York City,
-
brothel workers in Cambodia,
street workers in South Africa
-
and every girl on the roster
at my old job in Soho,
-
and they will all tell you the same thing.
-
You can speak to millions of sex workers
-
and countless sex work-led organizations.
-
We want full decriminalization
and labor rights as workers.
-
I'm just one sex worker
on the stage today,
-
but I'm bringing a message
from all over the world.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)