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TEDx Talks
Published: 2016-02-26
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJRBx0JjM_M
I want to talk about sex for money I'm not like most of the people you have heard speaking about prosecution before I'm not a police officer or a social worker I'm not an academic a journalist or politician I'm not a nun eva most of those people would tell you that selling sex degrading the no would ever choose to do it that is dangerous women get abused
and killed in fact most of those people would say this should be a law against it maybe that sounds reasonable to you it's not a reasonable to me until the closing months of two thousand and nine when I was working too dead end minimum wage jobs every month my wages which is replenished my overdrafts I was exhausted in my life was going nowhere like many others
before me I decided sex for money was a better option I don't get me wrong I would have loved to win the lottery instead there was going to happen anytime soon my right knee to paying so I signed up for my first shift in a brothel it is a pause I had a lot of time to think I reconsider the idea is I once had about
prostitution I've given a lot of thought to consent and the nature of work on the capitalism I thought about gender inequality in the sexual and reproductive labor of women I've experienced exploitation and violence at work I thought about what's needed to protect the sex workers from these things I do you feel about going to in this talk I will take you through the foreman legal approach
is applied to sex work throughout the world and explain why they don't work why prohibiting the sex industry actually exacerbates every home the sex workers of honorable today and then I'm gonna tell you about what we as sex workers they want the first approach it's full criminalization Hoff the world including Russia South Africa and most of the U. S. regulate sex work by criminalizing everyone involves
so the Acela via and third parties lawmakers in these countries apparently hoped that the fear getting arrested will deter people from selling sex but if you're forced to choose between a bang the law a feeding yourself your family you gonna do the work anyway take the risk criminalization is a trap it's hard to get a conventional job when you have a criminal record potential employers were
in high assuming you still need money you'll stay in the more flexible informal economy the law forces you to keep selling sex is the exact opposite of its intended effects big criminalize leisure expose to mistreatment by the state itself in many places you may become west it's paying a bribe or even it's 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 beat sings electric shocks right a denial of fate another worrying thing if you're selling sex in places like Kenya South Africa a New York a police officer can arrest you if you call 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 a pretty strong incentive to leave them home right sex workers working in these places are forced to make a tough choice between risking arrest well having risky sex what would you choose would you pack condoms to go to work how about if you are the police officer would rape you and
call you in the van the second approach to regulating sex work seen in these countries partial criminalization whether buying and selling of sex a legal the surrounding activities like brothel keeping us listing on the street about laws like these we have them in the U. K. their fronts essentially say so a sex workers had we don't mind you selling sex just make sure it's done behind
closed doors and on the line I'm also keeping by the way is just to find is just two or more sex workers working together making that illegal means that many of us work line which obviously makes us vulnerable to violent offenders but we're also vulnerable if we choose to break the law by working together 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 Tennessee I told the guy to leave right call the police and he looked to the two of us in the sets you girls Kant called the cops you 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 power dot months threaten us he felt confident he 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 that means working alone or in isolated locations like dark forest where the vulnerable to attack you could selling sex that does
you pay a fine how do you pay that fine without going back to the streets who is the need for money to so you on the streets in the first place and so the fines stuck up and you call it a vicious cycle of selling sex to pay the fines you go the selling sex let me tell you about Marianas Piper who works in Redbridge London
street workers on a patch with no money what 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 our clients to avoid being arrested she stopped to death in the early hours of October twenty ninth two thousand at thirteen she's been working lights
than usual to try to pay a fine should receive this so of criminalizing sex workers huts them why don't just criminalize the people who buy sex this is the end of the third approach I want to talk about the Swedish or Nordic model of sex whitlow the idea behind this lowers a selling sex is intrinsically harmful and so your facts helping sex workers by removing the
option despite growing support for what's often described as the and among the price is no evidence that it works this just as much for such Sweden as that was before one might not be the people selling sex often don't have other options for income if you need that money the only affect a drop in business is gonna have a force you to lower your prices or
offer more risky sexual services he needs a final clients you might seek the help of a manager and so you see rather than putting a stop to what's often described as pimping a law like this actually gives oxygen's potentially piece of third parties it's safe for my work I try not to take bookings from someone who calls me from a without number it is a high
moral hotel visit I try to get a full name and he tells if I worked on the Swedish model the client would be too scared to give me the information I might have no other choice but to accept a booking from a man who was on traceable if you like its hands out to be violent if you need the money you need to protect our clients
from the police if you are cut does that means working alone or in isolated locations just as if you were criminalized yourself it might mean getting into because quicker less negotiating timing snap decisions this guy dangerous but just nervous can you afford to take the risk can you afford not to something I'm often areas prosecution would be fine if we made it legal and regulated it
Michael approach legalization and is used by countries like the Netherlands Germany and the father in the U. S. but it's not a great model for human rights under state control prostitution commercial sex can only happen in sudden legally designated areas of my knees and sex work as a maid to comply with special restrictions like registration force health checks regulation sounds great on paper the politicians deliberately
make regulation around the sex industry expensive and difficult comply with it creates a two tiered system legal illegal work we sometimes call it back till criminalization rich well connected brothel owners can comply with the regulations but more marginalized people find those Hicks impossible to jump through and even if it's possible in principle getting a license so proper venue takes time and costs money is not going
to be an option for someone who is desperately needs money tonight they might be a refugee fleeing domestic abuse in this two tiered system the most vulnerable people are forced to work illegally so the still exposed to all the dangers of criminalization I mentioned earlier it's looking like all attempts to control or prevent sex right from happening makes things more dangerous for people selling sex fear
of law enforcement makes them a Cologne and isolated locations and allows clients and even cops to get abusive in the knowledge that got away with it fines and criminal records force people to keep selling sex rather than enabling them to stop crackdowns on buys drive Seles to take dangerous risks and into the arms of potentially abusive manages these laws also reinforce stigma and hatred against sex
what when France temporarily put in the Swedish model two years ago ordinary citizens took as acute to start carrying out vigilante attacks against people working on the street in Sweden opinion survey showed the significantly more people want sex workers to be arrested now than before the law was for ten if prohibition is this home full you might ask why is 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 unpunished through prohibitionist law I don't think this is an accident these laws have political support precisely because they target people the voters don't wanna see or know about why else might be possible well
lets people have understandable phase about trafficking folks think the 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 of migrants or otherwise vulnerable and this needs to be addressed but is best addressed with legislation targeting those CPAS abuses not anti industry when
twenty three undocumented Chinese migrants drowned while picking cockles imho conveyed to thousand full there were no calls to outlaw the entire seafood industry safe trafficking victims the solution is clearly to give workers more legal protections allowing them to resist abuse and reported to the authorities without fear of arrest the way the time trafficking is thrown around implies that all undocumented migration into prostitution forced in fact
many migrants have made a decision house of economic need to place themselves into the hands of people smugglers many of them do this with the full knowledge that be selling sex when they reach their destination and yes it can often be the case that these people smugglers Dimond exorbitant fees QoS migrants into what they don't want to do and abuse them when the vulnerable that's true
of prostitution but is also true of agricultural work hospitality reckons a best at 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 leave behind if people are allowed to migrate legally they would 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 right this is a lesson of history try to prohibit something that people want or need to do whether that's drinking alcohol over crossing borders we're getting an abortion was selling sex create more problems than you solve prohibition belly makes a difference to the amount of people actually doing nice things but it makes a
huge difference as to whether or not a safe where they do them while smart people so as a feminist I know that the sex industry is a sigh of deeply entrenched social inequality a fact that most buyers of sex and men with money I myself as a whip women without you can agree with all that I do I still think prohibition is a terrible policy and
about up more equal worlds maybe that would be far fewer people selling sex to survive because simply legislates a better world into existence if someone needs to sell sex because that poll because the homeless because they're on documents in the call fine legal work taking away the option doesn't make them any less pull or house them change their immigration status people worry that selling sex is
degrading ask yourself is it more degrading than going hungry seeing your children go hungry there's no cold to ban rich people from hiring nowadays or getting manicures even though most of the people doing that labor pool migrant women if the fact of poor migrant women selling sex specifically the house some feminists are comfortable and I can understand why the sex industry provides strong feelings people have
all kinds of complicated feelings when it comes to sex but we can't make policy on the basis of mixed feelings especially not over the heads of the people actually affected by those policies if we get fixated on the abolition of sex work we end up worrying more about a particular manifestation of Jones and inequality rather than about the underlying causes people get really hung up on
the question well would you want you don't sit there and that's the wrong question stead imagine she is tearing at how safe is she works in nine why isn't she Sipho sort we look to full criminalization partial criminalization Swedish or Nordic model and legalization or how they will cause harm something I never had costs is what does sex workers were after all we're the ones most
affected by these those New Zealand decriminalize sex second two thousand and three it's crucial so remember that decriminalization and legalization on not the same thing decriminalization remains the removal of laws that punitive the target the sex industry instead treating sex work it's like any other kind of work in New Zealand people can work together for safety and employees of sex workers are accountable to the state
a sex worker can refuse to see a client at anytime for any reason and ninety six percent of street workers report that they fail 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 a lot safer the lesson from New Zealand isn't just for this particular legislation is good but the crucially
it was written in collaboration with sex workers namely the New Zealand prostitutes have when it came to making sex work Sipho they were ready to hear it straight from sex workers themselves here in the UK I'm parsecs recollect groups like the sex worker if university and the best place of of process and we formed part of a global movement demande decriminalization a self determination the universal
symbol of our movement as the red umbrella we supported an awesome on spike label bodies like you and I miss the World Health Organization an Amnesty International but we need more allies if you care about gender equality public seal migration of public health the sex worker rights maths it's who you make space for us in your movements that means not only listening to sex workers when
we speak amplifying our voices resist the urge to silence us those who say that approach to choose either to victimize to damage to know what's best for herself or else to privileged as he removed from real hardship not representative of the millions of voiceless victims stink tion between victim and empowered is imaginary it exists purely to discredit sex workers that make it easy to ignore us