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The laws that sex workers really want

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    I want to talk about sex for money.
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    I'm not like most of the people
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    you'll have heard speaking
    about prostitution before.
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    I'm not a police officer
    or a social worker.
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    I'm not an academic,
    a journalist or a politician,
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    and as you'll probably have
    picked up from Maryam's blurb,
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    I'm not a nun, either.
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    (Laughter)
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    Most of those people would tell you
    that selling sex is degrading,
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    that no one would ever choose to do it,
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    that it's dangerous:
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    women get abused and killed.
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    In fact, most of those people would say,
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    "There should be a law against it!"
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    Maybe that sounds reasonable to you.
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    It sounded reasonable to me
    until the closing months of 2009,
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    when I was working two dead end,
    minimum-wage jobs.
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    Every month my wages would just
    replenish my overdraft,
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    I was exhausted
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    and my life was going nowhere.
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    Like many others before me,
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    I decided sex for money
    was a better option.
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    Now don't get me wrong,
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    I would have loved to have
    won the lottery instead,
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    but it wasn't going
    to happen any time soon,
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    and my rent needed paying,
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    so I signed up for my
    first shift in brothel.
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    In the years that have passed,
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    I've had a lot of time to think.
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    I've reconsidered the ideas
    I once had about prostitution.
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    I've given a lot of thought to consent
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    and the nature of work under capitalism.
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    I've thought about gender inequality
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    and the sexual and reproductive
    labor of women.
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    I've experienced exploitation
    and violence at work.
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    I've thought about what's needed
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    to protect other sex workers
    from these things.
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    Maybe you've thought about them, too.
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    In this talk,
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    I'm going to take you through
    the four main legal approaches
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    applied to sex work throughout the world,
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    and explain why they don't work;
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    why prohibiting the sex industry
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    actually exacerbates every harm
    that sex workers are vulnerable to.
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    And then I'm going tell you about
    what we, as sex workers, actually want.
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    The first approach
    is full criminalisation.
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    Half the world,
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    including Russia, South Africa
    and most of the US,
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    regulates sex work by criminalising
    everyone involved.
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    So that's seller, buyer and third parties.
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    Lawmakers in these countries
    apparently hope
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    that the fear of getting arrested
    will deter people from selling sex.
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    But if you're forced to choose
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    between obeying the law and feeding
    yourself or your family,
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    you're going to do the work anyway,
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    and take the risk.
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    Criminalisation is a trap.
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    It's hard to get a conventional job
    when you have a criminal record.
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    Potential employers won't hire you.
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    Assuming you still need money,
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    you'll stay in the more flexible,
    informal economy.
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    The law forces you to keep selling sex,
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    which is the exact opposite
    of its intended effect.
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    Being criminalised leaves you exposed
    to mistreatment by the state itself.
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    In many places you may be coerced
    into paying a bribe,
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    or even into having sex with a police
    officer to avoid arrest.
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    Police and prison guards
    in Camodia, for example,
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    have been documented
    subjecting sex workers
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    to what can only be described as torture.
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    Threats a gun point,
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    beatings,
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    electric shocks,
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    rape
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    and denial of food.
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    Another worrying thing:
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    if you're selling sex in places like
    Kenya, South Africa or New York,
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    a police officer can arrest you
    if you're caught carrying condoms ...
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    because condoms can be legally used
    as evidence that you're selling sex.
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    Obviously this increases HIV risk.
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    Imagine knowing that if you're
    busted carrying condoms,
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    it'll be used against you.
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    It's a pretty strong incentive
    to leave them at home, right?
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    Sex workers working in these places
    are forced to make a tough choice
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    between risking arrest
    or having risky sex.
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    What would you choose?
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    Would you pack condoms to go to work?
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    How about if you're worried
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    the police officer would rape you
    when he got you in the van?
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    The second approach
    to regulating sex work,
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    seen in these countries,
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    is partial criminalisation;
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    where the buying
    and selling of sex are legal,
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    but surrounding activities
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    like brothel-keeping or soliciting
    on the street, are banned.
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    Laws like these --
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    we have them in the UK and in France --
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    essentially say to us sex workers,
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    "Hey, we don't mind you selling sex,
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    just make sure it's done
    behind closed doors
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    and all alone."
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    And brothel keeping,
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    by the way,
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    is defined as just two or more
    sex workers working together.
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    Making that illegal means
    that many of us work alone,
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    which obviously makes us
    vulnerable to violent offenders.
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    But we're also vulnerable
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    if we choose to break the law
    by working together.
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    A couple of years ago,
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    a friend of mine was nervous
    after she was attacked at work,
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    so I said that she could see
    her clients from my place for awhile.
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    During that time,
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    we had another guy turn nasty.
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    I told the guy to leave
    or I'd call the police,
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    and he looked at the
    two of us and he said,
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    "You girls can't call the cops,
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    you're working together,
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    this place is illegal."
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    He was right.
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    He eventually left without
    getting physically violent,
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    but the knowledge that we were breaking
    the law empowered that man to threaten us.
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    He felt confident he'd get away with it.
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    The prohibition of street prostitution
    also causes more harm than it prevents.
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    Firstly, to avoid getting arrested,
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    street workers take risks
    to avoid detection,
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    and that means working alone
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    or in isolated locations like dark forests
    where they're vulnerable to attack.
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    If you're caught selling sex outdoors,
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    you pay a fine.
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    How do you pay that fine
    without going back to the streets?
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    It was the need for money that saw
    you in the streets in the first place.
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    And so the fines stack up,
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    and you're caught in a vicious cycle
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    of selling sex to pay the fines
    you got for selling sex.
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    Let me tell you about Mariana Popa
    who worked in Redbridge, East London.
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    The street workers on her patch
    would normally wait for clients in groups,
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    for safety in numbers,
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    and to warn each other about how
    to avoid dangerous guys.
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    But during a police crackdown
    on sex workers and their clients,
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    she was forced to work alone
    to avoid being arrested.
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    She was stabbed to death
    in the early hours of October 29th, 2013.
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    And she had been working later than usual
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    to try to pay off a fine
    she had received for soliciting.
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    So if criminalising
    sex workers hurts them,
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    why not just criminalize
    the people who buy sex?
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    This is the aim of the third
    approach I want to talk about,
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    the Swedish, or Nordic model
    of sex-work law.
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    The idea behind this law
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    is that selling sex
    is intrinsically harmful
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    and so you're in fact helping
    sex workers by removing the option.
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    Despite growing support
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    for what's often described
    as the "End Demand" approach,
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    there's no evidence that it works.
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    There's just as much prostitution
    in Sweden as there was before.
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    Why might that be?
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    It's because the people selling sex
    often don't have other options for income.
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    If you need that money,
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    the only effect that a drop
    in business is going have
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    is to force you to lower your prices,
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    or offer more risky sexual services.
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    If you need to find more clients,
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    you might seek the help of a manager.
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    And so you see,
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    rather than putting a stop
    to what's often descried as pimping,
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    a law like this actually gives oxygen
    to potentially abusive third parties.
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    To keep safe in my work,
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    I try not to take bookings from someone
    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.
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    If I worked under the Swedish model,
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    a client would be too scared
    to give me that information.
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    I might have no other choice
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    but to accept a booking
    from a man who is untraceable
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    if he later turns out to be violent.
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    If you need their money,
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    you need to protect
    your clients from the police.
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    If you work outdoors,
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    that means working alone
    or in isolated locations,
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    just as if you were criminalised yourself.
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    It might mean getting into cars quicker,
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    less negotiating time
    means snap decisions.
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    Is this guy dangerous or just nervous?
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    Can you afford to take the risk?
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    Can you afford not to?
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    Something I'm often hearing is,
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    "Prostitution would be fine if we
    made it legal and regulated it."
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    We call that approach Legalisation,
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    and it's used by countries
    like the Netherlands,
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    Germany
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    and Nevada in the US.
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    But it's not a great
    model for human rights.
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    And in state-controlled prostitution,
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    commercial sex can only happen in certain
    legally-designated areas or venues,
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    and sex workers are made to comply
    with special restrictions,
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    like registration
    and forced health checks.
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    Regulation sounds great on paper,
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    but politicians deliberately
    make regulation
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    around the sex industry
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    expensive and difficult to comply with.
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    It creates a two-tiered system:
    legal and illegal work.
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    We sometimes call it
    backdoor criminalisation.
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    Rich, well-connected brothel owners
    can comply with the regulations,
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    but more marginalized people find
    those hoops impossible to jump through.
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    And even if it's possible in principle,
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    getting a license or proper venue
    takes time and costs money.
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    It's not going to be an option
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    for someone who's desperate
    or needs money tonight.
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    They might be a refugee
    or fleeing domestic abuse.
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    In this two-tiered system,
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    the most vulnerable people
    are forced to work illegally,
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    so they're still exposed to all
    the dangers of criminalistion
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    I mentioned earlier.
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    So ...
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    it's looking like all attempts to control
    or prevent sex work from happening
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    makes things more dangerous
    for people selling sex.
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    Fear of law enforcement makes them
    work alone in isolated locations,
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    and allows clients,
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    and even cops,
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    to get abusive in the knowledge
    they'll get away with it.
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    Fines and criminal records force
    people to keep selling sex,
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    rather than enabling them to stop.
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    Crackdowns on buyers drive sellers
    to take dangerous risks,
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    and into the arms
    of potentially abusive managers.
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    These laws also reinforce stigma
    and hatred against sex workers.
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    When France temporarily brought in
    the Swedish model two years ago,
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    ordinary citizens took it as a cue
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    to start carrying out vigilante attacks
    against people working on the street.
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    In Sweden,
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    opinion surveys show
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    that significantly more people want sex
    workers to be arrested now
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    than before the law was brought in.
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    If prohibition is this harmful,
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    you might ask,
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    why it so popular?
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    Firstly, sex work is and always has been
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    a survival strategy for all kinds
    of unpopular minority groups.
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    People of color,
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    migrants,
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    people with disabilities,
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    LGBTQ people,
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    particularly trans women --
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    these are the groups most heavily profiled
    and punished through prohibitionist law.
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    I don't think this is an accident.
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    These laws have political support
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    precisely because they target people
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    that voters don't want
    to see or know about.
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    Why else might people support prohibition?
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    Well, lots of people have
    understandable fears about trafficking.
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    Folks think that foreign women
    kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery
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    can be saved by shutting
    a whole industry down.
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    So let's talk about trafficking.
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    Forced labor does occur
    in many industries,
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    especially those where the workers
    are migrants or otherwise vulnerable,
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    and this needs to be addressed.
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    But it's best addressed with legislation
    targeting those specific abuses,
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    not an entire industry.
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    When 23 undocumented Chinese migrants
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    drowned while picking cockles
    in Morecambe Bay in 2004,
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    there were no calls to outlaw
    the entire seafood industry
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    to save trafficking victims.
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    The solution is clearly to give
    workers more legal protections,
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    allowing them to resist abuse
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    and report it to authorities
    without fear of arrest.
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    The way the term trafficking
    is thrown around,
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    implies that all undocumented
    migration into prostitution is forced.
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    In fact, many migrants
    have made a decision,
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    out of economic need,
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    to place themselves into the hands
    of people smugglers.
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    Many of them do this with the full
    knowledge that they'll be selling sex
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    when they reach their destination.
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    And yes,
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    it can often be the case that these people
    smugglers demand exorbitant fees,
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    coerce migrants into work
    they don't want to do,
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    and abuse them when they're vulnerable.
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    That's true of prostitution,
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    but it's also true of agricultural work,
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    hospitality work
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    and domestic work.
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    Ultimately, nobody wants
    to be forced to do any kind of work,
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    but that's the risk many
    migrants are willing to take
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    because of what they're leaving behind.
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    If people were allowed to migrate legally,
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    they wouldn't have to place their lives
    into the hands of people smugglers.
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    The problems arise from the
    criminalisation of migration,
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    just as they do from the
    criminalisation of sex work itself.
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    This is a lesson of history.
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    If you try to prohibit something
    that people want or need to do,
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    whether that's drinking alcohol
    or crossing borders,
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    or getting an abortion,
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    or selling sex,
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    you create more problems than you solve.
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    Prohibition barely makes a difference
    to the people actually doing those things.
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    But it makes a huge difference
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    as to whether or not they're
    safe when they do them.
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    Why else might people support prohibition?
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    As a feminist,
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    I know that the sex industry is a site
    of deeply entrenched social inequality.
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    It's a fact that most buyers of sex
    are men with money,
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    and most sellers are women without.
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    You can agree with all that --
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    I do --
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    and still think prohibition
    is a terrible policy.
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    In a better, more equal world,
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    maybe there would be far fewer
    people selling sex to survive,
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    but you can't simply legislate
    a better world into existence.
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    If someone needs to sell sex
    because they're poor,
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    or because they're homeless,
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    because they're undocumented
    and they can't find legal work,
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    taking away that option
    doesn't make them any less poor,
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    or house them,
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    or change their immigration status.
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    People worry that selling
    sex is degrading.
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    Ask yourself,
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    is it more degrading than going hungry,
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    or seeing your children go hungry?
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    There's no call to ban rich people
    from hiring nannies or getting manicures,
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    even though most of the people
    doing that labor are poor, migrant women.
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    It's the fact of poor migrant women
    selling sex specifically
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    that has some feminists uncomfortable.
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    And I can understand why the sex
    industry provokes strong feelings,
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    people have all kinds of complicated
    feelings when it comes to sex.
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    But we can't make policy
    on the basis of mere feelings,
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    especially not over
    the heads of the people
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    actually effected by those policies.
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    If we get fixated on the
    abolition of sex work,
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    we end up worrying more about a particular
    manifestation of gendered inequality,
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    rather than about the underlying causes.
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    People get really hung up on the question,
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    "Well would you want
    your daughter doing it?"
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    That's the wrong question.
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    Instead, imagine she is doing it.
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    How safe is she at work tonight?
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    Why isn't she safer?
  • 14:05 - 14:08
    So we've looked at full criminalisation
  • 14:08 - 14:09
    partial criminalisation,
  • 14:09 - 14:11
    the Swedish or Nordic Model
  • 14:11 - 14:12
    and legalisation,
  • 14:12 - 14:14
    and how they all cause harm.
  • 14:14 - 14:17
    Something I never hear asked is ...
  • 14:17 - 14:19
    "What do sex workers want?"
  • 14:20 - 14:23
    After all, we're the ones most
    effected by these laws.
  • 14:23 - 14:27
    New Zealand decriminalized
    sex work in 2003.
  • 14:27 - 14:29
    It's crucial to remember
  • 14:29 - 14:32
    that decriminalisation and legalisation
    are not the same thing.
  • 14:32 - 14:35
    Decriminalisation means
    the removal of laws
  • 14:35 - 14:37
    that punitively target the sex industry,
  • 14:37 - 14:40
    instead treating sex work
    much like any other kind of work.
  • 14:41 - 14:42
    In New Zealand,
  • 14:42 - 14:43
    people can work together for safety,
  • 14:43 - 14:46
    and employers of sex workers
    are accountable to the state.
  • 14:46 - 14:49
    A sex worker can refuse
    to see a client at any time,
  • 14:49 - 14:50
    for any reason,
  • 14:50 - 14:53
    and 96 percent of street workers
  • 14:53 - 14:56
    report that they feel the law
    protects their rights.
  • 14:56 - 14:58
    New Zealand hasn't
    actually seen an increase
  • 14:58 - 15:00
    in the amount of people doing sex work,
  • 15:00 - 15:03
    but decriminalising it has
    made it a lot safer.
  • 15:03 - 15:07
    But the lesson from New Zealand isn't just
    that its particular legislation is good,
  • 15:07 - 15:11
    but that crucially, it was written
    in collaboration with sex workers,
  • 15:11 - 15:13
    namely the New Zealand
    Prostitutes' Collective.
  • 15:13 - 15:16
    When it came to making sex work safer,
  • 15:16 - 15:19
    they were ready to hear it straight
    from sex workers themselves.
  • 15:19 - 15:20
    Here in the UK,
  • 15:20 - 15:24
    I'm part of sex worker-led groups
    like the Sex Worker Open University,
  • 15:24 - 15:26
    and the English Collective of Prostitutes,
  • 15:26 - 15:28
    and we form part of a global movement
  • 15:28 - 15:32
    demanding decriminalisation
    and self-determination.
  • 15:32 - 15:35
    The universal symbol of our
    movement is the red umbrella.
  • 15:35 - 15:38
    We're supported in our demands
    by global bodies like UNAIDS,
  • 15:38 - 15:39
    the World Health Organization
  • 15:39 - 15:41
    and Amnesty International.
  • 15:41 - 15:43
    But we need more allies.
  • 15:43 - 15:46
    If you care about gender equality,
  • 15:46 - 15:49
    or poverty, or migration,
    or public health,
  • 15:49 - 15:51
    then sex worker rights matter to you.
  • 15:52 - 15:54
    Make space for us in your movements.
  • 15:54 - 15:57
    That means not only listening
    to sex workers when we speak,
  • 15:57 - 15:59
    but amplifying our voices.
  • 15:59 - 16:02
    Resist those who silence us.
  • 16:02 - 16:05
    Those who say that a prostitute
    is either too victimized,
  • 16:05 - 16:07
    too damaged to know
    what's best for herself,
  • 16:07 - 16:11
    or else too privileged and too
    removed from real hardship,
  • 16:11 - 16:15
    not representative of the millions
    of voiceless victims.
  • 16:16 - 16:21
    This distinction between victim
    and empowered is imaginary.
  • 16:21 - 16:23
    It exists purely to discredit sex workers
  • 16:23 - 16:26
    and make it easy to ignore us.
  • 16:26 - 16:29
    No doubt many of you work for a living.
  • 16:29 - 16:31
    Well sex work is work, too.
  • 16:31 - 16:32
    Just like you,
  • 16:32 - 16:34
    some of us like our jobs,
  • 16:34 - 16:36
    some of us hate them,
  • 16:36 - 16:39
    ultimately most of us have mixed feelings.
  • 16:40 - 16:45
    But how we feel about
    our work isn't the point ...
  • 16:45 - 16:48
    and how others feel
    about our work certainly isn't.
  • 16:49 - 16:53
    What's important is that we have the right
    to work safely and on our own terms.
  • 16:53 - 16:55
    Sex workers are real people.
  • 16:55 - 16:58
    We've had complicated experiences
  • 16:58 - 17:01
    and complicated responses
    to those experiences.
  • 17:02 - 17:05
    But our demands are not complicated.
  • 17:05 - 17:07
    You can ask expensive
    escorts in New York City,
  • 17:07 - 17:09
    brothel workers in Cambodia,
  • 17:09 - 17:11
    street workers in South Africa,
  • 17:11 - 17:14
    and every girl on the roster
    at my old job in Soho,
  • 17:14 - 17:16
    and they will all tell you the same thing.
  • 17:16 - 17:18
    You can speak to millions of sex workers
  • 17:18 - 17:21
    and countless sex work-led organizations.
  • 17:21 - 17:25
    We want full decriminalisation
    and labor rights as workers.
  • 17:25 - 17:28
    I'm just one sex worker
    on the stage today,
  • 17:28 - 17:30
    but I'm bringing a message
    from all over the world.
  • 17:30 - 17:31
    Thank you.
  • 17:31 - 17:33
    (Applause)
Title:
The laws that sex workers really want
Speaker:
Toni Mac
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
17:50

English subtitles

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