-
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 any time soon,
-
and my rent needed paying,
-
so I signed up for my
first shift in 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'm going to 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.
-
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,
-
regulates sex work by criminalising
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 criminalised 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 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 criminalisation;
-
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 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,
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"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.
-
And she had been working later than usual
-
to try to pay off a fine
she had received for soliciting.
-
So if criminalising
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 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 criminalised 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,
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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 of 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 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.
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People of color,
-
migrants,
-
people with disabilities,
-
LGBTQ people,
-
particularly trans women --
-
these are the groups most heavily profiled
and punished through prohibitionist law.
-
I don't think this is an accident.
-
These laws have political support
-
precisely because they target people
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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 of them 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 the risk many
migrants are willing to take
-
because of what they're leaving behind.
-
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.
-
The problems arise from the
criminalisation of migration,
-
just as they do from the
criminalisation 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,
-
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 gendered 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 criminalisation
-
partial criminalisation,
-
the Swedish or Nordic Model
-
and legalisation,
-
and how they all cause harm.
-
Something I never hear asked is ...
-
"What do sex workers want?"
-
After all, we're the ones most
effected by these laws.
-
New Zealand decriminalized
sex work in 2003.
-
It's crucial to remember
-
that decriminalisation and legalisation
are not the same thing.
-
Decriminalisation 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 decriminalising 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 decriminalisation
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 decriminalisation
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)