New Zealand was the first country in the world to decriminalise all sectors of sex work. This book provides an in-depth look at New Zealand's experience of decriminalisation. It provides first-hand views and experiences of this policy from the point of view of those involved in the sex industry, as well as people involved in developing, implementing, researching and reviewing the policies. Presenting an example of radical legal reform in an area of current policy debate it will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates as well as policy makers and activists.
; Hanks, 2021 ). Harmful prostitution stigmas and the omnipresent threat of repressive police surveillance and enforcement displace sex workers to more dangerous and clandestine workplaces, compromising safer working practices and conditions. This precarity has been produced and reinforced by legislative frameworks that refuse to recognise sex work as work, and exclude the majority of individuals who engage in sex work from accessing justice, health services, welfare support and labour rights. This article focuses on how, despite the above, a number of state
More than 15 years have passed since the law regarding sex workers in New Zealand has changed. As a model it has been endorsed as best practice by international organisations, leading scholars and sex worker-led organisations. Yet in some corners, speculation is ongoing regarding its impacts on the ground.
Written by an international group of experts, this groundbreaking collection provides the much needed in-depth research into how decriminalisation is playing out in sex workers' lives and how different groups of sex workers are experiencing it, while uncovering the challenges and tensions that remain to be negotiated in this field.
Using the evidence from New Zealand, it makes an invaluable contribution to the international debates regarding sex work laws and the global struggle to realise sex workers' rights.
55 FOUR Not getting away with it: linking sex work and hate crime in Merseyside Rosie Campbell Introduction In the wake of concerns about high levels of unreported violent and other crime against sex workers, and a number of murders of women involved in street sex work, Merseyside Police in 2006 became the first force in the UK to treat crimes against sex workers as hate crime.18 This chapter draws on my experiences of bridging the gap between hate crime scholarship and hate crime policy, as manager of the sex work project in Liverpool between 2005 and
forms of stigma and discrimination’ shape the experiences of sex workers on the basis of such identities as gender, race, class and sexuality. Sex work and the helping relationship It is reported that 1,000 women sell sex on any given day ( Kelleher et al, 2009; Ward, 2017 ) within Ireland’s indoor and street-based sex industry. These figures are not inclusive of women who cannot be counted from designated street locations or do not advertise on escort websites. The figure, therefore, may be significantly higher ( Sweeney and FitzGerald, 2017 ). Despite Ireland
29 TWO What’s anti-social about sex work? governance through the changing representation of prostitution’s incivility Jane Scoular, Jane Pitcher, Rosie Campbell, Phil Hubbard and Maggie O’Neill introduction Recent reforms of prostitution policy in the UK have been abolitionist in tone, with concerns about community safety and violence against women encouraging zero-tolerance strategies. In relation to street sex work, such strategies include a range of interventions – from voluntary referrals to compulsory intervention orders and Anti-Social Behaviour
67 FOUR uK sex work policy: eyes wide shut to voluntary and indoor sex work Teela Sanders introduction The last decade has seen a proliferation of activities from central and local government, community safety partnerships and individual police forces, as well as the collective umbrella of the Association of Chief Police Officers, introducing policy and guidelines in addition to enhancing existing and new legislation in order to manage parts of the sex industry. This has been a reaction to the Home Office’s review of prostitution laws and management
second study with the ASWA feminists in order to illustrate how this methodology can be used to unpack the embodied lived experiences of African sex worker feminists and help support sex worker rights activism in the continent. Background and positionality I strongly self-identify as an African feminist who practises as a sex worker rights scholar activist. As such, I am guided by African feminist principles and ideologies. In addition, the sex work scholarship I produce is directly informed by my activism, which in turn is strengthened by that scholarship
experiences. Adapting Carlen’s key phrasing, that there is no typical criminal woman, academic research with or by sex workers tells us that there is no such thing as a typical sex worker. In contrast, women selling sex have been categorised in law, public policy and media discourses as ‘culpable offenders’ or ‘innocent victims’. Accounts of selling sex inform us that the realities of sex work are much more diverse, complex and contradictory than these categories suggest. In this chapter, through participatory research with and by women selling sex, we explore the
99 SIx Male sex work in the uK: forms, practice and policy implications Mary Whowell and Justin Gaffney introduction Recent years have witnessed increasing discussion and debate over the changing nature of sex work. Research into street-based sex work has flourished (McKeganey and Barnard, 1996; Hubbard, 2004a: 2004b; Sanders, 2004), while work on the practices, sexualities and spatialities of indoor sex work is becoming more diverse and voluminous (see, inter alia, Abbot, 2000 on pornography; Rich and Guidroz, 2000 on telephone sex; Smith, 2002 on
