Tag: rescue

Companion bills S.277 and H.605, introduced this month in Vermont, propose to eliminate offenses related to the location of prostitution while retaining the offenses of aiding or abetting, engaging in, or procuring or soliciting prostitution. Passage of this bill would increase access to housing for individuals formerly or currently engaged in sex work¹, allow them to access justice should their right to housing be denied based on their occupation, and reduce stigma and discrimination against sex workers, which gravely affects all aspects of their lives. DSW and other advocates claim the bill is critical to ensuring equity, health, and safety² for sex workers and should be part of the state’s strategy to keep marginalized and vulnerable individuals housed.

Some individuals choose sex work among other well-paying jobs and some are in circumstances, namely exclusion from the traditional labor force due to discrimination, that lead them to sex work even if it is not their first choice for earning an income. Like most individuals who engage in any form of labor, sex workers name accessing and maintaining housing as one of the primary motivators for engaging in sex work. Simultaneously, criminalization, along with stigma and discrimination often make it impossible for them to access and keep safe and adequate housing. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International writes, “Criminalization and discrimination often lead to violations of the right to adequate housing for many sex workers, even though this right is enshrined under international laws and standards.”

Criminalization punishes everyone involved in sex work, including those who are seeking a way out. Burdened with criminal records, many former sex workers who wish to exit the sex industry find themselves unable to do so and must return to sex work to make ends meet. Private housing providers often implement policies that restrict individuals with arrests or criminal convictions. Under current law, landlords may discriminate against sex workers. These circumstances push many sex workers, current and former, directly into homelessness.

Homeless or housing-unstable sex workers are more vulnerable to violence due to lack of access to private space for working and living. In particular, women sex workers face a high burden of unstable housing and evictions, which are linked to increased odds of intimate partner and workplace violence.³ Stigma and discrimination cause tremendous harm to all people engaged in sex work, whether their form of work is legal or not and whether they are working by choice, circumstance, or coercion. Laws that further stigma, shame, misogyny, and discrimination enable and amplify harms to an already vulnerable population.

¹ Sex work is the exchange of sexual services for money or something of value. Sex work includes the entire field of sexual services, both legal and illegal, including pornography, exotic dancing, fetish work, web-based work, and prostitution. Prostitution is the kind of sex work most often criminalized, and it is the direct, in-person exchange of sex for money or other things of value.

² Goldenberg S.M., Buglioni N., Krüsi A., Frost E., Moreheart S., Braschel M., Shannon K. Housing Instability and Evictions Linked to Elevated Intimate Partner and Workplace Violence Among Women Sex Workers in Vancouver, Canada: Findings of a Prospective, Community-Based Cohort, 2010-2019. Am J Public Health. 2023 Apr;113(4):442-452. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2022.307207. PMID: 36888950; PMCID: PMC10003487.

³ Ibid.

Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW) has been fortunate to partner with dedicated and talented interns pursuing a number of fields of study, and we are thrilled to welcome Jessica Moore, who is pursuing a masters in public health (MPH) and plans to be a lawyer.

Moore is an Atlanta native. She graduated from Jasper County High School in 2018. While there, she engaged in independent biotechnology research focused on the genotype and phenotype of Lichens. The computational biology research “Lichen Phenotypic Expression with Genomic Verification” led Jessica to win the Regional Science and Engineering Fair held at Georgia College and State University. Jessica went on to present her research at the State Science and Engineering Fair at the University of Georgia and the International Science and Engineering Fair held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the International Science and Engineering Fair, Jessica received a special award from the United States Air Force recognizing her work in STEM. Jessica was later granted admission to the University of Georgia.

In 2022, Jessica earned a Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion from the University of Georgia. Following graduation, she embarked on a summer internship, as part of her experiential learning requirement, with the East Georgia Cancer Coalition creating resources tailored toward patients in 52 counties in Georgia undergoing cancer treatment and survivorship. By the end of the summer, Jessica was offered a position working with East Georgia Cancer Coalition as a program assistant where she has since been dedicated to serving the nonprofit organization for the past year two years.

Currently, Jessica is pursuing an MPH with a concentration in Health Promotion and a certificate in the Social Determinants of Health from the University of Georgia. Throughout her enrollment in the master's program, Jessica served as the clinic assistant at the Clarke Middle Health Center through the UGA medical partnership, which provides free health services to medically underserved families in Athens-Clarke County. During her 2nd year as an MPH student, Jessica is interning, as part of her applied learning practice requirement, with Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW). Jessica will graduate in May of 2024. Following her graduation, Jessica plans to attend law school with a specialization in public health law in the fall of 2024.

“Upon learning about DSW I was immediately drawn to intern with the organization. I know the power of advocacy because my accomplishments are owed to someone who advocated for me. DSW just felt like the perfect fit for me.”

Read why decriminalization is critical to improving public health and safety here.

January is nationally recognized as Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month. Human trafficking can occur in any labor sector and can happen to men, women, and children of any age, race, sexual orientation, or country of origin. Trafficking is defined by force, fraud, or coercion. Human trafficking is an abhorrent abuse of power and violation of human rights. Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW), along with a number of other human rights and anti-trafficking organizations, fights to end human trafficking and exploitation through the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work.

This past October, the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women and girls released a report calling for the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work globally. The group cited a 2021 investigation that found that criminalization endagers and undermines the work of sex worker rights advocates who are best suited to do life-saving anti-trafficking work as a reason for supporting full decriminalization. We know that sex workers are the strongest anti-trafficking advocates and are uniquely suited to identify traffickers and their victims. However, due to criminalization, sex workers often fear reporting crimes to law enforcement due to fear of prosecution and victims of trafficking are often arrested for crimes they were forced to commit.

The conflation of consensual adult sex work and human trafficking has dire consequences. Notably, up to 96% of anti-trafficking resources in the United States are directed towards combating trafficking in commercial sex, neglecting survivors in other industries. Anti-trafficking raids often target sex workers under the guise of rescuing them, leading to arrests, court fees, and immigration consequences without concrete evidence of trafficking. Furthermore, survivors of trafficking are often arrested for prostitution. Criminal convictions prevent trafficking survivors from accessing critical social resources while attempting to recover from being exploited. A key solution to addressing human trafficking lies in the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work. Evidence suggests that resources currently used to criminalize sex workers could be more effectively redirected towards trafficking prevention.

Freedom Network USA (FNUSA) is the nation’s largest coalition working to ensure that trafficked persons have access to justice, safety, and opportunity. They utilize a human rights-based approach to combat trafficking. In a September 2021 position paper FNUSA states, “Human trafficking is fueled by racism, misogyny, poverty, lack of affordable housing, discrimination, and restrictive immigration policies which create vulnerability to labor and sex trafficking. Traffickers take advantage of these factors and use force, fraud, and coercion to extract labor from those who are left without protection in a range of industries from agriculture to hospitality to sex work. Criminalizing the purchase of sex does not address the underlying factors that cause people to become trafficked, does not provide the services and support needed by trafficking survivors, and does not increase the investigation and prosecution of traffickers.”

Current laws in the U.S. do little to address trafficking and exploitation, while instead punishing consensual adults engaging in the sex industry. To mitigate the harms caused by criminalization, legislators need to listen to survivors of trafficking and sex workers when legislating on prostitution and decision-making coalitions at all levels of government need to include survivors of trafficking and sex workers in their membership.

DSW Legal Director Melissa Broudo was recently interviewed for a Forbes piece advocating for a public health approach to prevent human trafficking. She is quoted as saying, “I advocate to remove criminal penalties that are forced upon sex workers and survivors of trafficking so that they are not further harmed by criminalization (arrests, police brutality, etc.) and the burden of a lifelong criminal record. Everyone deserves a chance at obtaining employment, housing, immigration status, as well as a life free of harm, violence, and stigmatization. Hopefully human trafficking awareness will bring these issues to the forefront and allow us to pass critical legislation to ensure survivors can live a life free of harm and gender-based violence.” This January, we hope that advocates, law enforcement, and legislators explore a human-rights and public health approach to address the egregious crime of human trafficking.