So Skewed

7. In Solidarity: Decriminalise Sex Work

• Surabhi Chatterjee • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Can we shut up about the ethics and morality of prostitution for a minute, and understand what anti-prostitution laws do to sex workers? Because, sex workers have been trying to tell us for ages: the criminalization of prostitution is not only brutal towards sex workers (the women whose exploitation the laws want to combat) but ineffective at ending prostitution.  So what does the sex worker movement want?  This episode 7, the final episode of season 1, discusses how counterproductive anti-prostitution laws (that masquerade as anti-trafficking laws) are and explores, at length, the decriminalization of sex work.
Warning: Adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. 
Credits:
Host: Surabhi Chatterjee
Audio production: Pruthu Parab
Cover Art illustration: Rini Alphonsa Joseph
Music:
The intro music is Wake up, Max by Axel Lundström. Music is from YouTube audio library and includes: Minor Waltz, No. 9 Esther’s Waltz, No. 4 Paino Journey, No. 7 Alone with thoughts - Esther Abrami; Atlantis Rage-Jimena Contreras; Sinister Cathedral-Asher Fulero; The empty moons of Jupiter-Divkid; Masquerade, Espeluzante- Luna Cantina;The Beacon- Zachariah Hickman;Papov–Logos; Allegro-Emmit Fenn; Full Moon Empty House, Water Truck- Trevor Garrod; I Don't See the Branches, I See the Leaves by Chris Zabriskie (is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/dtv/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/);  Drone in D by Kevin MacLeod(is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200044
Artist: http://incompetech.com/)
Sources:
Juno Mac and Molly Smith (2018) “Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights”; Melisa Gira Grant (2014) “Playing the Whore”;Amia Srinivasan (2020). “The Right to Sex”.
DMSC (1997) "Sex Workers’ Manifesto";Gail Pheterson"At long last, listen to the women”; Jo Doezema (1999) “Loose Women or Lost Women: The Re-emergence of the Myth of White Slavery in Contemporary Discourses of Trafficking in Women”;Jo Doezma “the ideology of trafficking”; Sangram Resources; Nomi Network Website; Global Network of Sex Work Projects. 

Fraser Crichton“Decriminalising sex work in New Zealand – It’s history and impact”;The New Zealand Model; Global Alliance against Traffic in women. Durbar profile ;Theatre and Sex Work. VAMP’s performance as resistance 

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Episode 7: In Solidarity: Decriminalise Sex Work

 

The anti-trafficking movement argues that prostitution is the exploitation of women and inherently sexist. They insist that criminalising prostitution is for the benefit of sex workers. 

 

Sex worker activists, on the other hand, argue that while prostitution reflects gender inequality, it is not the cause itself. Prostitution shows us women’s continuing economic needs which are met by some of the most marginalised women through prostitution.  Sex worker activism today protests police brutality and the criminalisation of prostitution. Sex workers are saying that the violence they face because of the criminalisation of prostitution is worse than prostitution itself.  Yet – the anti-trafficking movement, led by people who have never sold sex, continue endorsing criminalisation. 

 

When I did my masters thesis in 2015 on the topic of prostitution, most of the literature available were by non-sex workers. Mostly, by or based on the works of the radical feminists we met in episode 2 who have championed this anti-trafficking movement. Sex worker representation in these discourses is very rare. In India – there’s hardly anything online. In the west – for the last decade – twitter became the platform where sex workers could mobilise, became visible and were humanised to some extent. And, while there have been essays, memoirs, books written by sex workers; while there has been some pro-sex work views by non-sex workers; there has hardly been any sex worker views in academic discourses. However, last year, I came across this book I have been referring to called ‘Revolting Prostitutes: the fight for sex worker rights’ written by 2 British sex workers - Juno Mac and Molly Smith, which was published in 2018. The authors formed a reading group with other sex workers; received a grant and responded to the anti-trafficking movement through this book. This is, as far as I’m aware, the first response by sex worker activists to the academic discourses and laws around prostitution and trafficking. This book is partly what inspired me to finish my thesis in form of these audio-essays to include sex worker views. This book is a major source for this episode and really is the conclusive case to why sex work needs to be decriminalised. 

 

Hello and welcome to So Skewed. I’m Surabhi – a lawyer and researcher. This is episode 7, the final episode of season 1. 

 

Today, prostitution is governed by anti-trafficking laws. I discussed the anti-trafficking movement in episode 4 and discussed what it actually is in episode 5.  Internationally, in the colonial and then post-colonial world, we saw in episode 1, the whole anti- trafficking movement started as a movement against prostitution. It was only in the year 2000 with the passing of the UN’s Palermo Protocol that trafficking into other sectors started being included in the definition of Trafficking.

 

Trafficking today is called modern day slavery – the definition of trafficking has been continuously expanding over the years, mostly led by the USA and now includes, among other things - forced labour, debt-bondage, and all commercial prostitution. The pro-sex work camp has for a while now been questioning this existing trafficking framework. Whenever sex worker activists question these anti-trafficking laws that are used to indiscriminately target the sex trade and sex workers, the anti-prostitution camp conveniently claims that sex workers promote trafficking or don’t understand it.  Even though today it’s becoming clear – the current trafficking framework should be called into question. 

 

In 2022 – in a horrible case of bonded labour in India – 37 people from Bihar – men, women and children were rescued from a work site. They were lured into the job, kept hostage, forced to work, and were not being paid. One of the labourers managed to contact the police who came and rescued them. The action taken in this case was criminal charges against the owner under provisions against bonded labour and human trafficking, and payment to the labourers for the work they were made to do, after which everyone was sent home. Several such cases have been reported– cases of adults and children – in bonded or forced labour situations in agriculture farms, dairy farms, construction sites, factories.  These crimes are horrible, and fall within the definition of trafficking, today. But notice how working in a farm is not illegal; dairy and agriculture farming is legal; construction sites and manufacturing factories are legal. So trafficking happens into other sectors and laws target that specific crime within that sector.  So, we understand - you can employ someone in a farm but you cannot hold them hostage, force them to work or refuse to pay them. But let’s look at how sex workers are treated under the same trafficking laws. Unlike the above cases, many sex workers are ‘busted’ or ‘caught’ by the police and forcibly rescued out of brothels. During these rescue missions, the police harass, extort and assault sex workers; sex workers are then all hauled up together and kept in rehabilitation homes after. Just like cases of trafficking into other sectors, there are cases of minors and unwilling adults in prostitution. But, even when they are rescued – they’re never compensated; they are not freed – they are kept in state homes. Plus, very pertinently -  not all workers in the sex trade are forced. So why are all sex workers ‘rescued’ but not other workers in agriculture farms, dairy farms, factories, construction sites. 

 

India’s proposed anti-trafficking law has passed in only the Lok Sabha so far. The proposed bill is vague at best and oppressive towards sex workers at worst.  In the bill, the definition of trafficking includes forced labour into other sectors and all prostitution, irrespective of consent. It is assumed under law that a sex worker’s consent to her “exploitation” is being bought by the payment of money.  As you can guess, a sex worker is doing sex work for the money so if she’s paid money for her work – it becomes a trafficking offence whereas if a labourer in a farm is not being paid for his work – it becomes forced labour – which is a trafficking offence.  The point is – this is all jargon. Under the new law, all prostitution is yet again being positioned as the sexual exploitation of women.  This is why the trafficking framework has to be questioned. How can all prostitution fall under the definition of trafficking. Shouldn’t it only be cases of unwilling prostitution where the victims want to be rescued. Because why do anti-trafficking laws apply to all workers in the sex trade but not all workers in an agriculture farm? 

 

Part 1: The War on sex workers  

 

Since the inception of anti-trafficking laws so 1949 atleast, what we know for sure is this: the criminalisation of prostitution is ineffective in ending prostitution and criminal laws across the world target and harm sex workers the most. I spoke about what sex work is in episode 6. To many marginalised women, sex work becomes a survival strategy; a last resort to stay out of poverty or destitution. Prostitution exists because of a woman’s demand for resources – this is why it has been impossible to end prostitution. Because women continue being poor and having unmet economic needs, which is never addressed in these anti-prostitution discourses that continue to look at prostitution as a result of men’s sexual urges.  There are 4 main legal models around prostitution. Let’s look at these laws more logically – how do these laws that are meant to save sex workers – how do they affect them; how do laws change their behaviour in the sex trade because the way a sex worker behaves around these laws is very rational. Problems and issues may overlap but each model presents different issues for sex workers. 

 

A sex worker working in the US under the criminalisation model is looked at as a criminal.  The Police are always looking to catch sex workers; bust places of work and sex workers are always running from the police.  If a sex worker is caught – she can be arrested or fined. We know why women enter the sex trade. For money that they do not have. Many sex workers are in a very vulnerable place in their lives which can range from poverty to abuse to an addiction, and they depend on sex work for day-to-day living. Imagine what happens when this sex worker gets arrested. She has to pay for legal fees including lawyers, bail and may also get fined under this model. This was a woman who was already struggling financially which is why she’s doing sex work. How will she come up with this money? By going back to the sex trade and now having to work more to pay these fees and fines. Plus, now she has a criminal record so jobs in other sectors become difficult. Working in the sex trade was already her only viable option and now, even if she wanted to leave the sex trade, she’s back and working more just so that she can pay off her debt to the state.  Criminalisation results in a vicious cycle of sex workers getting arrested, accumulating fines and then having to go back to do sex work to cover the negative impact these arrests and fines have. Proof that this model doesn’t work is that sex work continues under the criminalisation model including places like China, Russia, US and criminalised jurisdictions often have the most passionate sex worker activism. 

 

A sex worker working in India under the partial-criminalisation model is looked at as a victim. We saw how laws in India work in episode 5. The only way selling sex is ‘legal’ is if you sell sex completely alone. All third-party activities are illegal, brothel keeping is illegal, landlords are criminalised. A brothel is any place where more than one woman is selling sex, and any place can become a brothel under these conditions. A more privileged sex worker may be able to sell sex privately but what about most sex workers? They become vulnerable. The ambiguity in the law ensures sex workers are scared and confused. Here, police are again always looking to crackdown on prostitution and sex workers are vulnerable to constant police harassment. When sex workers get caught – through rescue – they are detained in rehabilitation homes which function as prisons. Sex workers can spend up to 3 years in these homes and are rescued without notice so she’s essentially plucked out of her life which may consist of family members who are dependent on her. Here again, sex workers encounter legal and other expenses, and many have to take debts to ensure their families outside the homes are taken care of while they are detained. Once sex workers are out of the system – the only way they can repay these debts is to go back into the sex trade and if she has spent a lot of time in detention – re-entering also attracts costs.  This legal model has also been ineffective in ending prostitution and proof it doesn’t work is that sex workers, who are considered the victims, are also against these laws and find the rescue-rehabilitation system to be ineffective and harmful. 

 

 

A sex worker working in Sweden under the ‘End Demand or Nordic Model’ is looked at neither as a criminal nor victim. But this law masquerading as a feminist law is equally cruel to sex workers. The Nordic model is the law propagated by the radical feminists who are responsible for drafting this law. This law criminalises the ‘demand’, the clients – so the buying for sex but not the sale of sell, so not sex workers.  What this law does not account for is that women sell sex to earn money. Their clients don’t represent the ‘demand’ for sex but often the supply of money. And sex workers in Sweden, like anywhere else, need money.  Under the Nordic model, while sex workers don’t need to run from the cops – clients do. And sex workers need clients. This means, sex workers have lesser clients to choose from. The law keeps the ‘good clients’ away and now due to lack of choice, sex workers have to often take up violent or aggressive clients cause they are the only ones who come out at night. The vetting process for clients, a very important part of the sex trade, also takes a hit.  If a sex worker is on the street and a client approaches her in his car – she has no time for negotiation, communicating her terms, stating her price, getting a sense of how safe he is, checking to see if there are other men in the car and then agreeing to the deal. Now -she’s just lucky to find a client so no matter how shady he looks, no matter how scared she is – she’ll jump into his car because she’s desperate. Because clients are scared of the cops, now the deal goes down accommodating his anxieties.  Sex workers under the Nordic model find themselves working “much harder” than they used to before. If clients were not criminalised, a sex worker would go to work, take a couple of clients, earn the money she needs and go home once she’s done – at a reasonable hour. Now clients don’t come out early for fear of cops being around. This sex worker has to wait on the street for hours without a single client approaching her because she can’t go home without her daily wage. The more she waits, the more desperate she is and clients know this too. She starts agreeing to drop prices, enters into risky situations - if her clients refuses to wear a condom – she might just have to risk unprotected sex cause she doesn’t know if she’ll get another client; if the client reduces her rate – she can’t refuse cause she’s got no other choice. So now she works on HIS terms – cause he risks arrest.  So a sex worker under the Nordic Model has to work twice as hard; work longer hours; take on more clients and drop her working conditions because the law ends up reducing her business, and she ends up absorbing the deficit.  

 

A sex worker working in Amsterdam under the legalisation model is looked at as an employee. Legalisation does not seem like a bad law but is quite dystopian in the way it aims to control the sex trade. Here, the sex industry is heavily regulated – there are zoned red light areas; there are mandatory and regular medical tests (which are seen to be excessive, pointless and more than a medical specialist would recommend); there is licensing and registering; there’s filing taxes. So sex work is legal when regulations are followed. Legalisation does not work for sex worker rights and welfare either.  It creates a two-tier system and makes some work legal but in the process – a lot of sex work remains illegal. Independent sex work becomes illegal. Sex work outside zoned area is illegal; sex work outside a licensed business is illegal; Sex work without a government issued license is illegal. In Amsterdam – you can sell sex legally in a red light area – in licensed sex businesses - brothels, sex clubs, sex cinemas, massage parlours –but you cannot sell sex – at home, at hotels, on the streets, independently. So a sex worker here is dependent on getting a job in one of these businesses and a lot of women may get thrown out. In this model, only a limited number of licenses are handed to the sex businesses. This means - it is the big capitalists who can afford getting these spots and they start controlling the sex trade – which can get very ruthless. This also means only a limited number of sex workers can work there. So what happens if you get fired, don’t get hired anywhere else and need money? Because you can’t stand on the street and sell sex. Plus, if your ex-boss sees you – he can call the cops on you. So this model creates a black market within the sex trade. The point of sex work is that it’s used by women as a survival strategy – but when the sex trade is this regulated – many sex workers may struggle with the paperwork, the filing taxes; the registration. It makes sex work a rigid job. 

 

Now, laws against prostitution are said to be to prevent the exploitation of women because it is argued that sex workers are exploited at the hands third parties and brothel owners/managers/ madams who hold a lot of power over sex workers. This is true – they do have a lot of power over sex workers.  Exploitation and violence also exist in the sex trade.  But sex workers are saying that anti-prostitution laws often doubles this violence and exploitation and. So, let’s look at how these laws affect the behaviours of the men in the sex trade.  This isn’t a “not all men” argument even though it might come across as that. The way anti-prostitution discourses go – it is assumed that all men in the sex trade are evil and harmful. This is simply not true – and this assumption when made under law is dangerous. It gives immunity to bad men to truly thrive, not at the cost of the other men but at the cost of sex workers. 

 

Brothel owners, keepers or madams exist in the sex trade. Third parties do too - they are often integral to the trade. This can include pimps, agents, managers. Today the law criminalises all these third parties who are seen to be ‘exploiting’ sex workers, that is, coercing her to do sex work using money and ‘exploiting her prostitution’. There’s a blanket assumption that the pimp makes her do sex work.   In reality – sex workers may want to work in a brothel; Sex workers may want to hire a pimp.  Firstly: Third parties like pimps/agents can do the administrative and logistical part of the job including getting clients, getting rooms, coordinating time, negotiating. Many sex workers may want someone else to do this job. This is not unlike getting an assistant to manage meetings and a schedule. Secondly, the sex trade involves women meeting unknown and different men and can get risky. Practically – if a sex worker is visiting a client in an unknown location – she would prefer having her agent or a bodyguard or a man she trusts to wait outside for her or introduce her or just look at the client’s face. 

 

If a pimp or agent is providing these services to a sex worker – he will charge her and this money will come out of the sex work gig. Any manager/agent/bodyguard in any sector charges their clients. Imagine someone saying a manager is taking advantage of an actor because the manager makes money “off” the actor because his income comes from the actor’s income – the statement is true but that’s the job of the manager. It’s very dehumanising to assume that sex workers do not want anyone else to work with. Actors, artists, musicians, sportspeople, politicians, influencers, have agents, managers, secretaries’, bodyguards who are paid out of their income. Why is it so hard to understand that sex workers that work in a risky trade also want third parties to assist and support them.  

 

Now. 

 

There can be a coercive, exploitative and abusive pimp. He may have a lot of power over the sex worker; he may make her take up more clients than she would like; he may take a large cut from her income; he may withhold her money and so she can’t leave him; he may threaten to call the cops on her if she goes anywhere.  Similarly, brothel-owners or madams can also be exploitative – make sex workers work long hours; have unsafe and unhygienic working conditions; withhold her money from her; ensure she can’t leave the brothel to work anywhere else; they can take a huge cut from her; not provide condoms; threaten her with police action. 

 

In these cases, the anti-prostitution laws actually help these bad players and work against the sex worker. Because when the entire sex trade is criminalised – she cannot go to a labour court and say that her employer is not giving her her money; she cannot complain against the pimp mismanaging her money or taking a huge commission – because sex work is not recognised as labour. She can’t go to the police and say that she’s experiencing violence or that she’s being held in her brothel or she was raped because the sex worker is scared of being detained by the Police herself and the police don’t take violence against sex workers seriously. So, since the whole sex trade is illegal – there’s no recourse. 

In fact, because the sex trade is criminalised – the bad pimp or bad Madam also know that sex workers is scared and has no recourse so they can keep threatening and exploiting her. Third-parties and owners in the trade know very well that sex workers cannot afford to be detained, arrested or deported. What happens, then, if someone has an abusive boss who holds power over her; has more power in general; knows she has nowhere to go; knows she is desperate for money and no one including the police will take her seriously. The bad third-party or brothel owner – they thrive under this legal ambiguity.  They also don’t want sex workers to have rights. Their bad behaviour is left unchecked cause the whole sex trade is criminalised; 

If sex workers had rights – they would be able to ensure fair commissions; they could protest long hours or working conditions; they could change jobs; they could just walk out and work somewhere else without fear; they can report these exploitative third-parties; they can get pimps blacklisted. So, why would the exploitative third-parties want sex workers to have rights? The criminalisation of prostitution works amazingly for them but what it does for sex workers is completely disempowers them; it makes their lives harder, more dangerous and more precarious. It takes away their agency - sex workers cannot make choices that will keep them safe because it criminalises those she asks for help. This is very sinister and cruel. 

Even with clients, laws work to disempower only the sex workers and favours the truly bad men. There is a difference between a respectful client and a violent one.  Between a good client and bad. And it has nothing to do with the sex. Clients are also aware that sex workers run away from the police. The rape of a sex worker is not taken seriously by the police or the anti-trafficking camp. Most sex workers, at this point, know not to go to the police if they were assaulted. So, how will the abusive and violent men act, knowing this. The law protects violent men. Laws anyway incentivise sex workers to work alone and without a trace. What these laws do, in effect, is point at a group of women and let the bad men know that these women can be harmed easily and without repercussions. Sex workers become an easy target for violent men and if a man attacks or rapes a sex worker – she just has to bear the assault and heal however she can manage – there’s no access to justice.  Across the world – we’ve seen robberies, rapes, assaults and the murders of sex workers. This is the ‘whore stigma’ that I spoke about in episode 6 in actual practice – misogynists think they can harm sex workers with no consequences and the law supports them. Misogynists have internalised the disgust that exists towards sex workers to such an extent that there have been cases of literally serial killers who exclusively target sex workers. 

In Kenya, in a small city called Thika, 8 sex workers were murdered by a serial killer who when he was caught in 2010 said that he wanted to kill around a hundred prostitutes.  

 

In India – In Hyderabad – transwomen in the city were terrorised by a man for over 8 years who committed robberies, extortions, rapes and even a murder, exclusively targeting transwomen, especially those who worked as sex workers. He was out on bail within a day after being arrested for the murder of one sex worker and as of 2018, remained at large. 

 

In the US:  a serial killer murdered at least 48 girls and women, who were mostly sex workers. He told the police after his arrest “I thought I was doing you guys a favour, killing prostitutes…Here you guys can’t control them but I can’ .

 

Anti-prostitution feminist discourses do nothing to remove the misogyny that sex workers face from such men who just don’t understand why anyone is getting so outraged over the murder of just a sex worker. While we should always remember – that sex workers do not exist to absorb the physical and sexual violence that men can perpetrate and do not exist to create a buffer to protect other women– let’s just logically think about what happens when you imply that a certain section of women can be harmed with impunity. From RP “The criminalisation of prostitution drives violence against all women; criminalised sex workers become a ‘training ground’ where violent men can experiment with perpetrating violence, safe in the knowledge that their targets are unable to protect themselves or to get justice. Having ‘practiced’ on sex workers, such men often then move on to non–sex working women… ” 

 

With the current anti-trafficking framework – what falls between the cracks is dangerous. With these laws prostitution is kept hidden, underground and this gives oxygen to those who harm – who can assert power; who exploit; who are violent.  This keeps hidden the truly terrible – sex workers are not allowed to distinguish between good, bad and ugly situations – it’s all equally bad they are told by people who have never worked in the sex trade. The sex trade is sexist. It does allow bad actors to exploit workers. It consists of workers who are marginalised and vulnerable. Sex workers have the least negotiating power in the sex trade – the client can walk away but the sex worker needs money. The third parties and madams can get other sex workers, but the sex worker may not get another job.   This is why criminal laws around prostitution harm sex workers the most – they absorb deficits in their prices or working conditions; they become the sponge that absorb the harms done by bad men in the sex trade. Remember, in any criminalised market – there can be no workers’ rights. And sex workers need rights, precisely because sex workers are vulnerable to exploitation, violence and inherently have lesser negotiating power in the trade. 

 

Part 2: The Police 

 

Under anti-prostitution laws, it is the police who are responsible for saving sex workers. It is the police that executes rescue missions. In episode 4 – we saw how it is carceral feminism that looms large over anti-trafficking efforts. The anti-trafficking camp insists that the criminalisation of prostitution is how the sex trade will be brought down and endorse the police as the saviours of women. So we should talk about the police. 

 

Because the carceral anti-prostitution camp rightly say prostitution is a patriarchal and sexist institution but forget that so is the Police. The police as an institution across the world is known to be brutal. It’s a male institution and not known for their healing approach especially by those who are the targets of their policing. It’s only in the eyes of the privileged feminists - that the Police serve as the protector of women who are exploited in the sex trade. But, “for sex workers and other marginalised and criminalised groups, the police are not a symbol of protection but a real manifestation of punishment and control” 

 

The police are not known to be a humanitarian institution, they are a tough institution, meant to maintain law and order and investigate and prosecute criminals. The police is also not known to be a feminist institution. A woman should be able to empathise with how traumatizing and humiliating it can be to report sexual or domestic violence to the police; and people from different classes and backgrounds have a different relationship with the police, and a sex worker is more likely to run AWAY from the police than run towards him. 

 

If feminists admit to a power imbalance between men and women– can you imagine this power imbalance distilled between a police officer and a sex worker?  Sex workers are women. The police are men. The police shame sex workers, insult them, harass them, humiliate them, parade them, rob them, rape them, stigmatise them; taunt them – apart from the very real and actual loss of money and freedom which fate rests on this one man – the policeman – apparently here to help the women.  Carceral feminism likes to think that police violence is not a ‘feminist’ concern but police violence against sex workers is a global reality, it’s rampant and it’s brutal.   For sex workers across the world – the police is one of, if not – the biggest source of violence and abuse in their lives. Not brothel owners, not Madams, not Pimps, not clients – it is the police.  If we account for police harassment of sex workers - violence, extortion, sexual harassment and assault - then the police become the biggest perpetrators of violence against sex workers. And the numbers are so high – that the police actually become one of the key drivers of male violence against women. 

 

Sex worker collectives across the world have identified the police as the biggest threat to their safety. From Revolting Prostitutes: One sex worker in Norway said ‘You only call the police if you think you’re going to die … If you call the police, you risk losing everything’. A sex worker from Nigeria says: ‘Police are our biggest problem, more than anyone. When he puts on the uniform, he thinks he can do whatever he wants.’

DMSC in Kolkata surveyed over 21,000 sex workers and found 48,000 reports of abuse or violence by the police as opposed to 4,000 reports of violence by clients. Laws send the police to ‘rescue’ women from the sex trade. If there are 4000 reports of client violence and 48000 reports of police violence, then who do sex workers have to be saved from? 

 

Laws give the Police a lot of power over marginalised and vulnerable women. Police resources are spent to chase down sex workers and catch them, again and again. Laws tell the Police what they are allowed to do with sex workers. So what happens on the ground?

A policeman can stop sex workers or women he profiles as sex workers – at any time. He can threaten to detain or arrest her and the sex worker is always scared of this because if he does and even if she’s ultimately released – she could spend months to years in detention which means loss of livelihood and freedom. To avoid this, she is at the mercy of the policeman and will do whatever he asks. The police regularly harass sex workers - extortion, blackmailing – he can threaten to reveal to her family that she works as a sex worker so sex workers have to keep bribing cops; the police often demand sex from them and refuse to pay; they beat and taunt sex workers – just for kicks and just because he can. To a policeman, just like to the patriarchal camp or the anti-prostitution feminists, a sex worker is always sexualised and always working so he thinks a sex worker should never refuse sex and if a sex worker dare say no to the police – he will ‘show her her place’. 

The sex trade is a cash economy. Sex workers are marginalised women who are often left out from the mainstream – this means many sex workers don’t have bank accounts or other documents and work in cash. Sex workers are perfect targets for a little extra pocket money for the policeman, everyday. Sex workers regularly bribe and get forced into sex by police men. Most times – both. Sex workers report being forced to have sex with the cops and giving him money as a bribe so forced sex/rape by the police is a common issue in the sex trade across the world. There are horrid stories from sex workers about how the police treat them. Stories about how the police force sex workers to have sex with them if they want to avoid arrest and then after, arrest them anyway. Stories of how the police refuse to allow women to dress up in regular clothes and take them out of brothels in their work clothes to humiliate them. The police practically laugh at sex workers for how powerless sex workers are against them. Can you imagine the frustration of being raped and then being charged for it by a police officer? Sex workers in India have consistently citied the policemen as their least preferred ‘clients’ because they refuse to pay and abuse their power.

Being a sex worker is a constant cat and mouse chase with the police with the threat of detention constantly looming on their heads. When it is police that is in-charge of implementing laws against the sex trade - the relationship between the police and sex workers becomes adversarial. The Police are looking not to help but catch sex workers. When there’s such aggressive crackdown on prostitution – the sex trade responds by going more underground. The sex trade is always evolving, it shifts to newer and more hidden places. This means sex workers can be called in to work at unknown places; she can’t ask too many questions – it is understood that not disclosing information is to ensure that the police don’t catch them.  So sex workers have to compromise on their safety and security, and go to work in unknown and hidden places so that the police won’t catch them. 

Everyone in the sex trade also know that the police will want to catch the sex workers – the clients don’t get caught and third-parties are generally not that visible and can get out on bail; third parties/brothel owners have more power, money and connections so unless it’s charges of minor prostitution – they are not targeted as much; plus sex workers are more visible and larger in number, so will be targeted anyway to meet arrest quotas under the act. The Police have to choose between investigating, chasing, gathering evidence against third-parties, brothel owners, traffickers, who will be 5-10 men OR they can just catch 50 sex workers from a red light area in one night against whom no evidence has to be brought and show MORE arrests under the Act. What do you think they choose? Anti-trafficking organisations similarly can show larger numbers of ‘rescued women’ to their funders so this system also works for them.  

 

Even when raids are conducted under the law and sex workers detained – sex workers regularly report having all their belongings – gold, cash – being stolen.  A lot of sex workers in India will try to buy gold over time for investment purposes – all of which they keep in the brothel. What do you think happens when the police raid a brothel and the sex workers are taken out with no warning? What would happen to all her belongings if a sex worker is in custody for a few months or worse - for 3 years?  Because sex workers are saying – when the cops come to ‘rescue’ them, they lose everything. It could be the police – it often is; it could be the brothel owners-it often is; it could be them together, in collusion – there’s no way to know who takes her stuff but sex workers know after a raid, she will lose all her savings and if she’s detained – she will never see any of her stuff again. Her place in the brothel will be given to another woman.  When a sex worker gets out of a state protective home – she, often, has nothing on her. She loses everything she earned in the sex trade till she was ‘rescued’. Almost every woman I have met in a protective home has reported being robbed blind during police raids. I’ve come across a case of a woman who was forced and unwillingly kept in a brothel who had saved some cash and bought gold earrings – all of which she lost when she was ‘rescued’.  This woman was forced into prostitution– she made that money; she tried to save up – so she could leave the sex trade. But now she has nothing – because police and state insisted that her money was not as important as locking her up in a protective home. Think about trafficking cases into other sectors that we saw in the beginning of this episode – those forced into labour, when rescued, were compensated for their labour and given damages for their abuse – but sex workers – are never compensated and in fact are robbed by the police. 

 

And how do the police rescue women? Set up decoy customers; go on undercover missions without witnesses; set traps; lure sex workers. Lure women to RESCUE them, it seems. The rescue process is brutal – do the state, police, social workers, feminists know or care about what happens to a sex workers’ child, family - without her income; without her being present.  And the worst-case scenarios of violence by the Police are devasting. From Revolting Prostitutes: 

“In 2017 in New York, a woman called Yang Song was caught up in an undercover sting at the massage parlour at which she worked. She had been arrested for prostitution two months earlier and had recently been sexually assaulted by a man claiming to be a police officer. (It remains unclear as to whether he was). When the police returned, looking to arrest her again for prostitution, she fell, jumped or was pushed from a fourth-floor window. Yang Song died.”  

In India, in Satara, a sex worker was beaten up so badly by a policeman in the station that she suffered a miscarriage, and the man faced no consequences.

Whenever this is brought up – the response is – we need to train and sensitise the police and this will end police violence. But it hasn’t worked so far. How long do we wait? How long do sex workers have to be beaten, abused, raped until all policemen have become good. In the 2022 Supreme Court order – one of the major observations by the Supreme Court of India was that sex workers face horrible abuse and violence from the police. This is 2022. So, still. 

 

The problem is not about bad apples within the police.  Because when the rules of the game are so skewed – when the police have so much power and when sex workers are so vulnerable – hoping for individuals to change is unrealistic. Instead, we have to change the rules of the game. Remove the oxygen that allows the Police to harm.  The Police just need to leave the sex trade. It’s a terrible look. Why are men in uniforms, responsible for the safety of society, for ensuring crimes are not committed and criminals are caught – why are they being allowed to scare and threaten and extort and rape sex workers. Among the poorest, most marginalised and vulnerable women. 

 

If a woman is rescued and was unwillingly in prostitution – she is sent to a rehabilitation home. If a woman wants to continue in the sex trade – she is also rescued and sent to a rehabilitation home.  A woman who was unwilling and wants to be rescued – why is she being locked up a state institution for up to 3 years? Why isn’t she treated like any other victim of kidnapping, abduction, rape?  If a woman wants to leave the sex trade on her own – why should she have to wait for the police to conduct a raid and rescue her? Why can’t she get out of the sex trade on her own? Abusive third parties? Well – the law supports them. If sex workers were empowered – she could call in the police to find her without repercussions to other women in the sex trade.  

 

After rescue - where does rehabilitation happen for all women rescued, irrespective of consent? In this rehabilitation home, where sex workers are locked up, together – away from their respective families, friends, partners, children, neighbours. She is told when she has to sleep and wake up; she is told when the meals are served; she cannot choose her meals – she cannot order food; no guests; no phones; only few belongings; she doesn’t even know where her other belongings are but it’s most likely to have been stolen. She has no access to the outside world to do anything about it.  This rehabilitation home is where she is meant to heal (remember – she’s presumed to be a victim of sexual exploitation under the law). How is this healing?  If this is the alternative to working in the sex trade which the sex worker may hate but at least it gives her money, freedom and life’s little joys like the food she wants to eat– why would she want to go to this rehabilitation home and think it’s good for her?  

 

Most sex workers look at rehabilitation homes as prisons where they kept for some time as “punishment” for working as sex workers. It’s not a place for healing. It’s a place to control and monitor sex workers as a group of women.  In episode 5 and 6, I spoke about rehabilitation efforts and how ineffective they are. Most sex workers do not find viable employment even after being released from rehabilitation homes and often find themselves back in the sex trade. Plus, this system of rescue and rehabilitation robs sex workers. Sex workers come out of rehabilitation homes with huge debts including loss of livelihood for the time she spent in the home and have no choice but to re-enter the sex trade anyway. The skills taught in the rehabilitation homes and alternative jobs offered, if at all, often pay much lesser than sex work and require much more time.  Even in a big city like Mumbai, Kolkata – how many women will get employed to make bags, candles, work in beauty parlours – these are not places that can employ so many women. You’ll often see bags or candles and similar projects that sell stuff made by sex workers. Again – that’s a noble cause if it was well-paying. But now how much money can a sex worker make in this project? Sex workers report these alternatives pay very badly. Plus, to get a job in these places – you need a place to live; a family or community to depend on. Is there free housing for sex workers? That would be a great initiative but those never happen. 

 

Rehabilitation efforts are embarrassingly out-of-touch, patronising and evidently do not understand that sex workers turn to sex work for money. They think of rehabilitation as a pocket-money generating fun activity for women. An international organisation, Nomi Network (an anti- “slavery” collective) runs an economic empowerment program that teaches women life skills like -- how to save money, how to maintain proper hygiene. They run a training centre in Cambodia where women learn how to make eco-friendly handbags and accessories. 100% of the profits are invested back into their ‘training and education opportunities’. So not given to the women. And how big do you think a business is that sells eco-friendly handbags out of recycled materials. It’s a fine business but it won’t offer viable jobs for everybody.  

 

Now we should talk about effective support to sex workers. Because when someone talks about ‘viable alternatives’ – it’s not a one size fits all. Different women have different wants and needs. A viable alternative has to match the money she can make in the sex trade and match the amount of time she spends. You cannot place a sex worker in a factory that has 12-hour shifts, bad working conditions and that pays her much lesser than she earned in sex work where she spent much less time. And if a woman has to be at home for her family; half-heartedly teaching her feminine skills forcibly in a rehabilitation home where she is locked up for years and releasing her with a huge debt on her head will never ensure she can leave the sex trade. You’ve essentially further harmed a woman. 

 

If the anti-trafficking camp actually cared for sex workers and alternative employment (which many sex workers are also looking for) – why must they lock up sex workers together in a state home and not allow them to leave? Why does an inquiry have to be conducted to decide whether she’s exploited or not and whether she is fit to be released or not? What is all this control and monitoring for? If a woman says she wants to work in the sex trade because it is the best option available to her today – shouldn’t her word be the final word. Why does a magistrate have to adjudicate it? 

 

Even these skill programs, if these were offered voluntarily to any woman, sex worker or not, while she’s living her current life and not in a controlled rehabilitation home – sex workers may avail these programs as per their own schedule. What’s the need to haul sex workers up, waste resources on police raids, court process and her loss of income, to have her locked up and teach her stitching. What if classes were offered where any woman who wants to pick up a skill can go. Maybe a sex worker wants to go for these stitching classes; maybe she would love to take adult literacy classes or computer classes whenever she has the time. A sex worker knows her own needs and is probably working towards saving money to leave the sex trade. Sex workers are aware that they are not going to be in the sex trade forever – it’s a short profession. So if these classes were given anyway, then sex workers would be truly supported to leave the sex trade on their terms. Maybe she takes months or years to leave but it’s productive. You’ve genuinely helped her. Once she leaves the sex trade – she has a skill. And maybe this helps accelerate her exit. 

 

Because now – this is how the system works. A sex worker is poor and one day she finds herself in a protection home told she will be there for 3 years. In these 3 years – she incurs debt; she doesn’t work at all; and she is taught some skill for which she will earn lesser than she did in the sex trade, if she gets a job at all. When she leaves – she mostly goes back to the sex trade – now trying to compensate for the losses she faced in these 3 years so working harder and more. Maybe she was planning to leave the sex trade in 5 years when she first entered. This ineffective 3-year rehabilitation process now ensures she has to work in the sex trade for 3 more years or maybe more because she now has debts. So what could have been 5 years in the sex trade – becomes at least 11 miserable years. If she was supported with voluntary schemes – she could have saved money in her 5 years in the sex trade; availed some skill training on the side; maybe even get another job that doesn’t pay her much but will over time so for now she supplements that income with sex work. She could have resources after 5 years to live somewhere, with someone and safely and she could have transitioned into the new job where maybe by now she is making enough money that she doesn’t need to do sex work at all.  But the current system strips women off their power, agency, their ability to choose for themselves and these saviours – the anti-trafficking camp - decide how this woman should live her life even though they have never faced the circumstances that got a woman into the sex trade. The current system created is counterproductive, ineffective and brutal to sex workers.  

 

Politicians, mindlessly, endorse anti-trafficking laws and are proud that we fulfill obligations under international law and follow US policy, without once questioning the origins of these laws; the religious reasons prostitution started being opposed by the west; how these laws are built to harm sex workers and crackdown on the sex trade indiscriminately, no matter how many women get harmed in the process.Anti-prostitution laws work for the police (it’s vague enough allowing harassment); it works for the State – it fulfils obligations under international law and somehow criminalising prostitution today is seen as the morally right thing to do; it works for anti-trafficking organisations who are well-funded  – the effectiveness of rehabilitation to them isn’t really as important as just getting women into the system. And it also works for third parties. Every time a woman is rescued and then released, a brothel owner can make more money from her. The only people it doesn’t work for – is the people it is said to be for – sex workers.   She’s never allowed to feel stable in her life. She’s never allowed to get out of survival mode. She’s always running from the police; she faces exploitation and violence in the sex trade, against which she has no recourse and which she prefers to police treatment; she’s involuntarily locked up for months to years and she’s back to the same position she was after she’s released. 

Sex workers run away when the police come to rescue them. Maybe this in itself should call for some introspection. Maybe someone wise says – sex workers don’t harm anybody; they are marginalized; many come from abuse and trauma; need money and resources and are selling sex just for that so is it okay to use the police and state resources to chase them so badly, so aggressively – that they are risking death and violence and exploitation in the sex trade over getting rescued. Is it okay to set the Police off on the most marginalized women in society? 

This is why sex worker collectives endorse the decimalization of sex work. And there is one place in the world where the police cannot harass sex workers; where sex workers report to feel safe and protected. 

Part 3: Decriminalisation: The New Zealand Model 

 

The first thing that must be said is that decriminalization is not the same as legalisation. Even in India – whenever the topic of the recognition of the sex trade comes up – the anxious response always is: Legalisation is just not possible. Policymakers and activists love pretending that the sex worker camp do not understand the concerns around trafficking. Sex workers do. More than policymakers and activists. We spoke about how legalising the sex trade is also not ideal, and not good for sex workers rights. But legalisation is not the same as decriminalisation.  When you legalise something – you make laws to regulate it.  Decriminalization means treating something as the default position. It just removes the laws that make something illegal. For example: section 377 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code being read down meant decriminalizing consensual sex between the same sexes – it doesn’t legalize it; it doesn’t regulate it – it’s just no longer a crime and you – no longer a criminal.

 

The decriminalization model is where sex workers, clients and third parties (whether agents, pimps, brothel owners or landlords) are all decriminalized and the sex industry is not regulated through criminal law but through civil law like any other sector. It begins with overturning criminal laws against the sex trade. New Zealand decriminalized prostitution in 2003. It’s been 20 years and this legal model is the only model to receive praise for its treatment of sex workers. In 1988, the New Zealand government started funding a then newly formed sex worker collective – the New Zealand Collective of Prostitutes to encourage health initiatives among sex workers. The collective identified the ‘criminalization of prostitution’ as one of the biggest hurdles in the lives of sex workers including their ability to take control of their own health. They then pressured the government to set up a committee to investigate the decriminalisation of sex work. To them – If criminalization was the problem, the solution must be – de- criminalization. 

 

The New Zealand Collective of Prostitutes along with other women’s groups set up a drafting committee that worked on a draft bill throughout the 1990s. In the year 2000, they found an ally in Member of Parliament – Tim Barnett who introduced their bill in the Parliament with its proposal to decriminalise sex work. The bill passed its first two readings, but when it was to go for its third reading in 2003 – many expected the bill to fail – it was almost guaranteed not to pass. However, at this third reading, MP Georgina Beyer was sitting in the New Zealand Parliament. Georgine Beyer is a Maori Trans woman - the Maori community, the indigenous community of New Zealand are a marginalized community.  Georgina Beyer was the world’s first transgender mayor and the world’s first transgender member of Parliament. And she, before all this, worked as a street-based sex worker.  Georgine Beyer gives a passionate speech in the Parliament when this bill is discussed which included the following words: “It would have been nice to know that … I might have been able to approach the authorities and say: “I was raped, and, yes, I’m a prostitute, and, no, it was not right that I should have been raped.”’ 

 

Her speech in the Parliament turned things around. Many MPs on the fence voted in favor and some who were opposed - abstained from voting and against all odds – the bill passed in the Parliament- 60 to 59 - making New Zealand the first country in the world to decriminalise sex work by adopting the “Prostitution Reforms Act” in the year 2003. 

 

 

The Prostitution Reforms Act is unique in the world because it is the only law that is drafted by sex workers and states that the purpose of the Act is to ‘safeguard the human rights of sex workers’.  The main goals of the law are: to protect sex workers from exploitation; to promote their health and safety and to eliminate prostitution under the ages of 18. So - the safety and security of people who sell sex. That’s it. That’s the only aim of the Prostitution law.  Now this law is not perfect because it only allows citizens and residents of New Zealand to be sex workers but not immigrants and this is a point of contention, but this is the closest there is to an ideal law. What this law did was remove commercial sex from the purview of criminal law and shifted it to the realm of commercial – labour and employment law. 

 

What does decriminalisation look like on the ground?

In New Zealand, there is no prohibition or penalty for doing street-based sex work, so no prohibition on ‘solicitating’. Sex workers can openly negotiate with clients wherever without any fear. Local governments can develop zones for the location of brothels or street prostitution but cannot prohibit either so they have to give a safe space for sex workers to work out of. 

For indoor sex workers – they can work together or in brothels. Brothels are legal. If up to 4 women work together in a shared flat with no boss – it is called a ‘small-owner operated brothel’ and does not need a license. So sex workers can choose to work on their own and with each other. More than 4 women and the business will become a brothel and must get necessary licenses and permits. Brothels have advertising restrictions and other compliances they must follow as per the law. Now the brothel becomes like any other workplace. The owner and manager of the brothel become liable for workers in the brothel. It must ensure sex workers are adults. They usually have agreements with sex workers where sex workers are either employees or independent contractors but for both – sex workers have the same protections. Employers are accountable through labour laws designed to protect sex workers. Sex work is regulated by the same labour laws and employment protections as any other workplace. So protection against sexual harassment, protection against assault, rape, coercion - as would apply to any other worker in any other workplace. It also then becomes the responsibility of the brothel to ensure safe working conditions - to maintain hygiene, give adequate breaks, respect shift timings, adequate holidays, provide condoms, ensure clients are vetted.  This also means if you complain against the brothel manager to a labour tribunal or police (depending on the crime), the brothel – your entire workplace isn’t shut so the bad apples are held responsible without affecting others in the sex trade.  This means sex workers can communicate with clients openly – terms of service, what services they can offer, what they cannot, cost – everything. Noone needs to feel shame, stigma and nothing is driven underground.  The New Zealand government in their commissioned studies have noted that sex workers were happier with employment rights, felt safe in the sex trade and felt like they had legal rights and recourse. Imagine that.  

 

There were a lot of anxieties around decriminalising sex work in New Zealand where the anti-prostitution camp argued that this meant increase in exploitation and the trafficking of women and a boom in the sex trade. But none of this has happened and the sex trade in New Zealand despite this fear mongering has not shown signs of some crazy growth. Especially important to note is the growth is no different than under other legal jurisdictions where sex work is criminalised. Five years after the law was introduced - the Prostitution Law Review Committee set up by the New Zealand Government found:

“The sex industry has not increased in size, and many of the social evils predicted by some who opposed the decriminalisation of the sex industry have not been experienced. On the whole, the PRA has been effective in achieving its purpose, and the Committee is confident that the vast majority of people involved in the sex industry are better off under the PRA than they were previously.” 

So the numbers of women selling sex has remained stable which goes to show that the criminalisation of prostitution doesn’t reduce the number of women who sell sex but harms them. And decriminalising the sex trade doesn’t increase the number of women selling sex and protects them. 

 

The sex industry in New Zealand, decriminalized since 2003, has been stable – the only change? the conditions of workers have improved. The sex trade is not out of control. In fact, what has increased is sex workers exercising their rights against their managers, brothel owners and clients. Now that the stigma against sex workers is reducing – they are becoming more assertive in the sex trade; they now refuse to tolerate bad behaviour and are taking more control over the sex trade.  There have been several instances of sex workers taking third parties or brothel owners to labour courts – for violating terms of service; for employment rights; for sexual harassment in the workplace. In 2014 – a sex worker took her manager to an employment tribunal for sexual harassment and won her case. The tribunal noted, ‘Sex workers are as much entitled to protection from sexual harassment as those working in other occupations … Sex workers have the same human rights as other workers.’ This also means that sex workers can approach the police if they are assaulted, abused, raped – all of these are still crimes - as they would be crimes for anybody else. A sex worker won her criminal case for rape against a client who removed his condom mid-way without the sex workers’ consent. The Prostitution Reforms Act clearly makes illegal anyone who is seen as forcing someone to start or stay in prostitution – so forcing people to enter the sex trade or stay on in the sex trade is criminalized – you are liable for that act. The law distinguishes different situations – it helps. It does not harm. 

 

The anti-prostitution camp says the criminalisation of prostitution is to prevent sex workers from getting exploited but under criminalised jurisdictions – exploitation by third-parties is rampant. But this is not the case under decriminalisation. What decriminalisation did is empower the workers against these third-parties. It completely changed the power dynamics. 

 

A sex worker – if she feels like is getting exploited by her manager, brothel owner – can take legal recourse against them but also she can also just walk out of her job – just quit; she can work somewhere else; she can also just work on her own; with her friends – she can call her regular client and say – hey I’m not working in that brothel anymore so contact me directly and the brothel owner can’t harm her if she does this. He can’t call the police and have her removed. If her pimp or agent is not good – she just fires him. If he tries to do anything violent with her, she calls the Police.  In fact what New Zealand has been seeing – is that many sex workers are now feeling safe enough to just work with each other. They actually prefer to not work in a brothel and not with a manager or pimp. Many managers are complaining that sex workers are not using their services. So the law empowers sex workers to work for themselves if they want and the law incentivises managers and third-parties to be fair and behave themselves. 

 

And most importantly, what decriminalisation did was “Topple Police Power”. Because prostitution is removed from criminal law, because sex work is being regulated by civil laws - it removes the police as the regulator of the sex trade.  The police in New Zealand don’t hang around sex workers and their workplaces, they can’t.  If sex workers need – they go to the police – just like it is for any citizen. In New Zealand, before decriminalization, the same old stories of police harassment, humiliation, assault; but no longer. That oxygen the police had to assert power and violence over sex workers is gone. The police can no longer stop a sex worker. In fact, the police now has a duty to protect sex workers, as they do with any other citizen. Police behaviour changed completely. Sex workers in New Zealand report feeling safe and taken care of. 

 

Decriminalization changes the game– it changes the rules – the police have no reason to approach a sex worker. Without the police involved, women can now breathe – they can work and earn a livelihood without the fear of arrest. They can negotiate with clients freely; they can report a client to the police. They don’t have to run to unknown places and dark corners. Sex workers can now deal with the issues and problems they face in their lives without having an additional problem of arrest and detention.   The Police have no place in any workplace and that’s the same - in the sex trade – they are a constant, invasive, oppressive and abusive presence. Any job would be strange if the police is always lurking around. Anti – prostitution laws give the police the authority to enter the lives of sex works and disrupt their survival. Not under the decriminalization model.  The law focuses on tangible goals – it’s no longer symbolic discussions of what sex work means for women and morality.  The tangible goals are their safety, rights, what help and support sex workers need, today. That’s it – that’s all prostitution laws have to do – protect the women who sell sex. 

From Revolting Prostitutes “To decriminalise sex work is to treat as important the immediate, material safety of people who are selling sex. In that, decriminalisation is a deeply radical demand, far more so than throwing the world’s poorest sex workers to the wolves in an attempt to annihilate the sex industry through increased policing.” 

Part 4: In Reverence 

 

Sex workers are always considered to be anti-feminist. But they aren’t. In RP, the authors say that sex workers are actually, the original feminists. Sex workers have been around coming together longer than mainstream/ middle-class feminism has. They’ve been protesting the police and laws; supporting their families and each other; fighting working conditions and crackdowns; demanding people understand that prostitution is not immorality, it is not a sin – it’s the right of women to work, to earn a living in a world that does not take care of them. And for this - sex workers are shamed, humiliated, stigmatised, assaulted, detained for doing work to survive – not murder, not theft; not abuse they are in jail because they wanted to support themselves and their families. 

Sex workers with the little they have fund their activism – with very few sponsors – the anti-trafficking movement has ensured -  sex worker activism starves. Why would they spend on this if they thought it was wrong; Sex worker activists network with each other across borders, they protest – women, hijras, transwomen –  each of them in their own capacity, together – they fight for their livelihood and better treatment. If one sex worker is arrested, the immediate network come together to help her, her family, her children.  They support each other through experiences of assault and rape in a world that offers them no recourse, no justice, no healing. Collective caring and standing up for each other has been how sex workers survive.  Despite police harassment, criminalisation, brutalities, despite the billion-dollar anti-trafficking movement, despite the mafias/gangs trying to shut down sex worker activism – sex workers continue to fight for the rights of women, often - marginalised women. How is this not considered feminist?  

In fact – the anti-trafficking movement makes it seem like sex workers work towards maintaining exploitation and violence in the sex trade. We allow anti-trafficking organisations, the state and the police to take credit for “saving” women from prostitution. After raids, the police talk about the number of minors or trafficked women who were rescued by the Police. Swati Maliwal, former Chairperson - Delhi commission of Women, recently put up an Instagram video – a very cool edit – which shows her entering the brothels to conduct a ‘rescue’ and then cuts to newspaper clips about how she rescued several minors and immigrant women considered ‘trafficked’. Minors or unwilling women in prostitution should not be tolerated, but let’s take a step back. Why do we assume sex workers do not want to help minors and unwilling adults? Sex workers can’t help because they know they cannot go the police without repercussions to their own lives. They must choose between helping others or helping themselves.  If sex workers were empowered – they would report minors or unwilling women in the sex trade themselves. This is another dehumanising line of argument where sex workers are made to look like women who don’t care about unwilling or minor prostitution. A woman who may have been forced into prostitution understands the injustice of it more than the police, state, anti-trafficking organisation or any anti-prostitution feminist. So when the ‘saviours’ go into brothels and say they rescued minors – the question that needs to be asked is – why are sex workers so disempowered that they are not able to report this to the police themselves? 

 

Also, why do we assume that there is nothing sex workers can do about this? This argument that makes it seem like sex workers don’t care about violence in the sex trade is untrue because of the grassroot work sex worker activists do. Sex worker activism includes protesting the violence of abusive men; third parties; the police and also supports women who want to leave the sex trade but meaningfully. And sex worker collectives, do a much better job than anti-trafficking activists and organisations.  In India - DMSC in Kolkata and VAMP in Sangli – two of India’s oldest and biggest sex worker collectives that we met in episode 3 have done incredible work on the field to support sex worker rights. This is how they tackle the exploitation and violence sex workers face. 

VAMP has peer educators, ex- sex workers, called tais who are the board members cause they know the sex trade; they carry ID cards so the police know them and don’t harass them and they look after the welfare of sex workers at the top.  VAMP also has community and field workers who deal with things like condom requirements and supply, if medical attention is needed by anyone, if resources are needed and counselling or any other help. They have also set up conflict redressal committees to intervene if a sex worker is being harassed or exploited in the brothel or outside. Through this conflict redressal process – once a Madam complained against a pimp who tried to bring a minor into her brothel. The minor was reunited with her parents and given support to file a police complaint and the pimp’s name was shared throughout the community in order to have him blacklisted. 

DMSC has formed 33 committees across West Bengal called ‘self-regulatory boards’ – each with 6 sex workers, 1 local councillor and 4 health and labour professionals. In 3 years, these small self-regulatory boards screened over 2000 people in the sex trade and found a little less than 10% to either be minors or unwilling adults. The minors and unwilling adults were offered assistance to leave the sex trade, including being accompanied to their home if they wished or housed in a separate accommodation of DMSC so they don’t continue in the sex trade. They have also, over the years, led initiatives to provide counselling, healthcare, and banking. Usha Cooperative is a banking service for sex workers who find themselves excluded from mainstream banking. DMSC has also over the years successfully bargained with the gangs that used to control the sex trade in Sonagachi. Earlier – the sex trade was controlled by these gangs who would exploit sex workers by charging them huge commissions and fees. Through collective bargaining over years, now almost all brothel owners have started behaving themselves and charge fairer commissions.  

This how the sex worker movement is dealing with the violence and exploitation in the sex trade and it is more meaningful, and this is when they are completely disempowered by the law.  If there is anyone who has meaningful things to say on how to reduce the size of the sex trade; how to help those who want to get out; how to ensure minors and unwilling adults are not in the sex trade – it’s the sex workers themselves. We need to remember and say this again and again: No one is an expert on the sex trade except sex workers. The lesson from New Zealand isn’t about implementing their law as it is but that sex workers were involved in the drafting of this law – this was their bill.  

The reason sex workers need rights is because they are vulnerable. They have the least bargaining power in the sex trade so often compromise on safety and price; Power dynamics in the sex trade are skewed in favour of third parties so sex workers compromise on working conditions and get exploited easily.  So the law should help address this. 

 

How can the law help make a woman feel safer when she’s selling sex?  How can the law ensure a sex worker can walk away from a dangerous situation and call the police? How can the law make sure that clients know that they can never assault or rape a sex worker? How can the law address the power imbalance between sex workers and other actors in the sex trade?  How can the law ensure that sex workers are empowered to deal with this exploitation in the sex trade? 

 

Today, we’re being told that criminalising prostitution is for the good of society and women, and the lives and livelihood of sex workers is collateral damage.  Not like prostitution has ever ended because of criminalisation but let’s for a minute for the sake argument, assume that it may. Then – still, Is this a good cause? Because why does the material and economic needs of sex workers, mostly women, not matter to feminism. Isn’t the economic empowerment of women also a feminist cause?  It actually should be the main goal of feminism. The social and sexual treatment of women will change only with economic empowerment.   The anti-prostitution agenda seems to believe that the symbolic messaging to men that women cannot be ‘bought’ is more important than the practical needs of working-class women who need money to survive. From RP: “Real, daily violence against sex workers happening all over the world today cannot be held up for comparison with a feminist forecast of a yet-to-happen future” 

 

Because, this brings up an important point. If the choice is between the empowerment of sex workers today vs no prostitution in the future – the choice should be clear – the empowerment of sex workers and improving their lives today. Noone can predict the future and the anti-prostitution movement, over a 100-year-old movement, has essentially failed in achieving its goals. The anti-trafficking camp likes to call themselves the abolitionists – just like those who fought slavery in the US. But unlike slavery, why have these laws not worked to end prostitution? 

 

The state and the police at some point have to end their hunt for marginalised and vulnerable women. To what extent can we keep witnessing the police chasing women who have harmed noone?  And how do we know for sure that if sex workers were not constantly chased by the police and detained against their will – they would not be better-off? If sex work was not criminalised for this long – sex workers could take control of their lives and the sex trade. Because even the entertainment sector used to be exploitative towards women not so long ago. But we’re witnessing women get power, status - equal to men and we’re seeing safer practices for women. So why not the sex trade? Would you have endorsed a movement that wanted to remove all women from the entertainment industry because they get exploited by men? I mean, that is exactly what happened to courtesans and women from hereditary dancing communities during the British Raj and it only resulted in disempowering women. 

 

Similar to a traditional marriage – prostitution is an institution women turn to for resources. We don’t go around debating the ethics and morality of marriage and debating whether it is a good thing for a woman to enter a marriage. We just acknowledge it exists; we acknowledge it can become abusive and we give women rights. If we can rethink marriage, why can’t we rethink prostitution. We should still work towards a world where no woman has to depend on prostitution But until that world comes into being – the same way we don’t criminalize marriage – we shouldn’t criminalize prostitution. The rule of thumb for any social movement is to empower not disempower; so work towards adding to a person’s income, choice of work, skills but not take away someone’s livelihood and only source of income.

 

And that’s it – we should stand in solidarity with sex workers and support the complete decriminalisation of sex work.  The sex worker movement is essentially a working-class movement consisting of marginalized women fighting for their autonomy, freedom and livelihood. It’s a very radical movement demanding revolutionary change - it demands that women cannot be mistreated or disposed even if they are associated with sex. And yes, in an ideal world – there will be no prostitution – not because we have ended male sexual entitlement but because no woman needs to sell sex for money or resources. But this ideal world cannot come into existence by throwing marginalised women under the bus; arresting them, harming them and claiming this is for the good of society. 

 

The global sex workers movement today calls for the complete decriminalisation of sex work as the starting point for the fight for sex rights; their right to autonomy and self-determination. The symbol of the sex worker movement is a red umbrella.  To end this season– I can think of nothing better – than to read the end of the book – Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker Rights. 

The politics of prostitution should not be a feud between women but a collaboration. As much as we all do, sex workers want a better future – one where everyone gets their fair share of resources and where survivors can access healing and justice. We want a future where feminist revolt and resistance is uplifted by the brazen spirit of the prostitute who demands to be safe, to be paid, and to be heard. In the words of Black Women for Wages for Housework: ‘When prostitutes win, all women win.’