Increased Vulnerabilities: Considering the Effects of Xeno-Racist Ordering for Romanian Migrant Sex Workers in the United Kingdom

Hanks, Sam

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.1661

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Yet as the data above show, identifying and engaging with sex workers on these terms supplements rather than replaces hard end enforcement practices. As has been demonstrated, the targeting of sex workers continues unabated and they remain exposed by virtue of their additional 'at risk' or 'deviant' identities (English Collective of Prostitutes, 2019;ICRSE, 2020;Connelly and The English Collective of Prostitutes, 2021;Hanks, 2021). Ensuring the wellbeing and safety of sex workers cannot therefore be realised without also addressing the violence of inadequate welfare provisions, restrictive immigration policies and harmful prostitution stigmas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the explicit guidance laid out by the NPCC (2015; 2019) and accompanying emphasis placed on protecting and improving the safety of sex workers, it is clear that the repressive targeting and raiding of sex workers is not confined to the past. While Operations Pentameter in 2006, Companion in 2013, and Lanhydrock in 2016(Feis-Bryce, 2018, saw the systematic raiding of sex working premises across England and Wales, more recent examples of the raiding and deportation of sex workers continue to be documented (SWARM, 2020; UKNSWP, 2020; Connelly and The English Collective of Prostitutes, 2021;Hanks, 2021). It has been further reported how various online platforms used to advertise sexual services have been trawled by police throughout the coronavirus pandemic across the UK (SWARM, 2020), and there are ongoing efforts to ban sexual entertainment venues in Bristol (Bristol Council, 2021).…”

Section: Sex Work Legislation Across the United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the government's own admission, even before the pandemic it was evident that inadequate welfare support was compounding the violent consequences of austerity and pushing primarily, but not exclusively, women towards sex work to support families and avoid destitution (House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, 2019; UKNSWP, 2020). Restrictive immigration policies and increased border violence associated with the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, in addition to the now 'compliant' environment more broadly, have been shown to lead migrant workers towards sex industries (PICUM, 2019), where threats of deportation can be used to extort and exploit them (English Collective of Prostitutes, 2019; ICRSE, 2020; Connelly and The English Collective of Prostitutes, 2021;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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The safeguarding delusion: sex work and policing in Wales

Hanks

2022

Justice, Power and Resistance

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This article explores the extent to which sex workers’ accounts of living and working in Wales are compatible with the discourses of wellbeing, vulnerability and safeguarding that are increasingly utilised by governments and police forces to frame their interactions with sex work. In revealing a disjuncture between the declared aims of state-based institutions and sex workers’ ongoing experiences of repression and abandonment, the article challenges claims that a more enlightened and transformative approach to sex work is being realised in the UK as a product of updated policing guidance and Welsh legislative change. By drawing on data collected through a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests distributed to police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service, in addition to interviews with sex workers, massage-parlour managers, local authority, police and third-sector workers, a critical discourse analysis seeks to demonstrate two conflicting realities of the function of the state’s interaction with sex work. On the one hand, FOI data reveal low rates of arrests and charges for prostitution-related offences in Wales, in line with National Police Chiefs’ Council guidance (NPCC, 2015; 2019) that disincentivises their enforcement. But sex workers’ accounts reveal how policing conducted under the guise of welfare, safeguarding, and vulnerability supplement and disguise, rather than replace, increasingly discredited enforcement techniques. Furthermore, the findings reveal how the move away from enforcing prostitution offences does nothing to prevent sex workers from being subjected to policing by virtue of other ‘at risk’ or ‘deviant’ labels imposed on them. It is in this way that the malleability and symbolic power of concepts of safeguarding and vulnerability enable the maintenance of an illusion, whereby oppressive state practices can be recast and presented as enabling progressive and benevolent outcomes for sex workers. The analysis outlines the importance of recognising the function of the front-staging of concepts of vulnerability and safeguarding in enabling the renewal of deviancy control systems, in light of changing social perceptions on how the state should interact with sex workers. In so doing it prompts consideration of the state’s ability to meaningfully address the demands of sex workers, without first recognising and dismantling the multiple structures and processes that undermine their safety and autonomy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sex Work Legislation Across the United Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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