Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

Abstract

Whilst it remains a criminal activity to solicit sex publicly in the UK, it has become increasingly popular to configure sex workers as ‘vulnerable’, often as a means of foregrounding the significant levels of violence faced by female street sex workers. Sex work scholars have highlighted that this discourse can play an enabling role in a moralistic national policy agenda which criminalises and marginalises those who sell sex. Yet multiple and overlapping narratives of vulnerability circulate in this policy arena, raising questions about how these might operate at ground level. Drawing on empirical data gathered in the development of an innovative local street sex work multi-agency partnership in Leeds, this article explores debates, discourses and realities of sex worker vulnerability. Setting applied insights within more theoretically inclined analysis, we suggest how vulnerability might usefully be understood in relation to sex work, but also highlight how social justice for sex workers requires more than progressive discourses and local initiatives. Empirical findings highlight that whilst addressing vulnerability through a local street sex work multi-agency partnership initiative, a valuable platform for shared action on violence in particular can be created. However, an increase in fundamental legal and social reform is required in order to address the differentiated and diverse lived experiences of sex worker vulnerability.

Who Takes Part in the Political Game? The Sex Work Governance Debate in Israel

“…In line with many scholars (Agustín, 2008;Andrade et al, 2019;Brown & Sanders, 2016;Colosi, 2013;Fuckförbundet, 2019;Pitcher, 2015;Vuolajärvi, 2019), Lior suggested that the neo-abolitionist legislation could lead to increased stigmatization in Israel as happened in Sweden after the introduction of the Sex Purchase Act in 1999. Yet, neo-abolition is not the only form of legislation that has been found to increase stigma, as was argued by Weitzer (2009), who claimed that all types of legislation may feasibly increase stigma.…”

“…As to the instrumental goal of the law, the purpose was to criminalize clients and provide aid for women working in the industry who are now seen as victims, prostituted women, sex slaves, or survivors. This is despite evidence that a victim narrative deprives sex workers of their agency (Armstrong, 2019 ; Brown & Sanders, 2016 ; Pitcher, 2019 ) and that “risk discourses” function to exclude so-called non-normative and deviant activities such as sex work (Sanders, 2006 ). Israeli lawmakers’ broad generalization of sex workers as victims creates, according to Brooks ( 2020 ), a binary dichotomy between good and evil; generalizations are therefore inappropriate and exclude sex workers from this discourse.…”

Law in action: Local-level prostitution policies and practices and their effects on sex workers

“…These tight police controls evidence the key role played by the police (in addition to the city) in Antwerp's governance of prostitution across city areas, which has resulted in the prioritization of prostitution-related crime and nuisance over sex workers' safety. This is quite unusual if compared with other local examples of collaborative prostitution governance in RLDs, where police control tends to be less harsh and mostly aimed at ensuring sex workers' safety (see, for example, Bellis et al, 2007;Brown and Sanders, 2017).…”

Producing the vulnerable subject in English drug policy

“…The 2017 drug strategythe first produced by a Conservative Government for over 20 years  was published after a lengthy gestation period. A refreshed rather than new strategy (see Easton, 2016), it adopted a similar structure to its 2010 predecessor, organising its content We can also observe a number of 'status-based vulnerabilities' (Fineman, 2013 (Brown, 2015;Ellis, 2017), there are indications that others such as street sex workers respond to it positively as a reflection of their experiences (Brown and Sanders, 2017). Stigma surrounding drug use has significant negative repercussions (Lloyd, 2013), which could be a factor in how individuals receive the classification, and there are likely to be significant differences across drug-using populations in how they identify with being labelled as vulnerable.…”