Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain

Abstract

During the COVID-19 health crisis, the Spanish Government launched a series of urgent measures to protect the population from its economic effects. At first, it seemed that sex workers would have access to this protection, given that, technically, their access to the star measure, the IMV (anagram in Spanish for Ingreso Mínimo Vital) (minimum living income), was explicitly expressed. However, in the end, this group was excluded as the final text specified that only those deemed to be victims of gender violence, sexual exploitation, or trafficking could access said measure. We propose to study the usefulness of the concept of deservingness of social benefits to explain this lack of protection in a framework that takes into account political power contexts, the empirical observations of sex workers on their level of access to the IMV, and an exploration of its association with the theoretical construct of deservingness. Through a revision of secondary sources, interviews with key informants, and applying discourse analysis, we found these connections and the evident exclusion of sex workers from the social benefit. Likewise, we found that social stigma and moral and ideological judgments are behind this undeservingness and confirm a process of “NGOization” of care for this group that implies the depoliticization and professionalization of civil society entities such as NGOs.

Struggling, Forgotten, and Under Pressure: A Scoping Review of Experiences of Sex Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Related to the loss of income, food insecurity during the pandemic was a recurrent theme across the global literature (Aantjes et al, 2023;Burgos & Del Pino, 2021;Callander et al, 2022;Gonzalez & Garrido, 2022;Hassan et al, 2023;Kavanagh et al, 2021;Lamontagne et al, 2022;Leyva-Moral et al, 2023;Mantell et al, 2021;Moura et al, 2022;Moyo et al, 2022;Museva et al, 2021;Pearson et al, 2022;Pollard et al, 2021;Rogers et al, 2021;Shankar et al, 2022;Silva & dos Santos Câmara 2020;Tan et al, 2021aTan et al, , 2021bWang et al, 2022). Kavanagh et al (2021) found that participants in Kenya who relied on transactional sex for income were 5.3% more likely than those who did not to report difficulty obtaining food in the previous month and 18.3% more likely to report being worried their household would not have enough food.…”

“…Sex workers across almost all studies reported needing to resume sex work while lockdown restrictions were still in place due to financial pressures. In addition to struggling to pay for housing and food, many were already in debt and could not afford to lose more (Burgos & Del Pino, 2021); sex workers with children had additional costs associated with education and online schooling such as wi-fi, laptops and tablets to enable their children to learn remotely (Dziuban et al, 2021;Hassan et al, 2023;Laikram & Pathak, 2021;Shekhar, 2023); migrant workers often had families in their home countries they sent money to (Burgos & Del Pino, 2021;Gonzalez & Garrido, 2022;Kahambing, 2021); and migrant workers who traveled to their homes during lockdown and then returned had costs associated with quarantine on their arrival back to the countries they worked in (Dziuban et al, 2021). In a study from Thailand, Laikram and Pathak (2021) found that those who identified as "other" gender as opposed to cisgender male or female were the most affected economically, for a number of reasons-they typically experienced lower demand and lower pay even pre-pandemic; they faced tough competition among themselves; and they often had more expenses such as beauty surgery, make-up, and expensive attire and accessories.…”

“…Participants in many studies, across various countries and continents, reported being unable to access the socioeconomic protection measures (i.e., emergency financial aid) implemented by their governments (Aantjes et al, 2023;Benoit & Unsworth, 2022;Brouwers & Herrmann, 2020;Cabras & Ingrasci, 2022;Callander et al, 2022;Couto et al, 2022;Cubides Kovacsics et al, 2023;Fedorkó et al, 2022;Gonzalez & Garrido, 2022;Lahav-Raz et al, 2021;Laikram & Pathak, 2021;Mlambo & Masuku, 2022;Moura et al, 2022;Pearson et al, 2022;Pereira, 2021;Tan et al, 2021a).…”

“…Governments were seen as being unresponsive of sex workers' needs, leaving them feeling abandoned and invisible (Gonzalez & Garrido, 2022;Mlambo & Masuku, 2022;Moura et al, 2022). Many reported feeling systematically excluded from support measures and questioned the fairness of emergency relief funds (Mlambo & Masuku, 2022-South Africa); the feelings of exclusion led to anger and hurt (Benoit & Unsworth, 2022-Canada).…”

Collaborative Governance in Tackling Prostitution in Pemalang Regency

“…The government focuses on data collection and well-localized infectious diseases, while the public interpret it as the lack of responsiveness by the local government, resulting in the violence by the public. As a result, additional problems arise (González & Garrido, 2022).…”