scholarly journals Justice and Civil Liberties on Sex Work in Contemporary International Human Rights Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Belinda Brooks-Gordon ◽  
Marjan Wijers ◽  
Alison Jobe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Policy Problem ◽  
International Consultation ◽  
Forced Labour

To fulfil obligations in international law State parties have to take the issue of human trafficking seriously. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides General Recommendations (GR) to member states on the interpretation of the Women’s Convention. In 2018 the CEDAW Committee started to develop a GR on trafficking in women and girls in a process planned to conclude in 2020. The first stage towards this was through the publication of a Concept Note to serve as a basis for dialogue during the two-year international consultation period. The Concept Note is a vital link in a textual chain because it frames the policy problem and actively constructs its own ‘documentary reality’. This article provides a critical analysis of the CEDAW Concept Note on the grounds that such analysis provides an understanding of its discursive construction of trafficking, migrant labour and sex work, by an institution responsible for international jurisprudence on human rights. Analysis of the Concept Note explores the documentary constructions including narratives that merge adult women with girls, the symbolism of exploitation, the silencing of scientific research, the elision of sex worker voices, and sex work as work. The analysis leads us to conclude that the General Recommendation should define what counts as ‘exploitation’, and ‘forced labour’, and address the growing international recognition of best evidence on the wider impact of sex work laws, in order that legal framing and constructions of sex trafficking are not erroneously used to curtail rights of sex workers.

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Elene Lam ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Katherine Chin ◽  
Kate Zen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Sexual Services

Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which began at least 8 weeks prior to the first social distancing and shelter in place orders issued in the U.S. and Canada, has been further complicated by a history of aggressive policing of migrant massage workers in the wake of the war against human trafficking. Migrant Asian massage businesses are increasingly policed as locales of potential illicit sex work and human trafficking, as police and anti-trafficking initiatives target migrant Asian massage workers despite the fact that most do not provide sexual services. The scapegoating of migrant Asian massage workers and criminalization of sex work have led to devastating systemic and interpersonal violence, including numerous deportations, arrests, and deaths, most notably the recent murder of eight people at three Atlanta-based spas. The policing of sex workers has historically been mobilized along fears of sexually transmitted disease and infection, and more recently, within the past two decades, around a moral panic against sex trafficking. New racial anxieties around the coronavirus as an Asian disease have been mobilized by the state to further cement the justification of policing Asian migrant workers along the axes of health, migration, and sexual labor. These justifications also solidify discriminatory social welfare regimes that exclude Asian migrant massage workers from accessing services on the basis of the informality and illegality of their work mixed with their precarious citizenship status. This paper draws from ethnographic participant observation and survey data collected by two sex worker organizations that work primarily with massage workers in Toronto and New York City to examine the double-edged sword of policing during the pandemic in the name of anti-trafficking coupled with exclusionary policies regarding emergency relief and social welfare, and its effects on migrant Asian massage workers in North America. Although not all migrant Asian massage workers, including those surveyed in this paper, provide sexual services, they are conflated, targeted, and treated as such by the state and therefore face similar barriers of criminalization, discrimination, and exclusion. This paper recognizes that most migrant Asian massage workers do not identify as sex workers and does not intend to label them as such or reproduce the scapegoating rhetoric used by law enforcement. Rather, it seeks to analyze how exclusionary attitudes and policies towards sex workers are transferred onto migrant Asian massage workers as well whether or not they provide sexual services.

Part VI Refugee Rights and Realities, Ch.53 The Right to Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costello Cathryn ◽  
O’Cinnéide Colm
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
The Right ◽  
European Regional

This chapter analyses the application of the right to work to asylum seekers and refugees, examining the right under international human rights law of global scope, in particular under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. While that instrument is often perceived as being normatively weak, due in part to a misunderstanding about the ‘progressive realization’ standard, the chapter highlights States’ immediate ‘minimum core’ obligations under the right to work. It also assesses the right under African, Inter-American, and European regional human rights mechanisms. Some deprivations of the right to work may entail breaches of regional treaties, directly or indirectly. Restrictions on the right to work may also contribute to violations of absolute rights, such as the prohibitions on inhuman and degrading treatment, or forced labour. The chapter then looks at two possible means of securing the right to work, namely domestic litigation and transnational political processes.

Recognising the Human Rights of Female Sex Workers in India: Moving from Prohibition to Decriminalisation and a Pro-work Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaya Sagade ◽  
Christine Forster
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Sex Trade ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Women’S Human Rights ◽  
Work Model ◽  
Women's Human Rights

This article sets out a women’s human rights approach to the legal regulation of sex work developed through an analysis of feminist perspectives, international human rights standards—in particular, the approach of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979 (CEDAW)—and the voices of female sex workers within India. It categorises sex work into four legal models, namely, prohibition which criminalises all aspects of the sex trade, partial decriminalisation which criminalises only those who force women into sex work and those who trade in under-age sex workers, social control legalisation which decriminalises but regulates the sex trade with the aim of containing through (often punitive) restrictions, and finally pro-work which approaches sex work as valid employment by extending the legal and human rights of other workers to sex workers. The article places India’s current regulatory framework into the prohibition model and argues that the legal response to sex work that most closely accords with a women’s human rights approach is partial decriminalisation coupled with a pro-work model. Although the introduction of this model in India poses considerable challenges, it has the greatest capacity to first, reduce the crime and corruption that surrounds the sex trade; second, to enhance, promote and protect public health and third, provide appropriate legal and human rights protection to sex workers as international obligations require.

Conflict and Agency among Sex Workers and Pimps

2014 ◽  
Vol 653 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Marcus ◽  
Amber Horning ◽  
Ric Curtis ◽  
Jo Sanson ◽  
Efram Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Child Sex Trafficking ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
The Relationship

The dominant understanding in the United States of the relationship between pimps and minors involved in commercial sex is that it is one of “child sex trafficking,” in which pimps lure girls into prostitution, then control, exploit, and brutalize them. Such narratives of oppression typically depend on postarrest testimonials by former prostitutes and pimps in punishment and rescue institutions. In contrast, this article presents data collected from active pimps, underage prostitutes, and young adult sex workers to demonstrate the complexity of pimp-prostitute dyads and interrogate conventional stereotypes about teenage prostitution. A holistic understanding of the factors that push minors into sex work and keep them there is needed to designand implement effective policy and services for this population.

Prostitution and sex work

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teela Sanders ◽  
Barbara G. Brents
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Male Client ◽  
Sexual Services ◽  
Sex Wars

This essay discusses the debates about prostitution and sex work in relation to the ‘sex wars’ paradigm, posing questions about its theoretical usefulness in addressing the regulation of commercial sexual activity between adults. The authors map the global trend in accepting the ‘Swedish model’ for managing the sex industry, noting the problems that have resulted with the turn to criminalization that many Western countries have taken in recent years. This ‘turn’ has been influenced significantly by myths about sex trafficking and the belief that all commercial sex is in some ways forced, coerced, or exploitative. The authors discuss the discourses that frame the male client as the ‘offender’ and the female as the ‘victim and offender’. The consequences are reviewed both for individuals engaging in sexual services and for contemporary feminist debates. The human rights perspective can offer useful insights for understanding and regulating sexual behaviour.

scholarly journals Combating Transnational Organised Crime through International Human Rights Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Tom Obokata
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Forced Labour

This article explores the key obligations imposed upon States under international human rights law to combat transnational organised crime. It begins by highlighting a number of human rights which are affected by various forms of organised crime, such as the rights to life, liberty and security, health, property, culture, as well as the prohibition on slavery/forced labour and other inhuman or degrading treatments. The article then analyses the key obligations imposed upon States under international human rights law, with particular reference to (1) investigation, prosecution and punishment, (2) protection of victims and (3) prevention. The main conclusion reached is that international human rights law is indeed useful as it encourages States to adopt a holistic approach capable of addressing the complex and multi-faceted nature of transnational organised crime beyond simple criminal justice responses.

scholarly journals The Plight of Female Cameroonian Migrant Sex Workers in N’Djamena, Chad: A Case of Intersectionality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sianga Mutola ◽  
Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta ◽  
Ngo Valery Ngo ◽  
Ogem Irene Otang ◽  
tabi-Chama James Tabenyang
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Legal Outcomes

AbstractIn most countries, sex-work is criminalized and frowned upon. This leads to human rights abuses, especially for migrant female sex workers. The burden is heavier on migrant female sex-workers whose gender and foreign citizenship intersect to produce a plethora of adverse health, social, and legal outcomes. This phenomenological study explores the intersectionality of individual factors leading to human rights abuses among migrant Cameroonian female sex workers in N’Djamena, Chad. Ten female sex workers and two key-informants were interviewed, and being a small sample, they gave detailed information about their experiences. The data was later analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants narrated experiences of social exclusion, exposure to diverse abuses, and health risks due to gender, immigrant status, and illegality of sex work. The experiences of female migrant sex workers, within contexts of sex work criminalization, are exacerbated by the intersectionality of these factors. Women endure several vulnerabilities in many African countries, more so when they have to survive on sex work as foreigners in a country where the act is illegal.

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