They Get What They Deserve: Labour Rights for Sex Workers

2016 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Labour Rights

scholarly journals Of Raids and Returns: Sex work movement, police oppression, and the politics of the ordinary in Sonagachi, India

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-139
Author(s):  
Simanti Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Red Light ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Red Light District

Drawing on ethnographic work with Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a grassroots sex worker organisation in Sonagachi, the iconic red-light district in Kolkata, India, this paper explores the politics of the detritus generated by raids as a form of state violence. While the current literature mainly focuses on its institutional ramifications, this article explores the significance of the raid in its immediate relation to the brothel as a home and a space to collectivise for labour rights. Drawing on atyachar (oppression), the Bengali word sex workers use to depict the violence of raids, I argue that they experience the raid not as a spectacle, but as an ordinary form of violence in contrast to their extraordinary experience of return to rebuild their lives. Return signals both a reclamation of the detritus as well as subversion of the state’s attempt to undermine DMSC’s labour movement.

Sex Workers, Labour Rights and Unionization

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-152
Author(s):  
susan lopez-embury ◽  
teela sanders
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Labour Rights

scholarly journals Criminalisation, Health, and Labour Rights Among Im/migrant Sex Workers Globally

2021 ◽  
pp. 153-171
Author(s):  
Bronwyn McBride ◽  
Trachje Janushev
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Health Access ◽  
Structural Determinants ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Sti Testing ◽  
Gender Diverse ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThis chapter introduces the structural determinants that shape health and labour rights among im/migrant sex workers globally. It explores issues related to criminalisation, mandatory health testing, precarious immigration status, economic marginalisation, racialisation, racism and discrimination, language barriers, and gender. This chapter examines how these factors shape health access, health outcomes, and labour rights among im/migrant sex workers in diverse contexts. These issues were explored through a review of academic literature, which was complemented by community consultations that elucidate the lived experiences of gender-diverse im/migrant sex workers from Europe and across the globe. Findings illustrate how shifting sex work criminalisation, public health and immigration regulations (e.g. sex worker registration, mandatory HIV/STI testing), and policing practices impact im/migrant sex workers and shape the labour environments in which they work. The chapter subsequently presents recommendations on policy and programmatic approaches to enhance health access and labour rights among im/migrant sex workers. Finally, it concludes by highlighting the ways in which im/migrant sex workers resist social and structural exclusion, stigma, and ‘victim’ stereotypes, highlighting their tenacity and leadership in the fight to advance labour and human rights among im/migrants and sex workers worldwide.

scholarly journals How do Sex Workers Perceive their Working Identity? Case Studies in Egypt

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (Winter) ◽  
pp. 245-261
Author(s):  
Sara Abed
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
State Policies ◽  
State Control ◽  
The Public ◽  
Labour Rights

This study looks at Egypt’s sex workers’ perceptions of their working identity. It examines the different experiences and attitudes of sex workers by exploring the main features and dominant frames in the literature, and how it could be of relevance in the case of Egypt. Through conducting interviews with sex workers and other stakeholders, I argue that sex workers tend to perceive themselves as workers who should enjoy labour rights, except for those who consider religious guilt and shame as a barrier in being visible to the public. The decriminalising of sex work diminishes state control and discrimination over the lives of sex workers in Egypt. My findings demonstrate that there is a relationship between state policies to discipline sex workers and the control of women’s body.

scholarly journals DEKRIMINALISERING NIE DIE ENIGSTE STRUIKELBLOK IN SEKSWERKERS SE STRYD OM ARBEIDSREGTE

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hennie Oosthuizen ◽  
Rinda Botha
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
South African ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
Sex Trade ◽  
Independent Contractors ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Law Commission

Prostitution is at present still regarded as a criminal offence in South Africa. However, the possibility of the decriminalization of the sex trade enjoys serious consideration by the South African Law Commission. It is generally accepted that the position of sex workers (at present treated as illegal workers) regarding labour rights, will automatically improve with decriminalization. This article focuses mainly on whether indoor sex workers’ access to labour rights will indeed improve. The risk for sex workers of being treated as independent contractors, once decriminalized, in the main enjoys attention and becomes clear from a comparative study with theNetherlands and Victoria (Australia) where sex work has been practised as a legal occupation for several years.

scholarly journals Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers: Gains and challenges in the movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Amalia L. Cabezas
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Sex Trade ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Global North ◽  
Latin America And Caribbean

This article challenges the notion that the organised sex worker movement originated in the Global North. Beginning in Havana, Cuba at the end of the nineteenth century, sex workers in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have been organising for recognition and labour rights. This article focuses on some of the movement’s advances, such as the election of a sex worker to public office in the Dominican Republic, the system where Nicaraguan sex workers act as court-appointed judicial facilitators, the networks of sex worker organisations throughout the region, and cutting-edge media strategies used to claim social and labour rights. Sex workers are using novel strategies designed to disrupt the hegemonic social order; contest the inequalities, discrimination, and injustices experienced by women in the sex trade; provoke critical reflection; and raise the visibility of sex work advocacy. New challenges to the movement include the abolitionist movement, the conflation of all forms of sex work with human trafficking, and practices that seek to ‘rescue’ consenting adults from the sex trade.

scholarly journals Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Jessica Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
And Behaviors

Melissa Gira Grant’s latest book examines the denial of basic labour rights for sex workers, and the external factors behind this, including the attitudes of the police, media and politicians. The book is a sharp critique of the sensationalist treatment of the industry and behaviors of establishment figures that proves timely in the wake of Amnesty’s recently declared support for global decriminalization.

Sex Workers, Labour Rights and Unionization

2012 ◽  
pp. 94-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Lopez-Embury ◽  
Teela Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Labour Rights
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