Sex work as livelihood

Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

I’M WRITING this just at the end of a month that has sought to raise awareness about the struggle for women’s rights in all its complexity. Earlier columns focused on challenging the sexualisation of girls in sports, and sexism in women’s experience of political leadership. This week, I want to explain sex work as a form of low-income women’s livelihood, and why we should support sex worker unions.

To be clear, this is not a column in support of or advocating for sex work. I am, quite obviously, aware of the many problems associated with sex work, particularly for subordinated and stigmatised women workers. This is a column about why, if one is going to have strong opinions, it is necessary to try to at least understand why sex-worker unions exist, what they advocate for, and why.

On International Women’s Day, Renuka Anandjit, graduate student at IGDS, The UWI, held up the sign she has been holding up at the march in Port of Spain for the past few years. It said: Sex work is work.

It was reposted on social media by an often poorly informed men’s rights activist whose comment was: “Hmmmmm. I wonder how many passes you need for that work. I dunno how that is Women Empowerment or proper Womentorship for International Women Day. So many young girls looking on.”

This was irresponsible. When one has a platform, framing issues in ways that misrepresent, trivialise or demean a movement’s advocacy simply makes life harder for those who are most vulnerable. Public figures should take time to at least understand marginalised groups’ calls for recognition of their rights, and not assume that these groups are simply stupid or deluded or haven’t already considered the relevant issues despite living and thinking about them every day.

Typically, by the time a slogan or a call to action makes it to the mainstream, there’s been decades of sophisticated debate and strategy, and it takes little effort to become informed. I kept asking myself, why couldn’t this man take five minutes to google, “why is sex work considered work?” before jumping on social media to show that he really did not know.

No one advocates for sex work and everyone who frames this as a labour issue is aware of the challenges, from the higher risk of men’s rape of women to higher risk of STDs, principally because negotiating condom use with men who buy sex is notoriously difficult.

The slogan "sex work is work" reflects decades of global activism by sex worker unions, including from Africa and India to Latin America and the Caribbean, to treat prostitution as an area of labour relations in which workers have rights, such as the right to work without fear of violence or the right to be treated with respect by police or the right to non-discriminatory health services. The way we have historically criminalised and stigmatised sex work has only made engaging in such waged labour dangerous and alienating for the labourers involved.

Sex work is not going to go away because men everywhere will continue to purchase sexual content and services, and because the poorest women and girls still have the fewest income options. Our moralising simply gives men with more wealth and socio-economic opportunity even more power over unprotected sex workers.

To quote ASIJIKI, the Coalition to Decriminalise Sex Work in South Africa, “Stigma, discrimination and criminalisation also mean that sex workers find it hard to get protection from labour, health and safety laws. They also cannot strongly unionise or be part of pay discussions and collective bargaining. Because they have little legal power, sex workers who work for employers like brothels and massage parlours are often treated very badly at work. This includes often having an unfairly large amount of their pay taken in 'fees,' being made to work long hours, unfair dismissal and being made to see clients they dislike or who are abusive.”

Acknowledging sex work as work provides support to those already engaged in sex work, including to move out of it.

I urge those not engaged in sexual-economic exchange not to fall for the soundbite trap. There is far more to say which is informed and nuanced. The Guyana Sex Worker Coalition and the All Indian Network of Sex Workers are just two of many important unions. Our politics should be grounded in listening to the kinds of allyship they need. Taking time to be informed is an act of much needed worker solidarity.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 553

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