Decriminalisation protects sex workers

The argument

By decriminalising prostitution, sex workers are able to get help if they are the victims of violence without fear of persecution, and that single change alters who can be held accountable for harming them. Sex workers in illegal systems suffer violence not only from clients, but from law enforcement themselves, which means the institution a victim would ordinarily turn to is also a source of the danger. Criminalising prostitution, therefore, amounts to a state failure to safeguard human rights: it creates a class of people who can be assaulted with relative impunity, because reporting the assault means disclosing an illegal act. Most importantly, sex workers themselves state that decriminalisation increases feelings of safety, and the practical difference shows up in the smallest details of the work. Unlike in other systems, where many sex workers are afraid to even carry condoms lest they be used as grounds for arrest, systems which feature decriminalisation offer sex workers a feeling of safety knowing that they are free to go to the police, refuse clients, and request clients use protection. Those are three forms of ordinary self-protection that criminalisation makes costly or impossible, and each of them is a decision about safety taken out of the worker's hands. The same pattern appears in research as well as in testimony. A study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that the criminalisation of sex work has been linked to increased levels of violence and sexually transmitted infections. Additionally, decriminalisation has been found to actively decrease HIV infection rates among sex workers. Those two findings track a single mechanism from opposite directions: criminalisation deters people from reporting harm and from negotiating protection, while decriminalisation restores both. Because decriminalisation protects sex workers in these concrete ways, prostitution should be decriminalised.

Context

Sex workers are often at higher risk of disease and violence (both from police and clients). The majority of sex workers suffer from some form of violence, and the death rate for prostitutes is much higher than that of the general population.

Premises

Counter-arguments

‘Safer sex’ programmes for sex workers simply ensures they are healthy for male buyers. The state condoning and accepting prostitution will cause rates of prostitution to increase, meaning corresponding rates of violence and infection will also increase. Instead, a no-tolerance system should be put in place to eradicate prostitution from the fabric of society.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Decriminalisation increases demand, therefore increasing risk for sex workers.