ABSTRACT
Criminalization of sex work is linked to increased risk of violence and lack of workplace protections for sex workers. Most jurisdictions globally prohibit some or all aspects of sex work with New Zealand constituting a notable exception, where sex work has been decriminalized and regulated via OHS guidelines. We used the Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Sex Industry (NZ Guide) as an analytical framework to examine the lived-experiences of psychosocial OHS conditions of indoor sex workers in Metro Vancouver under end-demand criminalization. We drew on 47 semi-structured interviews, conducted in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese in 2017-2018, with indoor sex workers and third parties providing services for them. Participants' narratives were analyzed using a coding framework based on the NZ Guide's psychosocial factors section, including safety and security from violence and complaints processes, which highlighted specific OHS shortcomings in the context of end-demand sex work legislation in indoor sex work environments. Participants identified a significant lack of OHS support, including a lack of safety training, right to refuse services, and access to justice in the context of labour rights violations or fraud, robbery or violence. Our findings emphasize the benefits of full decriminalization of sex work to facilitate sex workers' access to OHS through development and implementation of OHS guidelines designed by and for the indoor sex industry. OHS guidelines should focus on labour rights and protections, including development of sex workers' right to refuse services and access to justice.
ABSTRACT
In 2014, Canada implemented end-demand sex work legislation which leaves the sale of sex under some circumstances legal. However, immigration policies based on discourses positioning sex work as exploitation and migration as trafficking continue to criminalize many im/migrant sex workers. Despite community reports of punitive policing, limited research has explored how police interactions with im/migrant sex workers have impacted labour conditions since this legislative shift. As part of a longstanding community-based Vancouver study, we drew on the conceptual framework of slow violence to analyze 20 in-depth interviews with sex workers born outside Canada. Despite rhetoric positioning im/migrant sex workers as victims deserving protection, participants described experiences of punitive, racialized, and stigmatizing police treatment. Fear of being 'outed' as a sex worker and living with precarious immigration status undermined participants' ability to seek police protections; yet when they did seek assistance after experiencing violence/theft, police were unsupportive or discriminatory. Our findings suggest that policies depicting im/migrant sex workers as victims act not to protect them, but to justify targeted repressive, racist policing that severely undermines women's occupational safety. Our results illustrate the harms of policies conflating sex work with trafficking; demonstrate the inherent opposition between legislative aims to protect those who sell sexual services and to abolish the sex industry; and interrogate who the state affirms as a deserving victim. The full decriminalization of sex work, removal of prohibitions on sex work among im/migrants, and community-led alternatives to the criminal justice system are urgently needed to uphold im/migrant sex workers' labour rights.
ABSTRACT
In Canada, im/migrant sex workers face stigma, health access barriers, and overlapping marginalisation, with end-demand law reforms in 2014 postulated to exacerbate these inequities. Yet, little quantitative evidence on how immigration status shapes HIV/STI risk exists. Drawing on community-based longitudinal cohort data (AESHA, 2010-2018), we used multivariable confounder models with logistic regression to model (1) the independent effect of precarious immigration status (any status revocable under criminal charges: permanent residency/temporary residency/undocumented) on client condom refusal, and (2) the moderating effect of precarious status on the relationship between condom refusal and exposure to end-demand law reform (2015-2018). Over this 8-year study involving 758 sex workers in Metro Vancouver, 16.0% were im/migrants, of whom 57% had precarious immigration status at baseline. 16.5% of participants experienced client condom refusal. Precarious immigration was associated with increased odds of facing condom refusal (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.37-4.68), and these odds were heightened post-end-demand law reforms (AOR 4.35, 95%CI 1.21-15.66). Our findings suggest that lack of citizenship rights may enhance barriers to safer sex negotiation and increase HIV/STI risk among sex workers, highlighting the need for sex work and immigration policy reforms.
Subject(s)
HIV Infections , Sex Workers , Sexually Transmitted Diseases , Transients and Migrants , Condoms , HumansABSTRACT
Given shifting sex work criminalization and enforcement in Canada, this study examined worrying about workplace inspections by authorities amongst indoor sex workers in Vancouver (2014-2017). Data were drawn from a community-based prospective cohort of sex workers (AESHA). Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression were used to investigate factors associated with worry about inspections. 23.9% of participants experienced workplace inspections; 51.6% worried about inspections. In multivariable analyses, worrying about inspections was associated with recent im/migration [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 3.13; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.77-5.53], police harassment (AOR 3.49; 95% CI 1.92-6.34), and workplace violence (AOR 1.66, 95% CI 1.09-2.51). In a multivariable confounder model, worry was independently associated with barriers to health access (AOR 1.45, 95% CI 1.06-1.98). Im/migrant indoor workers are disproportionately impacted by concerns about workplace inspections, which was independently linked to enhanced barriers to health access. Current criminalization measures may exacerbate health inequities among im/migrant sex workers.