Prostitution is arguably the oldest profession in the world. It has always existed and there is no point in pretending it hasn’t, or that its very existence has nothing to do with us. Anyone we meet could be a sex worker: a neighbour, someone we bump into at the supermarket, or while jogging in the park, or even one of the Mums at school, and we would never know. The fact that the people who work in this profession don’t go around advertising it publicly does not mean that they don’t exist.
So the thing we need to think about is not the moral issue of whether or not prostitution should exist, because it has and probably always will. What we need to consider is the rights and protections that people who work in this profession need for them to do their jobs safely.
The first serious handicap to prostitution is that it is not recognised as a profession. In fact, as a job, it is the one that meets the most opposition, both from public opinion and from the police. Sex workers often end up on the streets due to necessity rather than choice. Proportionally, very few of the people that work in prostitution choose it as their profession, the more likely scenario being that it chooses them. There are of course people who do choose it, such as escorts, but these are by far the exception to the rule.
In most cases, the reasons many women end up working on the streets are personal: some are trafficked to a foreign country and exploited by a pimp; single mums who struggle to make ends meet sometimes turn to prostitution, as do women who have been the victims of abuse, or see prostitution as the only way to fund an addiction. Generally speaking, they are socially fragile people who need to get their hands on large amounts of money in the shortest possible time. They are unprotected, by which we don’t mean in terms of welfare (although this is also common), but in terms of personal safety.
In countries where prostitution is a crime, these people are forced to hide the work they do. The fact is that they have to stay out of sight, and frequently find themselves in situations where they are alone with strangers; they put themselves in danger every time they go out to work. Stories of female sex workers who have been brutally beaten by customers who took advantage of their vulnerable situation are all too common.
There is currently no system in place to mitigate this risk: if women worked in groups, even just for their own safety and protection, their association would be called a brothel, which is illegal in most countries, and would therefore lead to prosecution.
This is the reason why more and more women who work as prostitutes are calling for a revision of the laws defining the very limited legal parameters around prostitution. They are hoping to increase rights and protection for prostitutes, in a way that would completely change their lives.
Sometimes prostitutes find themselves in the impossible situation of not being able to call the police when they are in danger because once they declare their profession, they will be arrested. They cannot choose to work together in the same environment, which would be much safer for them, for the reasons mentioned above. According to the authors, who are both sex workers, not being allowed to take care of one another in their profession is a political matter that should be resolved on a political level, which is why they fight, alongside other women, and will continue to do so until their basic rights are recognised.
Let us not forget that sex workers all over the world are from a multitude of different races, religions, genders and ethnicities, and the risks are different for each group of people. For example, black people are usually less protected than whites, and transgender people are more at risk than cisgenders. These are all issues which must be discussed, or at least taken into consideration, because currently their safety is seriously compromised, and absolutely cannot be neglected any longer.
