Yenn dc ☂️International Sex Workers' Rights Day.
👥 SIN SA 🇦🇺
«5 Reasons to Decriminalise Sex Work»
1. Decriminalisation improves safety and reduces violence.
Sex work is not inherently violent; it is criminalisation that places sex workers at greatest risk.
Studios show in jurisdictions that have decriminalised sex work, such as New Zealand, sex workers have an increased ability to screen clients, work in safer areas with better access to secure services, and refer to police in cases of violence.¹⁻²
2. Decriminalisation leads to better health outcomes.
Decriminalisation removes legal barriers for sex workers seeking out healthcare, including STI and BBV testing and treatment, sexual and reproductive health services, harm reduction, and other essential care.
This empowers sex workers to make autonomous decisions about our own health, fostering positive health-seeking behaviours and reducing stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings.³
3. Decriminalisation reduces stigma and discrimination.
Decriminalisation recognises sex work as real work. In turn this helps contribute to a more inclusive and equitable society which empowers and uplifts the voices of marginalised groups. Although decriminalisation is not a fix-all for eliminating stigma, discrimination, and violence, it is an essential step to addressing structural barriers to sex workers' health and human rights.⁴
4. Decriminalisation improves access to justice.
Laws that criminalise sex work cause sex workers to feel unsafe reporting crimes, including violent crimes, because we fear prosecution, police surveillance, stigma, and discrimination.⁵
In settings where sex work has been decriminalised, sex workers who have experiences discrimination, violence, or abuse can report incidents and seek out support without fear of legal repercussions.⁶
5. Decriminalisation respects human rights and dignity.
There are many reasons why people engage in sex work, and whatever the reasons, sex work is work, and sex workers should be treated with dignity.
Sex workers' human rights cannot be fully realized as long as criminal laws threaten our access to justice, health, and social services; undermine our right to labour and workplace protections; as well as expose us to violence, discrimination, and arbitrary arrest.⁷
‣ References:
1. Armstrong, Lynzi, “Screening clients in a decriminalised street-based sex industry: Insights into the experiences of New Zealand sex workers”.
Australias and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 0(00 (2014); 1-16.
2. New Zealand Ministry of Justice, Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee on the operatioOperation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, (2008).
3. NSWP, “Decriminalisation vs Legalisation: Understanding Key Differences in Sex Work Legislation” (2024).
4. ibid.
5. Decker M. R. et al., “Human rights violations against sex workers: burden and effect on HIV”, The Lancet HIV and Sex Workers, (2014); 60-73.
6. Gillian Abel, “A decade of decriminalization: Sex work ‘down under’ but not underground”, Criminology and Criminal Justice (14(5) (2014); 580-592.
7. International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe, “Declaration of the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe” (2005).
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