Sex Worker
Rights Are Human Rights—A Major Woodhull Focus
by Dr. Carol Queen
Over the past two years, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation has become
increasingly active in an important human rights issue—protection
of the rights of sex workers. Last fall, WFF helped sex worker organizations
put on the first-ever Sex Workers’ Leadership Institute. This
year, we sponsored and participated in the national Desiree Alliance
Sex Workers Conference, which was held this July in Chicago. And today
we are again providing support to the coalition of local and national
groups working in San Francisco to pass Proposition K, a city ballot
initiative addressing major issues crucial to the sex worker rights
movement.
What do we mean when we talk of “sex workers”? The term
encompasses a wide range of wage-earning activities (by men and women)
in which the worker is paid to perform sexually or to render sexual
services to a client or clients. Broadly interpreted, it includes
work in the porn industry, erotic dancing in clubs and even some forms
of waitressing, in addition to escorts, street walkers, phone sex
operators, etc.
You will note that we refer to this as a human rights issue. It was
recognized as such by no less a figure than the Secretary General
of the United Nations at this summer’s International AIDS Conference.
The decriminalization of sex work is not just about the legal right
to engage in a certain type of employment. If treated as criminals,
sex workers’ access to health services is compromised and their
vulnerability to HIV and other STDs is increased. They also have scant
ability to access legal resources for employer violation or for abuse
by clients, or to seek fair wages and safer working conditions.
And criminal treatment of
sex workers actually leads to abuse by the police themselves! A recent
study by the University of California/San Francisco found that one
in five sex workers had been paid for sex by police officers and one
in seven were threatened by officers with prosecution if they refused
a demand for sex. In San Francisco, the police and DAs use presence
of condoms as evidence of prostitution, a clear disincentive to practice
safe sex.
Proposition K addresses these problems. It would decriminalize prostitution
and focus law enforcement on the real criminals—rapists, abusers
and those who traffic in unwilling victims. It would stop police from
harassing innocent people engaged in consensual sex.
Proposition K will be a hard fight. Conservative forces are lined
up against it. But its passage, or even a strong showing at the polls,
will be a major step toward improving the lives of sex workers, preventing
prosecution of fully consensual sex and redirecting law enforcement
toward the real criminals.
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