Women's Health, Studies, Feminism and Ethics

Marginalisation[1] of Women and Sex Work

Centres for Sex Work Research and Policy: Home Page

UK Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy

European Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy

US Center for Sex Work Research and Policy

Canadian Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy

Australasian Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy

Asian Centre for Sex Work Research and Policy

Index

International Considerations

United Nations

NGOs

Policy

Cross National Studies

Africa

Americas

Asia

Australasia

Europe

Middle East

Debates

Research

Books on Sex Work

Topics in Sex Work

Sex workers' voices

Quotations

Michael Goodyear: Papers, publications and presentations

---

"No Bad Women, just Bad Laws"

Katrina Pacey (centre), and lawyers from Pivot Legal LLP

Second court challenge filed against Canada's discriminatory prostitution laws, by sex workers and allies, August 2007

---

National Survey

International Timelines

International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic 1904[2]
International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic 1910[3]
Covenant of the League of Nations 1919[4]
League of Nations Convention on the Traffic in Women and Children 1921[5]
Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children 1927
International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic of Women of Full Age 1933[6]
League of nations Draft Convention 1937[7]

League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions: Prevention of Prostitution 1943[8]

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others 1949[9]

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 12 August 1949 and relating to the Protection of the Victims of International Armed Conflict 1977[10]

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 1979 (CEDAW)[11]

Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989[12]

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court 1998 (pdf)[13]

Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Palermo 2000

Protocols

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children

Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea

Direct link to convention and protocols (pdf)

Fourth World Conference on Women: Declaration and Platform for Action, Beijing 1995 (pdf)

---

United Nations Agencies and Documents

*UN

---

NGOs

Oxfam: Endorses decriminalisation (pdf)

Oxfam/KIT: Exchange on HIV/AIDS, sexuality and gender

Issue No. 1 2007: Sex workers' health and rights

Global Working Group on HIV & Sex Work Policy

International Alliance of Women: A place for prostitution? Gender equality and respect in modern societies. June 8 2007

IWHC: International Women's Health Coalition

MADRE

Open Society Institute

World Aids Campaign

Sex Work and the Law: The case for decriminalization 2010

---

Policy

Loff et al: Can health programmes lead to mistreatment of sex workers. Kate Butcher: Confusion between prostitution and sex trafficking. Lancet 2003 (pdf)

Penelope Saunders: Prohibiting sex work projects. Health and Human Rights 2004 (pdf)

Joanna Busza: Having the rug pulled from under your feet. Health Pol Plan 2006 (pdf)

Masenior and Beyrer: US Anti-prostitution pledge and public health. PLOS Medicine 2007

Correspondence. Oct 2007

---

Regional and National

Australasia

*Australia

*New Zealand

---

*The Americas

*Canada

*United States

---

*Europe

---

*Middle East

*Asia

*Africa

---

Cross-national Studies

Suzanne Hatty: Prostitution in Canada, United States and Australia. Australian Institute of Criminology 1991 (pdf)

Farley et al: Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries: An Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. J Trauma Practice 2003 (pdf)

Bindel and Kelly: Prostitution in Australia, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden 2003 (pdf)[14]

Responses to Bindel and Kelly

Helen Self 2004

Marieke van Doorninck (Word)

Corrigan and Donohoe: Regulatory Approaches to Prostitution – Comparing Sweden, Denmark, and Nevada, USA. Effects of different legal and regulatory effects on sex workers, focusing on human rights and social justice. Public Health & Social Justice: Women’s Health 2008 (Word)

---

*Research on Sex Work

---

*Topics in Sex Work

“They’re the number of ‘ASBOS’[15] I’ve been served for working this area!”

---

*Suggested Books

---

Quotations

Meretrix, que multorum libidini patet[16]

St. Jerome Epist. xviv 7 Usque hodie in lectione (ad Fabiolam) 397 AD

In human government those who are in authority rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain evils be incurred: thus Augustine says [De Ordine 2:4[17]]: 'If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.'"

St Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica 2-2.10.11.

Those who stimulate the appeal to harry prostitutes…are none of them supposed to be the victims of sexual obsession. Yet they probably suffer more in this way than do writers who advocate greater sexual expression. Fierce morality is generally a reaction against lustful emotions, and the man who gives expression to it is generally filled with indecent thoughts.

Bertrand Russell. Marriage and Morals 1929, p225

Prostitutes, male or female, were entitled to the same protection of the law as any other citizen. They have their human dignity and their privacy and ought not unconsensually to have that invaded by fellow citizens.

Kirby J; R v. Leary [1992] BC 9302383 Supreme Court of NSW; Court of Criminal Appeal CCA 060254/93, 8^th October 1993, unreported[18]

“Prostitutes and drug addicts are entitled to the same protection of the criminal law as any other person in society…Prostitutes are especially vulnerable to assault and must have the same protections that are given other women in society…The law owes them a duty to ensure that they receive the same protection as other women”

Corbett J; R v. Martens [1992]. Ontario Court of Appeal

My biggest surprise in doing this research was how incredibly articulate these women in the industry were. People obviously assume women wouldn’t make the choice to go into prostitution but I found these women are from every walk of life. Some women were sex workers only on weekends with regular out-of-town clients. They’re moms, artists, lawyers, nurses, police officers and teachers. You would have no idea if you had one of them living next door to you.

Tamara O’Doherty. School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Canada 2007

---

Debating Sex Work

Intelligence Squared

It's Wrong to pay for Sex London November2008

Is it Wrong to Pay for Sex? NYC April 2009

The Economist September 2010

---

Sex Worker and Other’s Voices

International Conference on Prostitution, California 1997 (ICOP)

SWOP: How to be an ally to sex workers

$pread Magazine

In Our Own Image (Video)

Sex workers' rights groups, networks and allies

Power to the Sisters - Micropunta (videos)

Travail du Sexe

Organising

Our lives Matter: Sex Workers Unite for Health and Human Rights. Open Society Institute 2008 (pdf)

Michelle Chen: Labor Movement for the Oldest Profession? Sex Workers Organize. In These Times Aug 24 2009

Kajsa Ekis Ekman. Varat och varan: Prostitution, surrogatmödraskap och den delade människan. Leopard förlag, Stockholm 2010[19]

Laura Agustín: Note to anti-prostitutionists: Sex worker movements are nothing to sneer at. Nov 8th 2010

(På Svenska) Kajsa Ekis Ekmans okunnighet om sexarbetare är skrämmande. Newsmill okt 24

Susanne Dodillet: Min forskning förvanskas för att den inte faller Ekis Ekman i smakenNewsmill okt 27

Petra Östergren: Ideologiska drakar... Expressen nov 2 ..

Dick Wase. Varat och varan - en riktigt dålig bok. okt 27

---

Michael Goodyear: Papers, publications and presentations

---

English Collective of Prostitutes

Main Menu

Site Map

Last updated: 21 April 2011

Dr Michael Goodyear, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada

For any problems, please contact: mgoodyear@dal.ca

---

[1] “Women in Nova Scotia continue to be marginalized” Rene Ross, Stepping Stone, Halifax, March 17 2005,  (Testimony to Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws)

[2] Amended 1910, 1948. Consolidated into 1949 Convention

“Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has procured, enticed, or led away, even with her consent, a woman or girl under age, for immoral purposes, shall be punished …” (Art 1)

“Whoever, in order to gratify the passions of another person, has, by fraud, or by means of violence, threats, abuse of authority, or any other method of compulsion, procured, enticed, or led away a woman or girl over age, for immoral purposes, shall also be punished …” (Art 2).

[3] Amended 1948. Consolidated into 1949 Convention

[4] Article 23 (c) deals with traffic in women and children

[5] Amended 1947. Consolidated into 1949 Convention

[6] Amended 1947. Consolidated into 1949 Convention

[7] Incorporated into 1949 Convention

[8] Prevention of Prostitution: A study of measures adopted or under consideration particularly with regard to minors.

Note:League of Nations instruments were of no effect from April 19^th 1946

[9] Consolidated four earlier League of nations instruments :

(1) International Agreement of 18 May 1904 for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic,

(2) International Convention of 4 May 1910 for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic,

(3) International Convention of 30 September 1921 for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children,

(4) International Convention of 11 October 1933 for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age

Entry into force 25 July 1951

While the preamble states that:

“Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community”

Articles 1 and 2 provide for the criminalisation of the following acts by third parties:

Article 1

(1) Procures, entices or leads away, for purposes of prostitution, another person, even with the consent of that person;

(2) Exploits the prostitution of another person, even with the consent of that person.

Article 2

(1) Keeps or manages, or knowingly finances or takes part in the financing of a brothel;

(2) Knowingly lets or rents a building or other place or any part thereof for the purpose of the prostitution of others.

But Article 6 provides for abolition of registration:

Article 6

Each Party to the present Convention agrees to take all the necessary measures to repeal or abolish any existing law, regulation or administrative provision by virtue of which persons who engage in or are suspected of engaging in prostitution are subject either to special registration or to the possession of a special document or to any exceptional requirements for supervision or notification.

[10] Article 75 provides that persons who are in the power of a party to the conflict are to be treated humanely, while certain acts are prohibited, including “enforced prostitution”.

[11] Transferred from the Division for the Advancement of Women to the Commissioner of Human Rights in 2008.

Article 6 provides that parties are to take “all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women”.

But

Article 11(1) provides protection for women in employment, establishing:

(a) The right to work as an inalienable right of all human beings;

(c) The right to free choice of profession and employment, the right to promotion, job security and all benefits and conditions of service and the right to receive vocational training and retraining, including apprenticeships, advanced vocational training and recurrent training;

(f) The right to protection of health and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction.

[12] Article 34 provides that parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent “the exploitative use of children in prostitution”.

[13] Article 7 includes “enforced prostitution” “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population” as “crimes against humanity”.

[14] London Metropolitan University. Prepared for the Routes Out Partnership Board (Scotland)

[15] ASBO: Anti-Social Behaviour Order

[16] Hieronimus ad Fabiolam de veste sacerdotali. Vidua est cuius maritus est mortuus, eiecta que marito vivente proicitur, meretrix que multorum libidini patet. “A whore is available to the lust of many men”. This definition formed the basis of mediaeval law governing prostitution.

[17] 386 A.D.

[18] See also

Law Reform Commission NSW Discussion Paper 33 (1996) Sentencing: Factors determining individual sentences n.106

[19] Reviews

Kajsa Ekis Ekman: Varat och varan. Expressen Sept 16 2010

Smart men snävt. Aftonbladet Aug 16

Bli inte lurade! Flamman Aug 25

Varan döljer en relation. Tidningen Aug 30

Göteborgs-Posten Sept 17

Utan offer inga förövare. DN Sept 16

Smålandsposten Sept 23

Sydsvenskan Sept 28

Debate: Scottish Socialist Youth