LAS VEGAS — In commemoration of today's International Sex Workers Rights Day, a group of 250 researchers and scientists worldwide have issued a campaign, citing empirical evidence, calling on President Biden and Vice-President Harris to support the decriminalization of sex work as part of their broader efforts toward criminal justice reform.
The Scientists For Sex Worker Rights campaign was organized by Dr. Barbara G. Brents and Dr. Kate Hausbeck Korgan (Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Dr. Angela Jones (Department of Sociology, State University of New York) and Dr. Ronald Weitzer (Department of Sociology, George Washington University).
“Since 2001, sex workers, allies and advocates have commemorated International Sex Worker Rights Day on March 3 in an effort to raise awareness of the human rights abuses faced by sex workers,” the organizers explained.
Dr. Weitzer said, “We decided to launch this campaign because, for too long, policies regarding sex work have been largely evidence-free, and we saw an urgent need to intervene in the debate by re-linking scientific research with public policy. And 250 researchers agreed and signed on to our letter.”
The researchers pointed out that although the majority of individuals involved in the sex trades are consenting adults, nearly 90% of the federal government’s $24 million “trafficking prevention” budget was used to arrest consensual adult sex workers rather than to detect coercion or assist victims.
Criminalization Causes Severe Harms
The data, Dr. Jones remarked, “clearly shows that criminalizing consensual adult sexual services causes severe harms, which fall mainly on the most marginalized groups — women, people of color, transgender and non-binary workers, workers' with disabilities and economically marginalized workers, and does not prevent or minimize violence or abuse ostensibly identified with human trafficking.”
Dr. Brents added that “the evidence now shows that the war on prostitution, even if intended to protect people, is backfiring. Study after study documents the negative impact criminalizing sex workers, their clients and those who support them has had on the most marginalized communities. We can change that with science-based policies. Science should determine every single policy in this country, whether local, state or federal, intended to affect or protect anyone selling sex, whether by choice, circumstance or coercion.”
Signatories to the letter believe that the “research unequivocally shows that decriminalization has enormous benefits for public health and workers. Where sex work has been decriminalized, such as in New Zealand, there has been no increase in the prevalence of prostitution since 2003, neither in the number of those providing commercial sex nor in those purchasing it; fewer reports of street-based sex workers, as many had moved indoors; increased reporting to the police of violence against sex workers; improved relations between police and sex workers; improved economic stability and labor conditions; better health outcomes for workers; and improved overall public health.”
Support for SAFE SEX Workers Study Act
The letter applauds the administration’s “public commitment to science-driven policy and implores the President, Vice-President, their administration and Congressional leaders to take immediate, specific actions such support and advocate” for Rep. Ro Khanna’s SESTA/FOSTA Examination of Secondary Effects for Sex Workers Study Act (aka the "SAFE SEX Workers Study Act”).
The SAFE SEX Workers Study Act, which was originally introduced during the last Congress and is expected to be reintroduced by Khanna, requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a study on sex workers' health and safety, particularly how they've been affected by the 2018 passage of FOSTA-SESTA.
“We are calling for serious action on the Senate study bill because policies such as FOSTA/SESTA has had deleterious transnational effects on sex workers,” said the Scientists For Sex Worker Rights organizers, who “hope that governors and state legislators as well will heed the science on similar state-level bills.”
Dr Korgan opined that “President Biden and his administration have an historic opportunity to create a commission comprised of leading social scientists, NGOs and grass-roots sex worker-led organizations to partner with Congressional leaders and advance new science-informed policies that empower and support all individuals engaged in sex work.”
For more information visit the websites for organizers Dr. Barbara G. Brents, Dr. Angela Jones, Dr. Kate Hausbeck Korgan and Dr. Ronald Weitzer.
For more about the Scientists for Sex Worker Rights Campaign, follow them on Twitter.
