sex work

journal

Wagadu, an open access online feminist journal, has released a special issue ‘Demystifying sex work and sex workers.’ With articles from activist scholars the special issue, focuses on the everyday lives of sex workers. Susan Dewey of the University of Wyoming who edited the issue explains, “While recent years have witnessed a dramatic outpouring of feminist scholarship that situates sex work within its broader socioeconomic and political contexts cross-culturally, there remains a tendency for academic scholarship to unconsciously reinforce the social stigmatization of sex workers by depicting them solely through their income-earning activities. This burgeoning research has convincingly demonstrated that sex

stigma

HIV; human rights;

There is growing interest in the ways in which legal and human rights issues related to sex work affect sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV and abuses including human trafficking and sexual exploitation. International agencies, such as UNAIDS, have called for decriminalisation of sex work because the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services is affected by criminalisation and social exclusion as experienced by sex workers.

wages

A news story in the Asia Sentinal by Geeta Seshu, 25 May 2011. Why do women in India become sex workers? They can make more money and live better. Poverty and limited education push females into labor markets at an early age, but the sheer desire for a better income and a better life pushes them into sex work, according to a path-breaking, pan-India survey of sex workers.

income

book chapter

An analysis if different political conceptualisations of sex work. Excllent 1998 article by Dr Alison Murray who was one of the first sex workers to recognise the rise of the myths and flawed discourse of trafficking as a potent threat to sex workers human rights. Chapter in Laura J. Shepherd (Ed.), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A feminist introduction to international relations (pp. 89-101) Abingdon, Oxen, U.K.: Routledge. A chapter by Ramjee G in Abdool Karim S. S. ‘HIV/AIDS in South Africa’, Cambridge University Press. The author provides an overview of the dynamics of sex work and HIV in Africa

news article

“The word illegal and legal makes a big difference.” This article describes conditions under ‘decriminalised’ sex work in New Zealand. It illustrates that there are still many constraints on sex workers and that not all sex work is legal. In Tauranga you are allowed to offer commercial sex services from your house, provided you are the only person operating there.There are five registered brothels, compared with four in 2003. It is illegal to solicit sex on the street. Brothels must only open in areas permitted under council by law and a certificate of compliance and an operator certificate, is needed.

trauma

An analysis of recent empirical and theoretical literature in psychology investigating sex work highlights the field’s focus of pathology and stigma. We offer an alternative understanding of sex work by using a resilience-based lens and apply it to three areas of research with sex work.

psychology; drugs

presumptive treatment

Sex work is an important feature of the transmission dynamics of HIV within early, advanced and regressing epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. HIV prevalence among sex workers and their clients is commonly 20 fold higher than the general population. Together, these factors may contribute to a differential in HIV transmission potential of more than 1000 times compared with lower-risk populations. Yet, in much of Africa, there is little evidence that transmission of HIV and other STIs in sex work settings has been controlled.

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