Global Sex Workers

Global Sex Workers presents the personal experiences of sex workers around the world. Drawing on their individual narratives, it explores international struggles to uphold the rights of this often marginalized group.

Sex worker activists throughout Africa are demanding an end to the criminalization of sex work and the recognition of their human rights to safe working conditions, health and justice services, and lives free from violence and discrimination. To Live Freely in This World is the first book to tell the story of the brave activists at the beating heart of the sex workers’ rights movement in Africa—the newest and most vibrant face of the global sex workers’ rights struggle. African sex worker activists are proving that communities facing human rights abuses are not bereft of agency. They’re challenging politicians, religious fundamentalists, and anti-prostitution advocates; confronting the multiple stigmas that affect the diverse members of their communities; engaging in intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized groups; and participating in the larger global sex workers’ rights struggle in order to determine their social and political fate. By locating this counter-narrative in Africa, To Live Freely in This World challenges disempowering and one-dimensional depictions of “degraded Third World prostitutes” and helps fill what has been a gaping hole in feminist scholarship regarding sex work in the African context. Based on original fieldwork in seven African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, Chi Adanna Mgbako draws on extensive interviews with over 160 African female and male (cisgender and transgender) sex worker activists, and weaves their voices and experiences into a fascinating, richly-detailed, and powerful examination of the history and continuing activism of this young movement.

Analysis of the women who migrate for sex work, the organizations that facilitate these placements and the hierarchies that persist within the trade, all of which unfold in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"Despite being dubbed "the world's oldest profession," prostitution has rarely been viewed as a legitimate form of labour. Instead, it has been criminalized, sensationalized, and polemicized across the socio-political spectrum by everyone from politicians to journalists to women's groups. Interest in and concern over sex work is not grounded in the lived realities of those who work in the industry, but rather in inflammatory ideas about who is participating, how they wound up in this line of work, and what form it takes. In Selling Sex, Emily van der Meulen, Elya M. Durisin, and Victoria Love present a more nuanced, balanced, and realistic view of the sex industry. They bring together a vast collection of voices - including researchers, feminists, academics, and advocates, as well as sex workers of differing ages, genders, and sectors - to engage in a dialogue that challenges the dominant narratives surrounding the sex industry and advances the idea that sex work is in fact work. Presenting a variety of opinions and perspectives on such diverse topics as the social stigma of sex work, police violence, labour organizing, anti-prostitution feminism, human trafficking, and harm reduction, Selling Sex is an eye-opening, challenging, and necessary book."--Publisher's website.

Selling Sex in the City offers a worldwide analysis of prostitution since 1600. It analyses more than 20 cities with an important sex industry and compares policies and social trends, coercion and agency, but also prostitutes' working and living conditions.

Trafficking & the Global Sex Industry focuses on the international trafficking of women and children for forced labor and prostitution. The essays create a link from country to country, demonstrating the worldwide nature of the problem. Expertly written and well researched, this collection gives the reader a clearer understanding of the problem of human trafficking and the actions being taken to combat it.

This open access book provides a comprehensive overview of the health inequities and human rights issues faced by sex workers globally across diverse contexts, and outlines evidence-based strategies and best practices. Sex workers face severe health and social inequities, largely as the result of structural factors including punitive and criminalized legal environments, stigma, and social and economic exclusion and marginalization. Although previous work has largely emphasized an elevated burden and gaps in HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services in sex work, less attention has been paid to the broader health and human rights concerns faced by sex workers. This contributed volume addresses this gap. The chapters feature a variety of perspectives including academic, community, implementing partners, and government to synthesize research evidence as well as lessons learned from local-level experiences across different regions, and are organized under three parts: Burden of health and human rights inequities faced by sex workers globally, including infectious diseases (e.g., HIV, STIs), violence, sexual and reproductive health, and drug use Structural determinants of health and human rights, including legislation, law enforcement, community engagement, intersectoral collaboration, stigma, barriers to health access, im/migration issues, and occupational safety and health Evidence-based services and best practices at various levels ranging from individual and community to policy-level interventions to identify best practices and avenues for future research and interventions Sex Work, Health, and Human Rights is an essential resource for researchers, policy-makers, governments, implementing partners, international organizations and community-based organizations involved in research, policies, or programs related to sex work, public health, social justice, gender-based violence, women's health and harm reduction.

Mónica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail. Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences. Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world—from South Africa to India—to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between “abolitionists” and “sex workers’ rights advocates” to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.