All roads lead to abolition? Debates about prostitution and sex work through the lens of unacceptable work

ABSTRACT

The notion of unacceptable work has formed, in part, as a counterweight to the push for decent or better forms of work. That is, naming and understanding the functioning of unacceptable work helps ‘promote respect for rights at work by eliminating egregious labour practices’. There are important insights around unacceptable work to be gained from feminist debates on the sex industry. Engaging with these debates through the prism of unacceptable work can illuminate the way in which systems of prostitution can function simultaneously as forms of labour and as forms of exploitation and violence against women. If prostitution/sex work meets many of the criteria available for understanding unacceptable forms of work, then the question of abolition can be raised from a labour rights perspective. Following this logic, it is also possible to view the Equality/Nordic Model of asymmetric decriminalisation of the sex industry (where prostituted persons are decriminalised, but brothel owning and the purchase of sexual access are criminalised) as a form of innovative policy to address unacceptable work, and promote decent work.

KEYWORDS:

• Unacceptable work
• decent work
• prostitution
• sex work
• Nordic model

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest declared.

Notes

1. My previous research in this area (Tyler, 2011; Tyler, 2012; Tyler, 2016; Tyler & Jovanovski, 2018) draws on radical feminist theory and my work with sex trade survivors has led me to consciously and compassionately eschew the term ‘sex work’ in my own writing (see also: Smiley, 2019). In line with Coy and colleagues (2019), I will not pretend that a completely neutral or objective analysis is possible here, regardless of the perspective from which one approaches the topic. However, given that this is an attempt to bring together perspectives which do not generally overlap, I have used the term ‘prostitution/sex work’ throughout most of the paper, where my own voice is being used.

2. As noted by Bindel (2017) in previous decades the demand had largely been legalisation (e.g. with licenced brothels) but this has shifted to total decriminalisation more recently.

3. There is also important literature on the harms to men, boys and transgender people in the broader literature on prostitution, but the focus here is on women and girls, partially to limit the range of sources but also to emphasise that the vast majority of people in prostitution/sex work, are women and girls.

4. The term ‘prostitution’ only appears twice in the original ILO report (Fudge and McCann 2015), which is more than 100 pages long, and the term ‘sex work’ does not appear at all.

5. It should be noted that of the 854 people surveyed, the vast majority were women (Farley et al. 2003).

6. See for example: SPACE International, which operates globally (https://www.spaceintl.org/), Embrace Dignity in South Africa (http://embracedignity.org.za/) and Wahine Toa Rising in New Zealand (https://wahinetoarising.nz/.)

Additional information

Funding

No funding sources to declare.

Notes on contributors

Meagan Tyler

Dr. Meagan Tyler is a Senior Lecturer, based in the Centre for People, Organisation and Work at RMIT University. Her work focusses on gender inequality and violence against women in a range of settings, from the sex industry, to emergency management.