Anti-trafficking policies claim to support vulnerable women, however their implementation leads to imprisonment and deportation of migrant sex workers in Europe.
The criminalisation of clients does nothing to protect sex workers from police harassment, border guards, racism, transphobia, or sexual assault. That’s a problem.
Sex workers face more abuse from clients and police than from ‘traffickers’, but addressing that would mean accepting sex workers have an equal right to freedom. That’s why governments don’t.
‘Free’ labour exists when it is guarded by a system of rights and protections. This places the vast majority of migrant and citizen sex workers at the extreme end of unfreedom.
New Zealand is lauded as the world's only country to fully decriminalise sex work, yet a catch makes that of little comfort to the temporary migrants working in the trade.
The model of criminalising only the clients of sex workers is becoming increasingly popular, but what do those working with sex workers in Finland actually think of it?
