Complex Rights and Wrongs: The Stories We Deny in Mainstream Understandings of Prostitution and Trafficking in the Sex Industry
Jill McCracken, PhD; Stella Jendrzejewski, MA, EdM & LOVE Queen Layla | September 22 | 11:45 am-12:45 pm
Topic: Research, Legal | Knowledge Level: Beginner
Current prostitution and anti-trafficking legislation in the U.S. does not account for the complexities faced by the majority of people in the sex industry (McCracken, 2019). Force and coercion exist, and yet placing individuals in the boxes created by prostitution and trafficking legislation (i.e., victim, criminal, trafficker, prostitute) exacerbates violence against individuals and subverts justice (Weitzer, 2010). The researchers ask how current prostitution and anti-trafficking laws impact consenting sex workers and victims of trafficking. In this session, they will present their analysis of interviews with 60 individuals who have engaged in adult consensual sex work and identity as victims of trafficking and/or have been convicted of trafficking. Centering their voices, they explore how their experiences confront and contradict the legal, political, and medial representations of trafficking and prostitution. The researchers find the majority of people involved in this study faced arrest for prostitution and trafficking when they were not exploiting others but rather victims of exploitation and/or were working with other consenting sex workers to keep themselves safe and free from exploitation and violence. The presenters show how the criminalization of prostitution impacts both individuals engaged in consensual sex work and victims of trafficking. They conclude that city, court, and state legislators must introduce legislation that creates amnesty for sex workers so they can report violence, coercion, exploitation, and/or trafficking against themselves or others without fear of arrest. Finally, the presenters recommend adult consensual prostitution be decriminalized so that consenting sex workers and victims of trafficking are not made more vulnerable due to prostitution arrests and convictions.
Presentation Objectives:
· Explain the differences between adult consensual sex work and exploitation/ trafficking in the sex industry
· Provide an in-depth understanding of how victims of sex trafficking can be caught in the criminalization net of sex trafficking charges and convictions
· Discuss how the intersections of violence, exploitation, and the criminal legal system impact the lives of individuals in the sex industry (both by choice and force)
· Describe the various aspects of carceral and punitive prostitution legislation