Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

by Molly Smith

To say that prostitution is work is not to say it is good work, or that we should be uncritical of it. To be better than poverty or a lower paid job is an abysmally low bar, especially for anyone who claims to be part of any movement towards liberation.

People are attracted to the concept of a Nordic-style law that criminalises only the sex buyer, and not the prostitute – but any campaign or policy that aims to reduce business for sex workers will force them to absorb the deficit, whether in their wallets or in their working conditions.

Conversely, LGBTQ people, Black people, and deliberate prostitutes are often left out of the category of innocence, and as a result harm against people in these groups becomes less legible as harm.

Both the US and UK typically tie domestic workers’ visas to a specific employer. As a result, a staggering 80 per cent of migrant domestic workers entering the US find that they have been deceived about their contract, and 78 per cent have had employers threaten them with deportation if they complain.

European governments position themselves as re-enacting and re-writing the history of anti-slavery movements to make themselves both victims and heroes.