Designing Prostitution Policy Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade
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Designing Prostitution Policy Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Amesberger & Sietske Altink DESIGNING PROSTITUTION POLICY Intention and reality in regulating the sex trade Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Amesberger and Sietske Altink First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Policy Press North America office: University of Bristol Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press Bristol 1427 East 60th Street BS2 8BB Chicago, IL 60637, USA UK t: +1 773 702 7700 t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 f: +1 773-702-9756 [email protected] [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk www.press.uchicago.edu © Policy Press 2017 © Cover image: Andrew De Loba The digital PDF version of this title [978-1-4473-2426-3] is available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits adaptation, alteration, reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use, without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms. An electronic version of this book [978-1-4473-2426-3] is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at Knowledge Unlatched www.knowledgeunlatched.org. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-1-4473-2424-9 hardcover ISBN 978-1-4473-3519-1 ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-3520-7 Mobi ISBN 978-1-4473-2426-3 ePdf The right of Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Amesberger and Sietske Altink to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the authors and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Hayes Design Front cover image: Andrew De Loba Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners Contents Acknowledgements v one Introduction 1 Dora’s story 1 The primacy of policy in prostitution 5 The goals of the book 21 A reader’s guide to the book 23 two Challenges of prostitution policy 27 The stigma of prostitution and the paradox of control 29 Prostitution politics as morality politics 33 Paradoxes of immigration 49 Obstacles to obtaining reliable numbers about 54 prostitution and sex workers The ineluctable importance of the local in 61 prostitution policy Analysing prostitution policy 68 three The local governance of prostitution: regulatory 71 drift and implementation capture Policy implementation as policy formulation with 71 different means Policy design and policy instruments 79 Local policymaking in the Netherlands 87 Local policymaking in Vienna 117 Conclusion: policy implementation, morality politics 135 and the corrosive effects of discourse four The national governance of prostitution: 145 political rationality and the politics of discourse Introduction: policy subsystems and policy streams 145 National policy in the Netherlands 147 National policy in Austria 170 Conclusion 187 iii Designing prostitution policy five Understanding the policy field: migration, 195 prostitution, trafficking and exploitation Introduction: prostitution as a complex policy field 195 Migration, prostitution and coercion 200 How immigration and labour law shape the 208 ‘modern slavery’ problem Prostitution and exploitation 212 Prostitution, trafficking and exploitation: 218 an alternative framework six Prostitution policy beyond trafficking: collaborative 227 governance in prostitution The challenges of prostitution policy revisited: 227 harnessing a complex policy field Introducing collaborative rationality in prostitution 231 governance Sex worker advocacy and the state 237 Governance capacity and collaborative governance 242 Is collaborative governance in prostitution policy possible? 249 seven Summary and conclusion 257 Appendix: research design and methodology 265 Goals of the project 265 Research questions 265 Design of the study 266 Partnered research 268 Data collection 269 References 277 Index 295 iv Acknowledgements Prostitution is a complex, contested, sensitive and fast-moving field, and this is a large and comprehensive book. It could not have been written without the generous support of a number of people. We thank Joyce Outshoorn and the anonymous reviewer of Policy Press for their extensive and constructive comments on the manuscript. They urged us to restructure the design of the book and to rethink some of our arguments. Without them the message of the book would have been considerably less focused. Agata Dziuban and Licia Brussa were kind enough to read on short notice Chapter Five, the chapter on trafficking, immigration and exploitation. This is an exceedingly difficult topic and their extensive knowledge and experience in this area prevented us from many errors and misjudgements in our discussion of these topics. As always whatever errors remain in the book are ours. The research that forms the basis for this book would not have been possible without the generous participation and support of a large number of people. First, the members of the consortium group, officials from the cities of Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague, and later from the Women’s Department of the City of Vienna (in particular Marion Gebhard and Alina Zachar), who were entrusted with the design and implementation of prostitution policy in their cities, and spent countless hours throughout the course of the research with the research team discussing research questions, research design, data, the interpretation of data, and the content of the various reports we produced. They were generous in providing us with insights into the everyday details of their practice, and they might like to hear that we learned a lot about the craft of policymaking in prostitution from them. We know that they will disagree with many of our conclusions in this book, but that does not detract from the fact that they were invaluable for the realisation of the research. We also need to thank Jos Koffijberg and Lydia Sterrenberg, who were the Platform 31 officers assigned to our project (Platform 31 calls itself a knowledge and network organisation in the field of urban policy. It brings together government, social organisations and businesses in addressing urban problems). Their professionalism and enthusiasm helped us sustain the project through sometimes rocky political moments. Wim Hafkamp, the then director of Platform 31, has been unwavering in his support for the project. Sylvia Bokelman conducted interviews, engaged in ethnographic observation, kept a diary and generously shared her insights and experience of the sex trade with us. Throughout the research Susanne Dodillet and Petra v Designing prostitution policy Östergren were our expert guides through the mirror palace of Swedish prostitution policy. Hendrik Wagenaar is exceedingly grateful to Catherine Healy and Calum Bennacchie of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective who on two occasions organised a series of meetings and interviews with key actors in New Zealand prostitution policy. He thanks them not only for their help in organising his field work and for the way they welcomed him in the sex worker advocacy community, but above all for the friendship they offered him and his wife. Hendrik is also deeply grateful to Mariska Majoor, erstwhile chair of the Dutch sex worker advocacy organisation PROUD, who, over many hours of coffee and homemade soup at the Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam, acted as an informal mentor and consultant on sex work. Without the wisdom of Catherine, Calum and Mariska this would have been a lesser book. Research cannot be conducted without the willingness of a large number of experts and practitioners to take time out from their busy jobs to talk to a researcher. We realise that for them this is a one- sided effort where the benefits mostly accrue to the researcher. We therefore want to thank the many officials, politicians, professionals and police officers who were kind enough to answer all our questions and to patiently explain the intricacies of their work to us. Thanks also to Marie-Theres Prantner from the Austrian federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs and chair of the federal working group on prostitution. Helga Amesberger became a member of the transprofessional work group, which provided her with valuable and rich insights about politics in practice. Our special thanks also go to the interviewers from the Austrian non-governmental organisations LEFÖ and maiz. Not only did they conduct many interviews with sex workers in Vienna and Upper Austria, but their discussions about the interview guidelines and the outcomes definitely contributed to better knowledge production and understanding. Finally we want to thank all the anonymous sex workers who trusted us sufficiently to share their experiences of sex work with us. We can only hope that the book is an accurate reflection of those experiences. Hendrik Wagenaar thanks his wife Barbara Prainsack for being with him throughout the course of this project. Her love, critical understanding and unwavering support were essential in its design and completion.