Consultation on the Criminalisation of in Equally Safe

Submission by Dr Anastacia Ryan

Dear Justice Department,

I would like to take this opportunity to express deep regret over the confined framework within which this consultation is taking place. The consultation extends from current Government policy as set out in ‘Safer Lives, Changed Lives’, and the subsequent ‘Equally Safe’ Strategy, which notably underpins the evidence presented in the consultation document and the arguably biased and leading questions proposed. The resultant framework and limited consultation narrative represent a missed opportunity for much needed discussion and debate on the Scottish Government’s approach to policy more broadly.

The limited, exclusionary and ideologically-driven understanding of prostitution in Scottish Government policy more generally and in this consultation; fails to recognise the heterogeneous experiences of people in Scotland who sell and/or exchange sexual services; denies the agency of women, men, cis and trans persons; renders invisible actual acts of violence and exploitation occurring in the sex industry; continues an ineffective and dangerous reliance on criminal justice approaches that fosters unsafe working practices and deters victims of actual violence to seek redress, and perpetuates a misplaced moralistic agenda in supporting sex workers at the expense of a much need social justice and public health approach in policy and programmes, that centres the varied needs of people this consultation states intention to support. Moreover, the overt focus within policy and the Equally Safe strategy on ‘reducing demand’ fails to address the root causes and factors that exacerbate the vulnerabilities of women and girls to violence, which extend far beyond the narrow focus on eliminating prostitution as a means to achieve gender equality in Scotland.

A platform of social justice – rights, redistribution, respect, inclusion and recognition – extending from decriminalisation as a first step, has the potential to avoid the trap of a welfarist approach as set out in current policy, which creates new forms of intervention in the lives of women who are traditionally marginalised, stigmatised and often criminalised. Being able to openly challenge structural oppression, particularly as it relates to women’s’ lives, is essential in discussions surrounding reform and to ensure the equally important process of de-stigmatisation and de- marginalisation of women who sell sex. Only in a decriminalised setting are these reforms possible and a holistic form of social justice for all women can be realised. The Scottish Government has an opportunity to lead the way internationally on an agenda for change that

1 meaningfully co-creates laws and policies with people with lived experience, and I remain hopeful that this consultation acts as a catalyst for such an opportunity to recognise and value the citizenship, voice and agency of sex workers, whilst creating effective policies to affect systems change for all women and girls; two important tasks that need not be treated as mutually exclusive.

In response to the Consultation Questions;

Question 1. Do you agree or disagree that the Scottish Government’s approach to tackling prostitution, as outlined in this section, is sufficient to prevent violence against women and girls?

Disagree.

The Scottish Government’s approach as defined in the current policy framework set out through ‘Safer Lives: Changed Lives’ (Scottish Government, 2009) and ‘Equally Safe’ (Scottish Government, 2014) is clearly positioned in an understanding of prostitution as inherently and unequivocally violence against women. This is fundamentally flawed, discriminatory and harmful as it extends to the sole funding of services and programmes willing, or, coerced by Government framing, to treat all people engaged in selling/exchanging sex from this ideological position. Within this ideology, sex workers are generalised and conflated as unstable, traumatised, passive and exploited (Farley, 2004; Jeffreys, 1997; Raymond, 1998), with these pathologisations seen as resulting in their sex selling (and undermining their agency exercised in a ‘decision’ to sell sex), and additionally resulting from their apparently traumatising experience of sex work (Levy, 2014). The harms experienced by sex workers are thus portrayed as synonymous with prostitution, with policy stating that the sex industry has ‘been shown to be harmful for the individual women involved’, and furthermore ‘has a negative impact on the position of all women through the objectification of women’s bodies’ and this ‘happens irrespective of whether individual women claim success or empowerment from the activity’ (Scottish Government, 2009: 7-8).

Exclusionary Understanding

This narrow and reducing definition of prostitution to commercial sexual exploitation of women, fails to include male, trans and non-binary sex workers, all of whom exist in the Scotland-based Sex Worker community, and thus experience a denial of their agency by the Government under current policy frameworks. Secondly, reducing people’s experiences in this way furthers the stigma already perpetuated towards people who are vilified for transgressing societal norms by providing sexual services as an economic activity, bearing heavily also on male, trans and non-binary workers.

2

This sweeping view of prostitution serves to render invisible actual experiences of violence, abuse and exploitation occurring in the sex industry, closing the doors to justice for sex workers who refute the understanding of their work as inherently violence and fear authorities and services will deny their distinction between consent and rape. Eradicating predominantly women’s choices and proposing that payment or another other circumstance for that matter, removes ability to consent, is fundamentally dangerous for the rights of all women and girls in Scotland.

Potential for Retraumatisation of Women and Girls

Defining all prostitution as commercial sexual exploitation renders dissenting voices and alternative experiences invisible through the state-perpetuated assumption that sex workers do not have the capacity to define their experiences or understand their own context, resilience or circumstances. Such an infantilising approach to working with women engaged in sex work has the potential not only to silence dissenting voices, but to erode actual experiences of trauma and violence by over writing women’s experiences with an ideologically driven narrative. This can have the potential for re- traumatisation - a conscious or unconscious reminder of past trauma that results in a re-experiencing of the initial trauma event. Retraumatisation can be triggered by a situation, an attitude or expression, or by certain environments that replicate the dynamics (loss of power/control/safety) of the original trauma. As women and girls are substantially more impacted by violence throughout the course of their lives, enacted by perpetrators with the goal to create real or perceived powerlessness; service provision approaches that insist on false consciousness, lack of agency and victimhood, have the potential to create significant harm through retraumatisation1.

Empirical documentation of the way that female sex workers experience this policy framework in their everyday lives in Scotland is expanding, yet ignored in this Consultation (Ryan, 2019; Scoular & Carline, 2014; Smith, 2015). Whilst interventions into the lives of women who engage in sex work are presented as policies and practices of welfare for women and girls, they are often experienced as intrusive, coercive and punitive (Ryan, 2019; Campbell, 2004). Mechanisms of control, enforcement and surveillance enforce gendered expectations and notions of good behaviour, rewarding with social inclusion of those women who exit the sex industry and continued exclusion of those that remain

1 Response submitted to Equally Safe Consultation by Care-Experienced, Worker Gaye Dalton. Available at: https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/equally-safe-challenging-mens-demand-for-prostitution- consultation/

3 involved. For women in the latter category, the paradoxical legal framework in Scotland leads to further criminalisation and marginalisation (Ryan, 2019; Scoular & O’Neill, 2007).

Paradoxical Policy & Legal Framework

The notable paradox in law and policy related to prostitution in Scotland lends a further reason for disagreement that the current approach is addressing violence against women and girls. On the contrary, the current laws surrounding prostitution heighten the risk of violence faced by all sex workers, perpetrated most often with impunity given barriers experienced by sex workers in reporting crimes against them due to fear of their own prosecution for working practices. Goodyear (2008) evidences the disproportionate levels of violence faced by sex workers in the UK by evidencing mortality rates as six times the rate of the general population. Further evidenced are the links between criminalization, higher levels of violence, and tied to this, the lack of reporting of violent acts to the police (English Collective of Prostitutes, 2012; Kinnell, 2006). In her research on violence against sex workers, Kinnell concluded that a legal framework which criminalises sex workers, such as that currently in operation in Scotland:

“.. makes all forms of sex work more dangerous, while proposals for making sex work safer are rejected lest they ‘encourage prostitution’, indicating that many view violence against sex workers as an important deterrent to discourage the sale of sex, and a punishment for those who do.” (Kinnell, 2006:142.)

Furthermore, sex worker led projects have documented, under a criminalised system, that police often take the rape, attack or murder of women, deemed to be ‘prostitutes’, less seriously than an equivalent attack on a ‘respectable’ woman (English Collective of Prostitutes, 1997: 93).

Laws that Endanger

The Scottish criminal justice system essentially classes prostitution as “anti-social behaviour” - with solicitation, importuning and loitering in a public place being a criminal offence under Section 46 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act (1982). Sex workers in Scotland are often subject to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) (ASBOs) (Section 19, Crime and Disorder (Scotland) Act, 1998), which serve to reinforce their deviant status within Scotland’s legal framework, unlike the narrative of women as victims projected in this Consultation. Although primarily a civil sanction, breach of an ASBO is a criminal offence punishable by a fine or imprisonment under the same Act (1998). Evidence has shown that ASBOs have failed to deter women from street-based sex work, but rather have had the effect of relocating the “problem” to neighbouring areas, or indoors, often putting street-based sex

4 workers who are particularly desperate and vulnerable into more dangerous areas. The risk of obtaining a criminal record also serves to further alienate the women, operating as a barrier to exiting prostitution or entering alternative employment or accessing welfare services. It has been documented how these civil orders, which quickly turn to criminal sanctions where a breach of conditions occurs, are a quick route to criminalising sex workers and not improving conditions for communities or individuals (Sagar, 2007). As noted by Scoular and Carline (2015) these sanctions fail to address root causes of women’s vulnerability; rather creating;

‘New revolving doors have been created for those involved in the most visible sectors of the industry and support agencies have been made to take on an increased policing role. This narrow focus individualises the causes of poverty and prostitution, and side-lines the wider structural factors that shape sex work and does little to address the real needs of this vulnerable group’ (2015, pg12).

Further, the current law restricts the personal relationships that a sex worker has outside of her work by imposing offences on the profiting of prostitution, which often catch in their ambit the boyfriends or partners of women working as sex workers. For example, it is illegal for a male person to live on the earnings of prostitution (s.11(1) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995). Accordingly, those who are closely involved with sex workers become legally suspect. Although seen as necessary in respect of targeting “pimps”, a man only needs to be proven to “live with or be habitually in the company of” a prostitute to be guilty of living on the earnings of prostitution (s.11(3) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995). This condition makes no distinction between genuine pimps and men who are the sons, boyfriends, or husbands of women engaging in sex work. Responsibility and power are, therefore, entrusted to police and prosecution services to determine whether a sex workers’ relationship with the male figures in her life is genuine or exploitative.

Legislation pertaining to the purchase of sex also appears contradictory in its nature. While the Scottish Government (2009) claims to support the prohibitionist claim that prostitution is “violence against women”, clients only come under the scrutiny of the law if they are found to be soliciting and loitering for the purpose of obtaining the services of a prostitute in a public place (s.1(6) of the

2 https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/files- asset/42098305/Carline_Scoular_SPS_2015_Saving_fallen_women_now_critical_perspectiv e_on_engagement_and_support.pdf

5 Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act 2007). Thus, it is the public nature of a client’s behaviour that is targeted by Scots criminal law rather than any direct accusation of these males causing violence towards women by purchasing sexual services, rendering street-working women most precarious with regards to their legal status.

Public Place-related prostitution laws, including soliciting and kerb-crawling legislation, have both been experienced and evidenced to reduce the safety of women working outdoors in Scotland by reducing imperative screening time to assess risk, and remove possibility to work in pairs to record vehicle registration numbers. The criminalisation of soliciting and kerb-crawling furthers the invisibility of street-working sex workers, forced to work in more hidden and isolated ways to avoid arrest for themselves or their clients, increasing their vulnerability to violence.

Finally, if two or more sex workers share a premise to work then they are breaking the law under Section 11(5) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995. The criminalisation of -keeping forces sex workers to work alone, as they risk arrest for working with a friend – with clear negative implications for their safety. Current laws regarding ‘brothel-keeping’ actively endanger sex workers, forcing people to work in the most dangerous way – alone.

The policy framework of Equally Safe has clearly translated the harms associated with prostitution as underpinned and driven by male violence and patriarchal relations in the selling and buying of sex. In doing so, structural inequalities facing women engaged in sex work such as continued criminalisation, discrimination, stigma, poverty, racism and marginalisation are notably absent in this consultation. Consequently, women who do sex work continue to be regulated in Scotland from a paradoxical and contradictory criminal justice approach. This sits in stark contrast from the Scottish Government’s stated goals to support and protect women and girls from gender-based violence and rather; signifies an uninformed, tokenistic agenda that fails to engage directly with the structural conditions that all women navigate through in a patriarchal, capitalist world, that requires a much more nuanced and proactive approach in dismantling, with decriminalisation being a necessary first step.

6 Question 2. What are your observations as to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on women involved in prostitution in Scotland?

The COVID-19 crisis illuminated the harms associated with a ‘reduction in demand’ in a legal setting that renders sex workers without equal citizenship rights and an inadequate welfare system that assigns many women - overrepresented in the unprotected informal economy - to poverty. The majority of in person sex work ceased as a result of measures taken in the early months of COVID-19 to flatten the infection curve by the Scottish Government. Despite financial vulnerability caused by COVID-19 however, many sex workers were not afforded access to emergency social protection schemes, particularly those with no recourse to public funds (Kluge et al, 2020). For sex workers with secure residency status, the fear of state surveillance and resultant potential criminalisation acts as a deterrent to formally registering their work or accessing state benefits during periods of not working. Thus, many sex workers fell through the cracks of financial support and could not sustain adherence to public health measures beyond the first few months.

Many sex workers relied on mutual aid funds, set up by peer-led organisations such as Umbrella Lane and SWARM, which dwindled quickly given the lack of Government contribution. These funds enabled sex workers, who were ineligible, or fearful of accessing, mainstream support, to prioritise their health and safety for a period of time during the global pandemic. Once these funds were depleted, sex workers faced a choice between destitution or putting theirs and their family’s health at risk by returning to work. For sex workers who were forced to return to work, they returned to an environment whereby demand was reduced, and the need to avoid attention from state authorities was increased, exacerbating the need for precarious working. Sex workers reported to Umbrella Lane that in order to make ends meet, they accepted bookings from clients who were known to be dangerous and offered services to clients that were out with their comfort zone in order to secure income. Many women who usually work with a friend for safety decided to work alone to avoid reporting by neighbours for breaking COVID-related regulations, which exposed their risk of violence. Dangerous individuals targeted sex working women during the pandemic in the knowledge that women were likely working alone and at personal risk of fines related to emergency public health legislation. In the majority of cases reported to Umbrella Lane, violence took place with impunity, as sex workers were fearful of their own prosecution in reporting of the offence.

The pandemic has temporarily allowed us to see the initial effects of policies, laws and practices focused on reducing the demand for sexual services. Sex workers reported severe mental health deterioration due to isolation from the suspension of in person peer support networks and need to

7 work alone; poverty and in some cases destitution; unsafe working practices; and an increase in exposure to violence carried out with greater levels of impunity.

Furthermore, sex workers reported additional fears in accessing sexual and reproductive health services, given their need to hide their continued working, creating grave implications for public health beyond COVID-19. All of these effects of the COVID-related reduction in demand have been reported in countries that have followed this pursuit legally in the introduction of legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex (Ugly Mugs.ie, 2019; Médecins du Monde, 2018; HIV Ireland, 2020). It is vital that these effects are considered as an unjust, unethical array of reasons for the Scottish Government to reconsider its engagement with any legal or policy model that prioritises reducing demand over safety and public health. This focus of laws and policies have been condemned by leading human rights organisations; Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, for exacerbating harms already faced by marginalised, precarious workers.

The Need to Engage Community-Led Projects in Recovery Period

Sex worker organisations globally and in Scotland rapidly responded to COVID-19 by developing and administering hardship funds; supporting financial relief applications; developing referral pathways to crisis and longer term support services, including sexual and reproductive health services; and providing health and safety guidance for those moving online or unable to stop direct services3. The peer-led support organisation in Scotland, Umbrella Lane, was excluded from Government funding released to support women involved in prostitution throughout the pandemic. Further recognition of the importance of such organisations to sex workers, must take place to ensure beneficiaries and their specific needs and experiences are included in recovery period policy and service planning.

Question 3. Which of the policy approaches (or aspects of these) outlined in Table 3.1 do you believe is most effective in preventing violence against women and girls?

It should firstly be noted that the report drawn on to categorise these legal approaches was produced over Fifteen years ago, thus understandably inaccurate in 2020. Far more up to date resources on legal

3 Umbrella Lane (2020) ‘COVID Impact Report’ Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d93079e1a544c26b1864957/t/5f7d8758094eac3ec0ad53bc/16020622069 08/COVID19+Impact+Report.pdf

8 frameworks and approaches to regulating prostitution are available, for example; the HIV Policy Lab resources produced by Georgetown University4 is up to date as of 2020. Drawing on inaccurate and out of date information in such a key consultation document seems out of line with Scottish Government standards of research.

Reviewing the table of options for engagement, the least repressive model proposed appears as regulationism, more commonly referred to as legalisation. Countries that have adopted this framework most often confer contractual rights to workers, whilst continuing to regulate the broader sex industry through a range of civic, administrative and, in some cases, criminal offences tied to activities related to the sex industry that remain illegal. This model of regulation has the objective of creating regulated, monitored working environments for those involved, sometimes as a means of promoting the labour rights of workers, but often expressed more as a desire to limit the dangers and harms associated with sex work, including public nuisance and public health concerns for sex workers and the wider population. Significantly, even in jurisdictions that adopt a legalisation approach, sex work is still viewed as a type of employment that requires a ‘special’ regulatory regime, such as licensing, compulsory health checks, and conditions on where and when a prostitution transaction can be carried out.

In Austria, for example, sex work is deemed legal, yet a repressive system of regulations governs the wider sex industry and sex workers alike. Seen as an industry that is problematic yet inevitable, sex work in Austria is perceived through the varying and often contradictory perspectives of illegal immigration, morality, public order, trafficking, and “public health”, as exemplified by the regulations and restrictions in place. These regulations put sex workers under strict police control, subject to manifold obligations (the Administrative Penal Act, AIDS Law, Alien Police Law, Civil Code, Immigration Police Law, Income Tax Law, National Insurance Act, Penal Code, or Venereal Diseases Act), but without effective protection of their rights. Sex workers are required to register as prostitutes with the local authorities (police department or municipal authority, depending on the province). Registration is based on the Health Checks Directive under the Venereal Diseases Act. As part of the registration, sex workers are obliged to attend weekly mandatory inspections for STIs,

4 HIV Policy Lab by Georgetown University Map of Laws Pertaining to Prostitution. Available at: https://www.hivpolicylab.org/data

9 quarterly mandatory tests for HIV, and to carry a special document (control card) with them that confirms these checks have been carried out. In the case of an infection being detected, authorities confiscate the control card until about three weeks after the completion of treatment.

Sex workers’ rights organisations in Austria have criticised the legalisation framework for failing to protect, respect and fulfill the rights of sex workers, and for violating the rights of sex workers through the use of forced and compulsory health checks, and allowing other discriminatory practices to be systematically perpetrated against sex workers, including migrant sex workers and victims of trafficking. Whilst sex workers in Austria are required to pay social insurance, they do not enjoy the full protection of labour law, and only partially of social law (Sex Worker Forum of Vienna, 2013).

Similarly, in Germany sex workers are taxed at a higher rate than other workers, and local municipalities reserve the right to prohibit prostitution in certain areas (Czarnecki et al., 2014). Another example is the Netherlands, where although a system of legalisation is enforced, sex workers are required to register with a licensing authority and undergo compulsory health checks (Outshoorn, 2012), which is a violation of human rights.

It becomes clear, therefore, that prostitution, even when legalised, does not hold the same status as other occupations, and remains subject to special provisions. It has been suggested that the model of legalisation in regard to prostitution is, therefore, perhaps a more symbolic approach rather than having any actual impact on a practical level (Phoenix, 2009). Thus, in an effort to put across the message that sex work is work like any other occupation, the implementation of special measures that usually complement legalisation serves to increase the distinction between sex workers and workers - particularly in jurisdictions that require sex workers to formally register and undergo compulsory health checks (Hubbard, 1999).

The logic for separating ‘abolitionism’ and ‘new abolitionism’ in the policy approaches table seems unclear, given all the countries listed as examples continue to criminalise sex work to some degree. The stated definition of the laws in Czechia, Poland and Spain; ‘Prostitution by adults is not subject to punishment, but profiting from another person’s prostitution is, however, criminalised’ is inaccurate. Chechia, for example, operates laws against soliciting in public and municipalities do ‘crackdowns’ on soliciting in public places resulting in fines and the imposing of temporary bans. Similar fines for soliciting are in place in Spain and furthermore, non sex work-specific laws, (hooliganism laws for example) are often used to target and fine sex workers.

10 Administrative offences for solicitation are also in place in Poland, which target sex workers punishable by fines. The statement made with regards to Belgium and Italy; ‘outdoor and indoor prostitution are not prohibited’ is inaccurate. In Belgium, each area develops its own policy and sex workers and premises tend to be located in red light districts that are largely tolerated by authorities. If found to be sex working outside of a tolerated area or district, it is likely that people would face an administrative fine. In Italy, whilst soliciting is criminalised alongside criminalisation of working indoors (although this is widely tolerated), many local areas have additional by-laws explicitly prohibiting soliciting for sex in the streets with high fines. It is also illegal to share premises with another sex worker.

Whilst the countries listed under ‘prohibitionism’ are factually correct, there appears to be an arguably purposeful minimisation of the impact of this approach on sex workers. Before addressing these impacts, it should also be noted that in Lithuania, sex workers continue to be fined by authorities as selling sex continues to be treated as an administrative offence. Whilst proposals have been debated in Lithuania to adopt a more traditional Swedish Model, this remains at proposal stage and not implemented.

Whilst the model of criminalising demand/prohibitionism is held up widely as best practice in eradicating prostitution and challenging trafficking, evaluations of the legal framework’s effectiveness, in both areas, have been contentious. On the one hand, some evaluations have emphasised that the success of this approach is reflected in decreased levels of prostitution and trafficking (Farley, 2006; Raymond, 2004). Conversely, those evaluations that focused on the experiences of sex workers in Sweden following the implementation of the sex purchase law have noted an exacerbation of harms experienced by sex workers. These evaluations report that sex workers have been rendered more stigmatised, marginalised, and isolated given the greater imperative for sex workers to work discreetly (Levy, 2012; Hubbard et al., 2007; Kulick, 2005).

The harm of prohibitionist legislation upon the lives of sex workers has been evidenced to include, for example: greater police surveillance of sex workers, including invasive searches and high levels of harassment in their homes and workplace by the police, in their efforts to target clients; high numbers of migrant sex workers being arrested and subsequently deported; increased risk of and actual violence to sex workers who avoid police surveillance of clients by working in less public/visible spaces; and the decreased likelihood of reporting violence to the police where sex workers fear this would lead to harassment by the police and other state authorities.

11 There is also a worrying trend whereby increased competition amongst sex workers to compensate for fewer clients has reportedly led to a rise in unsafe working practices, as witnessed in Scotland during COVID-19. Sex workers also report not carrying condoms when working from the street as these can be used as evidence of sex work to prosecute clients (Levy and Jakobbson, 2014). These effects of the sex purchase law - decreasing the levels of prostitution and trafficking, and simultaneously creating and exacerbating a harmful environment within which sex workers operate - are not necessarily contradictory or incompatible with the aims of the Nordic Model, which ultimately seeks to fundamentally abolish the sex industry at large. Of note are the conclusions from the Swedish governmental evaluation of the law (Ostergren and Dodillet, 2011) which was mandated to make recommendations on how the law could be applied more effectively, and not to criticise the law itself. The evaluation noted that sex workers felt more persecuted and stressed in the context of their work. In spite of this, the report went on to state that, where sex workers may find life more difficult, this should be viewed in a positive light, since it will serve to encourage people to leave the sex industry (Levy, 2014, author’s emphasis).

Furthermore, research points to the selective nature of the Swedish approach whereby what is viewed and prosecuted as sex purchase has been circumstantial in Sweden (Levy and Jakobsson, 2013). For example, heavier policing of street-based sex work has been evidenced (Danna, 2012; Kulick, 2003). This has led critics to argue that the ideological underpinning of the law is to address gender-based violence more rhetorically, while law enforcement is primarily still concerned with reducing visible prostitution, similar to Scotland’s current patterns of policing prostitution. It is an argument that is reminiscent of the criminalisation agenda that seeks to displace sex work to cleanse and moralise public space (Levy, 2011; Hubbard, 2006).

Norway criminalised the purchase of sex in the context of a sharp rise in the number of migrant Nigerian sex workers selling sex predominately from the street. The sex purchase law was implemented to disrupt demand and destabilise the prostitution market (Levy, 2012). Within the context of a radical feminist understanding of migrant sex work, all migrant sex workers should be understood as victims of trafficking. Yet, they are simultaneously understood, and viewed, as a public nuisance problem that needs to be addressed in the Norwegian context. Justifications for Sweden’s and Norway’s sex purchase laws were dissimilar, the former concerned with issues of gender inequality, the latter with trafficking and migration, yet both heralded a concern around sexual exploitation in prostitution and trafficking alike. In spite of divergent justifications, the laws’ selective and targeted applications have been markedly similar. Norway emulates Sweden by having seen Swedish legislation used as a means with which to displace public prostitution. It follows therefore, that constructions of sex workers as passive victims lacking agency and self- determination are, it

12 would seem, not mutually exclusive from a construction of them as an immoral and deviant nuisance under this type of legal approach to the regulation of sex work (Levy, 2014).

Client criminalization rests on the idea that “ending demand” will ultimately abolish sex work and is therefore markedly abolitionist in nature. The “end demand” approach has been aggressively marketed by Sweden as a feminist policy par excellence (Florin, 2012; Outshoorn, 2015). Although the most basic tenet of the Swedish model is the non-criminalization of sex workers themselves, many countries, including Sweden, France, Ireland, Norway and Northern Ireland have adopted the model while definitely not abstaining from the active and ongoing harassment or even persecution of sex workers in the meantime, particularly in relation to sex workers working together for safety, prosecuted under related brothel-keeping laws (Levy & Jakobsson, 2014; Smith, 2016).

In summary, evidence has shown that criminalising the purchase of sex as part of a Prohibitionist approach has the following detrimental effects on the lives of sex workers;

• Evidence suggests this has no impact on the number of people selling sex (Scoular, 2004) • Forces sex workers to engage in risky practices to ensure income, including rushed transactions and lack of screening practices (Levy and Jakobsson, 2014; Sanders et al, 2018; Krusi et al, 2014; Vuolajarvi, 2018) • Increases violence against sex workers (Connelly et al, 2018; NSWP, 2018; Kingston and Thomas, 2018) • Increases the financial difficulties and subsequent poverty of sex workers, particularly migrant sex workers • Leads to a further break down in police-sex worker relations and thus engagement in reporting violence (Ostergren, 2004)

Fundamentally, in each of the examples given, a criminal justice response, to varying degrees is put forward for consideration by respondents. Any form of criminalisation or specific regulations enforced upon the sex industry harms sex workers and stands at odds with a vital public health approach (Platt and Grenfell, 2016). Growing evidence suggests that repression of sex work, in any form as described in the policy approaches table of the Consultation, fails to reduce prostitution but rather drives it into more covert forms where working routines are negatively impacted (e.g., Decker et al., 2015; Harcourt, Egger & Donovan, 2005; Urada et al, 2014). Increased prosecution, regulation, or registration demands as attached to each model presented, results in sex workers having an amplified interest in remaining out of sight of the authorities (Vanwesenbeeck, 2017). Furthermore, criminalisation and stigma create barriers to sex workers’ information-seeking, support and training,

13 self-organizing, advocating for their rights, or reporting of mistreatment by managers or colleagues alike. Moreover, laws and policies that criminalizing sex work whilst simultaneously cast women sex workers as victims rather than as workers, lead to a welfarist, rescue and rehabilitation discourses that forms significant barriers to much needed implementation and scaling up of community empowerment interventions, vital for public health (Kerrigan et al., 2015).

Another Way Forward? Decriminalisation & Prioritising Health & Safety

Whilst helpful to look at other models of regulating sex work, it is notable and unfortunate that full decriminalisation has not been listed as a framework to draw from, given this model has been evidenced as best practice in supporting the safety of sex workers, whilst ensuring a harm minimisation and human rights-based approach (Ryan, 2019; Abel, 2014; Armstrong, 2014; Harcourt et al, 2010).

The campaign for legal change in New Zealand culminated in the repeal of the criminal laws regulating sex work through the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) of 2003. The purpose of the Prostitution Reform Act (2003) is to decriminalise prostitution (while not endorsing or morally sanctioning prostitution or its use) and to create a framework that –

A. Safeguards the human rights of sex workers and protects them from exploitation:

B. Promotes the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers:

C. Is conducive to public health:

D. Prohibits the use in prostitution of persons under 18 years of age:

E. Implements certain other related reforms.

The PRA established that adult, consenting sex work is employment, and should be regulated like any other contractual employment. The legislation and accompanying Occupational Safety and Health Guidelines, signified a paramount shift in the legal and policy construction of sex work and sex workers. The PRA shifted the problematisation of sex work from a deviant, immoral behaviour, as it is currently understood in Scots law. Under the New Zealand model of decriminalisation, sex workers became recognised as persons deserving equal protection by the law, and endowed with other necessary rights and protections specific to the industry they worked in (Abel, Fitzgerald, & Healy, 2010). As noted by Scambler and Scambler (1997, p. 185) decriminalisation removes:

14 ‘the anomaly of a gender-biased body of legislation exclusive to a particular area of work and prepare[s] the ground for de-marginalizing women sex workers and restoring basic citizenship and other rights to them’.

Other research supports this assertion, evidencing broad positive impacts of the legal reform for sex workers in all sectors of the sex industry (Abel, Fitzgerald, & Brunton, 2007; Armstrong, 2011, 2014, 2016; Mossman & Mayhew, 2008; Review Committee, 2008; Ryan, 2019).

Evidence from New Zealand suggests it has improved the experiences of sex workers’ with regards to health and safety; removing barriers to their access to justice, including the reporting of crimes to the criminal justice system (Abel, 2014); improving their ability to screen clients as a safety technique (Armstrong, 2014); feeling more able to refuse clients, insist on condom use, and have greater freedom to govern their own sex work (Abel, 2014).

Further evidence on the positive impacts of decriminalisation for sex workers has been shown in Australian states adopting a similar framework, where sex workers have reported better access to health provision (Harcourt et al, 2010). The importance of engaging with decriminalisation as a legal model, which allows for the development of subsequent co-created health and safety frameworks to be produced with sex workers, has been advocated for globally by sex workers, sex worker support organisations, academics with expertise in this field, and international organisations such as, the World Health Organisation Amnesty International, UNAIDS, and Amnesty International. The decision not to include decriminalisation as an option for consideration in this consultation clearly positions this exercise out with the imperative goal of promoting women’s safety, prioritising public health and ensuring access to justice in cases of actual victimisation, abuse or exploitation.

Question 4. What measures would help to shift the attitudes of men relating to the purchase of sex? Do you have any examples of good practice either in a domestic or an international context?

Sex workers in Scotland are frequently targeted by dangerous sexual predators, in large part because of the quasi-criminalised context in which they are forced to operate, and the stigma attached to their work. For many, reporting to the police is not an option given fears of not being taken seriously or worse – risking their own prosecution. Discriminatory laws, policies and practices targeting sex workers act to encourage misogynistic attitudes women who sell sex, including towards trans women, actively erasing their consent by conflating consensual prostitution with commercial sexual exploitation. In order to shift the attitudes of men, and wider society related to people who sell sex, we

15 must first address an insidious state-sanctioned culture of stigma, discrimination, exploitation, and police and client violence against sex workers. This is only possible in a context where sex workers are fully decriminalised, and thus can access justice using already in place vitals laws against abuse, violence and targeted hate crime.

A clear example of the ‘unfit for purpose’ nature of the laws in Scotland regards the violent practice of ‘Stealthing’. Stealthing, the practice of removing a condom during consensual intercourse, is often reported by sex workers in Scotland as a common practice of violence against them by clients. Yet, whilst it could be seen as culpable and reckless conduct and potentially prosecuted under Scots Law, there is no specification of the actual offence (unlike in England and Wales where stealthing is included as a specific offence under Conditional Consent legislation) nor is there is no case law and it has not happened to date. Thus, sex workers are unable to report this violent practice as a sexual offence, meaning perpetrators of what Rape Crisis Scotland would essentially argue is rape, largely go unpunished. In New Zealand on the other hand, under the Prostitution Reform Act, it is illegal for a transaction in sex work to take place without a protective sheath, meaning sex workers can enforce condom use with a client and pursue justice in cases of rape by a client.

An added barrier for sex workers exists in any reporting of conditional consent violation, is fuelled by the current Scottish Government policy definition of prostitution as always commercial sexual exploitation. This definition fuels understanding of women in sex work as unable to consent generally to the provision of a sexual service under a conditional consent framework. Thus, when consent is broken through a practice such as Stealthing, sex workers have no legal or policy basis to pursue justice. Whilst such laws and policies are in place, dangerous sexual predators will see women in the sex industry as prey to enact misogynistic violence. Whilst laws and policies pedal such disregard for the ability of sex workers to consent, dangerous sexual predators will target women in the sex industry to enact violence with impunity. If Scotland was to remove the illegality of women through decriminalisation, then they would have unabated access to already existing laws to hold to account these attitudes of men in relation to the purchase of sex and their disregard of women’s ability to determine conditional consent.

A framework of Health and Safety similar to New Zealand (OSH) written in partnership with sex workers (Abel, 2007), would support developing appropriate laws and policies in this area, updating current discriminatory laws, policies and policing practices to reflect the reality of common violence perpetuated against women in the sex industry. Only in a decriminalised context would such co- creation of frameworks, laws and policies, that prioritise the safety and health of women, be possible.

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Question 5. Taking into account the above, how can the education system help to raise awareness and promote positive attitudes and behaviors amongst young people in relation to consent and healthy relationships?

The education system and related curriculum for excellence should provide non-biased, non- ideologically driven, and non-stigmatising education on the issue of prostitution. Young people should be educated to understand that prostitution exists, and that people who sell sexual services, regardless of circumstance or context should not be stigmatised or treated in a discriminatory or stigmatised way. The current education guidance in this area is completely inappropriate, bias, and stigmatising to both sex workers and their children in those classrooms. Young people should be supported to acknowledge that consent cannot be bought or sold, thus even in a context of prostitution, consent must still be negotiated and can be withdrawn at any time by the sex worker. Without teaching young men this, we are fuelling a dangerous context of violence against sex workers and authorising impunity for perpetrators of rape and sexual violence committed against sex workers related to response given to previous consultation Question.

17 Question 6. How can the different needs of women involved in prostitution (in terms of their health and wellbeing) be better recognised in the provision of mainstream support?

First and foremost, sex workers must be recognised as a heterogeneous group of people with related diversity of needs in relation to health and well-being. Secondly, there appears to be absolutely no financial commitment from the Scottish Government to improving the services available to meet the needs of women involved in sex work, or wishing to move on. Sex worker led organisation, Umbrella Lane, alongside others, have extensively consulted with people in the sex industry throughout COVID-19 to understand what services are lacking to improve their health and well-being5. These resources should be drawn on by the Government to quantify the level of financial investment needed, whilst further consulting sex workers directly on service needs and barriers experienced to access and to exit.

The service landscape, mainstream and third sector, have to adapt to the diversity of experiences and related needs, and Government policy must not attach any one ideological framework to recipients of funding for the provision of support services. Furthermore, the links between stigma and criminalisation and barriers to harm reduction services must be addressed in the first instance (Bekker et al, 2015). Stigma and criminalisation form barriers to effective interventions, such as condom promotion, HIV counselling and testing, STI prevention and treatment, gender-based violence prevention, and economic and community empowerment.

Attaching the policy understanding of prostitution as CSE creates an overarching focus by services on the inherent harms of sex work and victimisation caused to individuals involved in sex work (Smith, 2015) often at the expense of meeting women’s actual needs. In exploring women’s experiences of engaging with health services in Scotland in my own research, the material effects of policy were illuminated. Health services which were specialized for sex workers were experienced to operate from a political perspective, and delivered by healthcare workers that operate within this context whereby the victimhood of women involved is translated and was experienced negatively by the women in my research (Ryan, 2019). The various ways women negotiated this experience in accessing these services, is reminiscent of a recent study of sex worker experiences in Sweden with service provision following the introduction of the sex purchase law (Jakobbsen and Levy, 2013). In this study, the authors reveal similarities to what was found to be the case in Scotland (Ryan, 2019), the gender-based violence lens on prostitution

5 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d93079e1a544c26b1864957/t/5f96d2cb914bb02c5e767762/1603719914 312/Needs+AR+Document+Assessment+Summary+September+2020+%281%29.pdf%C2%A0

18 has filtered through to service provision and subsequently informs the ethos of Service Providers.

Sex workers in Sweden expressed their perceived need to ‘conform to a mainstream understanding of sex workers as disempowered victims in order to be eligible for services’ (Levy, 2014). Similarly, Cusick et al. (2010) highlighted such limitations as they can affect sex workers in the context of English and Irish drug services. It was found that the links between dominant political agendas on sex work and available service provision, may be detrimental to some sex workers, requiring that they engage with a model that encourages exiting of sex work in order to receive necessary treatment. This can, in turn, create problems in facilitating effective harm reduction for sex workers; excluding and denying support to those who do not readily identify as a victim in line with dominant political agendas on sex work (Ibid.).

The guidance for healthcare workers in Scotland in engaging with a person involved in prostitution illuminates the further link between policy, discourse and the translation to service provision and delivery ethos (NHS Scotland, 2009). In this guidance, it is clearly stated that frontline healthcare workers are trained to deliver specialised sex worker services, in line with the wider policy position of prostitution as a form of commercial sexual exploitation. In the same NHS document, healthcare workers are advised to look out for factors that could alert them to a person who is experiencing CSE, in the form of prostitution, including such things as ‘difficulty in getting to health services during normal working hours…disclosure of child sexual abuse or domestic abuse’ (NHS Scotland 2009: p 6). Making links with child sexual abuse and domestic abuse clearly supports recognition of sex workers as vulnerable adults often subject to multiple forms of abuse. Frontline workers are also advised to,

‘be aware of your own attitudes and avoid either reacting with shock and horror or colluding by being overly chatty or interested in their ‘work’ (NHS Scotland, 2009: p8).

The fact that prostitution as ‘work’ is presented in this way, clearly signals that the NHS policy does not agree that sex work is a form of work, and staff are encouraged not to recognise it as such. The quote also makes clear that staff who step outside of this approach could be accused of “colluding” with sex workers, portrayed either as lying about their experiences of prostitution as work, or unable to make their own meanings of their life and work. Throughout the document, it is clear that the monolithic construction of sex workers in Scottish policy emphasises the victimhood of women who sell sexual services thus failing to give recognition to the heterogeneous experiences and needs of sex workers, and influencing the treatment of sex workers by health professionals who were perceived to disrespect women based on their translation of policy

19 discourse into practice. Potential retraumatisation effects of this approach noted in Question 1 response.

Question 7. In your opinion, drawing on any international or domestic examples, what programmes or initiatives best supports women to safely exit prostitution?

The language used in the Consultation on ‘Promoting Women’s Exit from Prostitution’ is immediately alarming and reminiscent of the detrimental impact of such an approach in Sweden that accompanied the sex purchase legislation enacted. The designers of this ultimately punitive law were aware that sex workers suffer as a consequence of them, yet viewed this suffering in a positive light as a way to further deter people from entering the industry whilst simultaneously encouraging people’s exit. The Head of the Swedish Trafficking Unit, Ann Martin, has, for instance, been cited as saying, “I think of course the law has negative consequences for women in prostitution but that’s also some of the effect that we want to achieve with the law” (Costa-Kostritsky, 2014).

This consultation and current policy appear only to pay lip-service to supporting people to exit should they desire, which complements repressive interventions assisting sex workers in making alternative choices. The implementation of such intentions however, is not backed with Government financial commitment, similar to Sweden where the resultant finances were spent on increasing policing and repression (Florin, 2012; Jordan, 2012). In the Netherlands, some stepping-out programs have been government funded, but largely to the detriment of serious attention to sex worker empowerment (Vanwesenbeeck, 2011). In addition, even in a rich and prosperous country like the Netherlands, sex workers’ professional alternatives often turn out to be so hard to reach or unattractive that the successes of stepping-out programs are remarkably thin. In the city of Deventer, only one of 25 sex workers who agreed to participate in a stepping-out program in 2011 lived up to the criteria of having found “new perspectives” after a year of program implementation (Partners & Proppen, 2011).

Criminalisation of any kind also deters women from being able to successfully transition out of sex work. A prostitution-related conviction will ensure a cycle of poverty and prostitution, often for the most precarious and marginalised women in the sex industry. Alongside a repeal of prostitution- related laws under full decriminalisation, there must also be a clear and meaningful Government financial commitment to rights-based exit programmes for women who wish to leave the sex industry. These programs must not be coercive, but optional, well-resourced and holistic programmes that support basic needs to self-actualisation purposes, allowing women to move on with dignity, resilience, confidence and empowerment.

20 Likewise, in identifying people who are in need of support to leave exploitative work relationships and conditions, criminalising the purchase of sex only deters clients from bringing knowledge of suspected coercion or child commercial sexual exploitation to the relevant support agencies. Sex workers and their clients are uniquely positioned to detect cases of exploitation and abuse, which can only be harnessed for good in a decriminalised context (GAATW, 2007). In the Netherlands, there are positive experiences with a hotline for clients where they can report evidence of abuse and exploitation anonymously (de Groot, Haverlag, & Vogelaar, 2003). In India, there have been positive outcomes from involving sex workers in so-called self-regulatory boards working toward the removal of minors and “unwilling women” from sex work (Jana, Dey, Reza-Paul, & Steen, 2013). Such processes and examples are bound to be far more effective than frameworks in which sex workers and clients implicate themselves when reporting cases of abuse.

Only in consultation with sex workers, can appropriate, effective and rights-based transition programmes be established which sex workers will engage with. It is also essential that the Government recognise the important role of sex worker-led organisations to play in supporting people with the desire to move on from sex work. As trusted organisations to hundreds of sex workers, these organisations are best placed to support this complex process. In order to play this vital role however, the Scottish Government must ensure eligibility of organisations to apply for funding without forcing them to assign an ideological stance on their service provision model.

About the Submission author;

Dr Anastacia Ryan is the Founding Director of the Charity SISU meaning ‘resilience through adversity’, of which, Umbrella Lane is an initiative supporting the well-being of people – of all genders - who sell or exchange sexual services. Umbrella Lane’s organisational and decision-making structure ensures the voices of people with lived experience is centered in all strategic and operational efforts of the project. Founded with a vision to implement the recommendations of ‘Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with Sex Workers: Practical Approaches from Collaborative Interventions’ (WHO, 2012), Umbrella Lane prioritises; community empowerment; addressing violence against sex workers and ensuring their unabated access to justice; community leadership in service design and delivery, and partnership building to ensure clinical and support services are accessible, acceptable and inclusive to people who engage in sex work. The recommendations and associated implementation guidelines were produced in collaboration with sex worker-led organisations by the World Health Organisation, UNFPA, UNAIDS, Global Network of Sex Work

21 Projects (NSWP), The World Bank and UNDP. Whilst working with NSWP, Anastacia played a key role in ensuring the innovation displayed by sex worker led programmes globally, particularly in areas of high HIV-prevalence, were fully documented in the Implementation Tool and in ensuring sex worker voices were engaged equally and meaningful in relevant international policy making discussions. Following facilitation of a European regional training on the Implementation Tool with sex worker led groups in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Georgia, Macedonia, Serbia, Anastacia then supported the in country piloting of sex worker led service provision in Serbia and Macedonia, based on expertise gathered in creating similar pilot programmes across South East Asia and Africa.

In returning to Scotland to complete PhD Research with women who engaged in sex work, Anastacia became acutely aware of the many barriers faced by sex workers in accessing services. Determined to transgress binary thinking on sex work/prostitution that was exacerbating law-fuelled harms experienced by women in sex work, Anastacia founded Umbrella Lane with a first Board of sex workers and supportive allies. Since 2015, Umbrella Lane has grown it’s reach to over 500 sex workers working throughout Scotland in the sex industry, either through choice, circumstance or coercion. Various services have been designed for and by people with lived experience, that focus on reducing isolation, increasing well-being and mental health, encouraging and supporting safety practices, supporting victims of abuse, violence and/or exploitation including trafficking, fostering resilience, facilitating access to justice and supporting people to access regular sexual and reproductive health services through mainstream and third sector organisations. Other SISU initiatives in development continue the trauma informed approach underpinning the organisation that adopts a two-tiered approach of harnessing the resilience developed in facing adversity as an individual; whilst supporting people with lived experience to work towards systemic change by challenging social and economic structures that often play a significant role in the creation of adverse circumstances. Anastacia continues academic teaching in these areas at the University of .

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