Our societal response to COVID-19 has revealed a lot about who we value in society, and what we are prepared to do to protect the lives of others. How responses to the pandemic have played out has particularly illuminated the injustices that sex workers endure globally because of discriminatory laws and policies.
Around the world sex worker-led organisations have set up hardship funds to crowdfund support for sex workers who have been impacted by the pandemic. Because sex work is often not recognised as work and is so highly stigmatised, in many contexts sex workers have faced considerable barriers to accessing the financial safety nets available to workers in other occupations. Sex worker-led organisations have had little choice but to step in and fill the gap. In a recent letter published in the Lancet, experts raised grave concerns about the exclusion of sex workers from government protections. The letter also urged governments to work directly with sex worker-led organisations to respond in ways that offer sex workers the most helpful support possible during the pandemic.
While COVID-19 has brought the marginalisation of sex workers into sharp focus, the responses that have occurred are reflective of a much longer history of exclusion, where the laws surrounding sex work – and how sex work is conceptualised – shape how sex workers are treated in society.
