Advocating for the rights of sex workers has been an ongoing battle around the world for decades. Recognition of these rights is a much more recent phenomenon. The biggest win for sex workers so far was New Zealand’s passage of the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003. More recently, Mexico City has started the process of decriminalising sex work as a move against trafficking for sexual exploitation; and in New York, advocates have introduced a bill that would decriminalise the sale and purchase of sexual services by consenting adults.
While support from policymakers is essential to progress, gaining allies within governments remains a challenge. This is despite calls for decriminalisation by a number of international human rights organisations including Amnesty International, International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, and several United Nations agencies. One of the biggest difficulties has been the long-standing conflation of sex work with trafficking, which is linked to the belief that sex work is inherently immoral. This view of sex work has shaped national policies for decades, pushing the industry outside the formal labour market and the scope of national labour laws and international standards.
However, there is a framework that might help shift the situation for the better. In an effort to expand protections beyond the formal labour market, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a study on Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW). This provides a framework for determining unacceptability in formal and informal sectors, and is thus applicable to the sex sector. The UFW model contains twelve dimensions of unacceptability: forced labour; health and safety; income; security; working time; voice mechanisms; child labour; social protection; equality, human rights, and dignity; legal protection; family and community life; and work organisation. The indicators that accompany these dimensions are designed to be responsive to the socio-economic contexts of countries at different levels of development.
