Armstrong Lynzi
School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, 6140 New Zealand.
Sex Res Social Policy. 2021;18(4):941-951. doi: 10.1007/s13178-021-00605-7. Epub 2021 Jun 18.
Sex work is commonly understood to be a risky occupation. Sex work law debates coalesce around the issue of harm, with differing perspectives regarding what constitutes harm, how harm is produced and what needs to change to mitigate it. While sex work is often portrayed as inherently harmful, sex workers and researchers have challenged this assumption, calling attention to the relationship between harm and policies in place. Criminalisation, in its many and varied forms, is thought to exacerbate harms that can occur in sex work, while decriminalisation is understood as creating conditions conducive to minimising harm. However, the decriminalisation of sex work remains rare, and more research which examines how decriminalisation works in relation to harms is critical. This paper uses the concept of social harm to unpack the implications of sex work policies and examine the experiences of sex workers in New Zealand, where sex work is decriminalised.
Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 46 sex workers in New Zealand in 2018 and 2020 across two studies focused on examining experiences and perceptions of stigma and discrimination in this context. The interviews were thematically analysed using NVivo data analysis software.
The experiences of participants demonstrate how involvement in sex work had improved their lives in multiple ways. Participants described the importance of sex work in improving their quality of life by ensuring that they could better meet their everyday needs, the autonomy this afforded them and how decriminalisation helped to enable this. The validating impact of decriminalisation in acknowledging sex workers as people with rights is also evident in participant's experiences.
Social harm is a framework that can help illuminate socio-economic harms which influence pathways into sex work for some people and the compounding harms of criminalising regimes. The benefits of engaging in sex work are often overlooked in policy debates. Although sex work is not easy work, engaging in sex work can have positive impacts on the lives of people who pursue it. Full decriminalisation of sex work is the only responsible option for societies seeking to reduce harm.
性工作通常被认为是一项危险的职业。性工作法律辩论主要围绕伤害问题展开，对于什么构成伤害、伤害是如何产生的以及需要做出哪些改变来减轻伤害存在不同观点。虽然性工作常常被描绘为本质上有害，但性工作者和研究人员对这一假设提出了质疑，呼吁关注伤害与现行政策之间的关系。人们认为，各种形式的刑事定罪会加剧性工作中可能出现的伤害，而合法化则被视为创造有利于将伤害降至最低的条件。然而，性工作合法化仍然很少见，更多研究刑事定罪如何与伤害相关的研究至关重要。本文运用社会伤害的概念来剖析性工作政策的影响，并考察在性工作合法化的新西兰性工作者的经历。
2018年和2020年，针对两项聚焦于考察在这种背景下耻辱感和歧视的经历与认知的研究，对新西兰的46名性工作者进行了半结构化深度访谈。使用NVivo数据分析软件对访谈进行了主题分析。
参与者的经历表明，从事性工作在多个方面改善了他们的生活。参与者描述了性工作在提高生活质量方面的重要性，即确保他们能够更好地满足日常需求、赋予他们的自主权以及合法化如何有助于实现这一点。合法化在承认性工作者作为有权利的人的方面所产生的确认性影响在参与者的经历中也很明显。
社会伤害是一个框架，有助于阐明影响一些人进入性工作途径的社会经济伤害以及刑事定罪制度带来的复合伤害。在政策辩论中，从事性工作的好处常常被忽视。虽然性工作并非易事，但从事性工作可以对从事它的人的生活产生积极影响。对于寻求减少伤害的社会来说，性工作完全合法化是唯一负责任的选择。
