Human rights, laws and regulation

Laws on sex work differ from place to place and affect sex workers’ lives differently. The most common legal model for addressing female sex work is regulation, although many countries’ legal codes say nothing about prostitution and a few ban it completely. A broad range of regulations and policies affect sex workers in their roles as parents, tenants, patients, small traders, employees, consumers and citizens. Laws about public nuisance or vagrancy, for example, are often used against sex workers and others in their communities. Discriminatory laws, such as those against homosexuality and transgenderism, are used to punish sex workers. Drug-using sex workers in particular, are subject to discriminatory laws as well as brutal enforcement.

Laws can also have an important impact on HIV prevention and care programmes. In some countries, the laws and enforcement procedures are aligned with health and social policies, but in many they are not. Many organisations that work with sex workers have learned that it is difficult to provide HIV and other health services to sex workers where the sex industry is prohibited.

Law reform advocates suggest that where the sex industry is legitimised, sex workers can be protected from exploitation and violence by the same laws and mechanisms that protect other citizens and workers. These include:

• the human right of association that enables workers to trade freely, form unions and professional associations
• industrial rights such as sick pay, accident compensation, health and safety regulations and security in the workplace
• civil rights such as access to health care, housing, education, banking facilities and social assistance.

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