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Sex Workers and Criminalization in North America and China pp 27–50Cite as

Systematic Collusion: Criminalization’s Health and Safety Consequences

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Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Anthropology ((AAE))

Abstract

A substantial body of academic literature demonstrates how legal and regulatory frameworks impact sex workers’ healthcare access, relations with the criminal justice system, and interactions with clients. Worldwide, sex workers in criminalized contexts report police harassment, seizure of condoms as evidence of the intent to engage in prostitution, and a generalized adversarial relationship with the criminal justice system that allows clients, corrupt police officers, and others to abuse sex workers with impunity. The serious negative health and safety impacts that stem directly from sex workers’ denigrated status are apparent in our case studies from China, Canada, and the USA. Madams, clients, gangsters, and police rob, blackmail, and physically abuse Chinese bar hostesses, who are often forced to drink large quantities of alcohol and engage in condom-less sex without regular access to healthcare. In Canada, the criminalization and stigmatization women experience on account of their sex trade work and struggles with addiction create significant health and safety risks within the context of relationships with police, violent encounters with clients, and the vulnerability associated with their visibility on the streets. Criminalization likewise creates health and safety risks for US street-involved women by restricting their abilities to seek out police assistance, disrupting peer solidarity, limiting information sharing with service providers and peers, and confining health diagnoses to crisis contexts that involve the monitoring and criminalization of women’s HIV status.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Which include but are not limited to: addictions; Hepatitis C; endocarditis; abscesses; posttraumatic stress disorder; depression; anxiety; reproductive health issues; violent or abusive relationships; homelessness; HIV/AIDS; diabetes; and harassment from police, clients, and others in the East of Adelaide neighborhood. While a few women experience one or two of these issues together, the majority of our participants struggle with virtually every one of these health and safety-related challenges.

  2. 2.

    The withdrawal symptoms from methadone are described as being agonizing and worse than those associated with heroin or other drugs. As Vicky said, “Methadone’s the worst thing to come off of. Yea, like you get seizures from it, you know, you can die from it, especially if you’re at a high risk.”

  3. 3.

    Which increased by a staggering 242 % between 1991 and 2010 (Gomes et al. 2014).

  4. 4.

    A starting rate of 100 dollars was mentioned by several participants.

  5. 5.

    The Denver Police Department’s crime statistics maps classify particular areas as “high crime density,” determined through a combination of calls to police and arrests made; these areas consistently include the neighborhoods where women engage in street-based prostitution (Denver Police Department 2015).

  6. 6.

    While women do experience instances of police misconduct and ill (or even illegal and unethical) treatment by healthcare and social service providers, it is important to mention that untreated severe mental illness, intoxication, and other factors can contribute to negative encounters such as this one, especially when the officer or provider has a reasonable fear for his or her safety.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA

    Susan Dewey

  2. Sociology/Anthropology Department, State University of New York, Cortland, USA

    Tiantian Zheng

  3. School of Health Studies, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Treena Orchard

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  1. Susan Dewey
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  2. Tiantian Zheng
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  3. Treena Orchard
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Dewey, S., Zheng, T., Orchard, T. (2016). Systematic Collusion: Criminalization’s Health and Safety Consequences. In: Sex Workers and Criminalization in North America and China. SpringerBriefs in Anthropology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25763-1_2

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