«Sex Work and Racism»
Community Report #2: The Impact of Structural Racism on Racialised Sex Workers in Europe and Central Asia.
👥 ESWA 🗓️ October 2022
🌐 Web: https://www.eswalliance.org/sex_work_racism_second_community_report
📄 PDF (© ¿?): https://assets.nationbuilder.com/eswa/pages/256/attachments/original/1665409755/SW___Racism_2.pdf?1665409755
> This briefing paper is the second publication of the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance’s (ESWA) series on sex work and racism. It follows the paper entitled ‘Sex Work and Racism: Historical Overview of Racism in Anti-Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking and Anti-Immigration (ASWTI) Legislation in Europe’ (ESWA, 2022), which explained the development of anti-sex work, anti-trafficking, and anti- immigration legislation and policy and the history of sexual racialisation under the white European systems of chattel slavery, colonialism, and militarised sex work. As was explored in the paper, the legacy of these systems is structural racism, which is defined as “a product of a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various ways to perpetuate racial inequity, and has been a feature of the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist.” (European Network Against Racism (ENAR, n.d.).
> Structural racism results in discrimination against racialised sex workers that hinders equal opportunities and treatment in various aspects of their work and everyday lives. Racialised1 sex workers who are LGBTQ, (undocumented) migrants, poor, and/or work on the street have to deal with multiple oppressive forces and systems, such as homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, sexism, ableism, and others, which intersect with racism (ENAR, 2020).
> This briefing paper aims to explore the impact of structural racism among racialised sex workers in Europe and Central Asia. To do so, ESWA first reviewed the existing literature in the field of structural racism in Europe and Central Asia, also in relation to sex work. Since data disaggregated by race and ethnicity is lacking in many European and Central Asian countries, ESWA also investigated the literature on sex work and migration, as the groups of racialised sex workers and (undocumented) migrant and refugee sex workers frequently overlap in this context. Following this, ESWA conducted research using an online e-consultation open to all ESWA members, followed by a racialised sex worker focus group to explore the topic more in-depth.
> The briefing paper is structured as follows: the first section details the prevalence and impact of structural racism in the areas of housing, health, labour, law enforcement, and accessing justice. The following section highlights how racialised sex workers resist this racism, and the final section presents conclusions and recommendations to address the issue of structural racism at European, national, and individual levels.
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Much like the previous: don't think it needs further commentary.
A significant portion of sex workers in Europe/CEECA regions are racialized; it's pretty clear racism will thus affect them.
As with most things surrounding sex work, however, there are additional layers of discrimination and structural and institutional violences on top.
Here's a relatively in-depth overview of how it materializes in Europe and Central Asia across multiple different intersections.
See above for the first part, as well~
#SexWork #Report #Racism #CommunityReport #Legislation #Antitrafficking #Immigration #Colonialism #History #ESWA #Europe #CentralAsia #October2022
