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programme
Speaker: Hilary
Kinnell
Affiliation: UK
Network of Sex Work Projects
Presentation Title: Is
Violence towards Sex Workers an essential part of Prostitution Control
Policy?
Abstract
This paper will explore sex workers' vulnerability
to violence, in the context of current theoretical debates about commercial
sex, and rapidly changing public policy towards it in Britain. Evidence
from analysis of attacks on sex workers, and from reports on the deaths
of 73 sex workers murdered or unlawfully killed between 1990 and 2002,
suggests that street sex work is particularly dangerous. This paper will
also seek to demonstrate that current policing strategies and much public
policy towards commercial sex exacerbates sex workers' vulnerability to
violence, to the extent that it is possible to conceptualize violence
against sex workers as an aspect of public policy, providing both deterrence
and punishment for involvement in sex work.
