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The common cause of drug reform and sex workers’ rights

By:   []

Date: 2021-09

There has been an arising hysteria of ‘county lines’ drug operations in the UK, whereby drugs are moved from major cities to rural areas and small towns by recruiting vulnerable children to transport and deal them. Such media hype is commensurate to reporting on human trafficking, with media articles often heralding police crackdowns as great rescue operations in which victims are saved and criminals are ‘hunted’ and brought to justice.

There are of course documented problems of exploitation and violence associated with the sex trade, the drug trade, and people smuggling. But phenomena such as trafficking, ‘county lines’ and trafficking ‘gangs’ – currently the entry point and preoccupation of policy makers, NGOs and the media – are a by-product of criminalisation, an approach that has consistently failed to develop indicators of ‘impact’. These narratives of harm steer attention away from the structural conditions that render children vulnerable to drug gang recruitment; the vulnerabilities caused by the absence of labour rights for sex workers; and the lack of safe and legal routes for migrants to work in the UK. In not addressing the root causes of victimisation, ‘county lines’, anti-trafficking and anti-migrant narratives justify more state and police powers, ever expanding prison numbers, and increased enforcement budgets.

The utility of trauma

27 May 2021 marked 50 years since the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 received royal assent. This pivotal anniversary propelled charities, scientists, ex-police, public health specialists, bereaved family members, and over 50 MPs and Peers from all parties to call on the Government to urgently review legislation criminalising some psychoactive substances. This call to acknowledge a record of policy failure – reflected in the UK’s booming illicit markets and record number of drug-related deaths – did not extend to coalition building around reform of sex work.

Despite advocating for drug policy reform, some leading politicians in this field in the UK reject full decriminalisation of sex work. While emphasising the importance of evidence-led drug policy, listening to those with ‘lived experience’ and embracing the campaign call for decriminalisation is not something these politicians seem willing to do. This political and intellectual inconsistency has been foregrounded by various, so far unsuccessful, attempts by Labour MP Diana Johnson to bring a package of measures purported to ‘bust the business model of sex trafficking’. These proposed measures would increase criminalisation to end demand and punish those ‘profiting from sexual exploitation’. The sex workers’ rights movement has mobilised against these laws and pointed to evidence from other contexts that this approach increases risk and violence against workers. Even if the claims to want to ‘help’ people in prostitution are genuine, if they continue to support any aspects of criminalisation then they are failing to consider the gendered, paternalistic and misogynistic underpinnings of such rescue-based approaches.

Trauma-informed understandings of stigmatised behaviours have come to permeate debates in the UK and particularly in Scotland. Whilst seemingly well-intentioned, a trauma-based understanding of why people engage in ‘bad’ behaviours is often used to justify legal, policy and service approaches that fail to acknowledge agency, autonomy and the ability to regulate one’s own life. Such approaches come with a warning from the sex workers’ rights movement. Misplaced notions of sympathy and understanding, and conditionalities placed on access to support, cause more harm than good. Migrant sex workers can sing a song about this, as their access to justice has become conditional on conformity to victimhood, including having to identify as a ‘victim of trafficking’ to support residency status applications.

An approach that urges us to look beyond the ‘drug user’ to see the ‘traumatised addict’ is no less infantilising then looking beyond the ‘sex worker’ to see a ‘victim of exploitation’. They claim these approaches will support rather than punish people for their misfortune, but in reality this is just another form of control that makes rights conditional on acceptance of ‘help’. When an unrepentant drug user or sex worker refuses to abstain and to assimilate to ‘responsible’ citizenship, the result is a further casting to the margins of criminality. Persistence of ‘bad’ behaviour leaves the individual alone, left to navigate stigma and discrimination without protection of the law.

Broaden your fight against harm and stigma

A call for solidarity is an invitation to see one’s own story as bound up and interdependent in the story of others. Whilst this may at times prove uncomfortable, solidarity brings shared knowledge and, more importantly, collective bargaining power. The call to affirm the life, dignity, and rights of people who use drugs while remaining neutral on the issue of sex work is siding with the forces that oppress both communities, including approaches that merely repackage prohibition as conditional support.

As organisations, activists, and politicians that campaign at the intersection of drug policy and sex work reform, we must recognise and see the value of working in solidarity. For the drug policy reform movement, the support of sex workers’ rights and decriminalisation must be a core and explicit value, as the drug laws and those laws that prohibit sex work often collide, criminalising those who are the most visible to law enforcement. It is imperative that stakeholders from both camps discuss, strategise, learn from each other, and advocate in ways that end unjust laws and discrimination, increase safety and harm reduction, and advance rights-respecting agendas.
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