trafficking

“Beyond Client Criminalization: Analyzing Collaborative Governance Arrangements for Combatting Prostitution and Trafficking in Sweden.” by Josefina Erikson and Oscar L. Larsson

Isabel Dela Cruz

Erikson, Josefina, and Oscar L. Larsson. “Beyond Client Criminalization: Analyzing Collaborative Governance Arrangements for Combatting

Prostitution and Trafficking in Sweden.” Regulation & Governance, vol. 16, no. 3, 2022, pp. 818–835., https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12259.

With Sweden being one of the first countries to criminalize clients in the sex work sector, this article studies the governance arrangements that have since been implemented to abolish prostitution and points out the problems they introduce. Erikson and Larsson make the point that national policy and legal framework are prioritized over the implementation and evaluation of prostitution policies that are in practice. It also goes into detail on the role of collaborative governance and both its benefits to solving issues in the field of sex work policy as well as its problematic claims with respect to the role of civil society. Though this article focuses on collaborative governance and how effective it is, I will only use the portions of the article that detail Swedish law on client criminalization as opposed to the liberation on behalf of women in sex work. Josefina Erikson has a PhD in political science and her research focuses on prostitution policy and feminist constitutionalism while the other author, Oscar L. Larsson, also maintains a PhD in political science and has done research articles on network governance and collaboration between public and private partners in dealing with trafficking victims. The pair make an intelligent collaboration that is informative and thoughtful regarding the Swedish government’s attempts at combatting prostitution.

  1. “Prostitution is now considered intrinsically linked to trafficking, and there has been a shift from government to governance in the general political debate.”
  2. “On the positive side, our study finds that the inclusion of civil society actors in collaborative networks has succeeded in taking into consideration the victim’s perspective and developing, for instance, programs with their actual needs in mind, such as the NSP.”

“Framing Sex Worker Rights: How U.S. Sex Worker Rights Activists Perceive and Respond to Mainstream Anti–Sex Trafficking Advocacy.” by Crystal A. Jackson

Isabel Dela Cruz

Jackson, Crystal A. “Framing Sex Worker Rights: How U.S. Sex Worker Rights Activists Perceive and Respond to Mainstream Anti–Sex

Trafficking Advocacy.” Sociological Perspectives, vol. 59, no. 1, 2016, pp. 27–45., https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121416628553.

In this journal article, Crystal Jackson, a sociologist whose teachings include gender & sexuality, social justice, sex labor, and feminism, interviews 19 sex worker rights activists within the U.S. between 2010 and 2012. With her research focusing on feminist and queer understandings of sex work, Jackson is well-versed in critiquing institutionalized inequalities within the criminal justice system. The main results drawn from the interviews focused on rejecting the conventional victimization of sex workers and confronting the unsound anti-sex trafficking efforts. The victimization of sex workers can easily, even if it’s indirectly, further silence sex workers and fail to address their oppression and lack of rights. While my paper isn’t focused solely on the rights and legalization of sex work, this journal article is one of the few that not only considers but is based on the perspectives of sex workers and sex worker rights activists. It’s important to consider the concerns that the workers who are personally and daily affected by these issues in order to reach a healthy compromise between protecting their rights while also keeping trafficking laws a priority.

  1.  In an interview with Charm, a Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) member, she “puts it twofold: first [the problem] is a victimizing framework is heavily emotional, whereas a workers rights framework may not evoke the same level of emotion.”
  2. “In a way, the U.S. anti–sex trafficking movement has galvanized and mobilized sex worker rights organizers as sex workers feel the impact of antiprostitution policies enacted to end trafficking.”