Research

Scarlet Alliance is actively working toward ensuring sex workers:

have increased skills to participate effectively in research
can participate in research which has positive outcomes for sex workers
are resourced for participating in research
are empowered to critique poor or unethical research

Scarlet Alliance Data on Chinese Sex Workers in Australia

Sex workers protest inside the Local Government and Shires Association Offices for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, December 2007

Antonia Quadara, "Sex workers and sexual assault in Australia Prevalence, risk and safety" Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault, 2008

The aims of the paper are:

to describe the extent and nature of sexual assault against sex workers in Australia;
to identify the conditions that make sex workers vulnerable to sexual assault;
to identify the barriers to disclosure and accessing support services faced by sex workers; and
to identify strategies that may help to prevent sexual assault against sex workers.
Download report, 1meg
Link to HTML (off-site)

Migrant sex workers are publicly shamed in Shenzhen, Southern China, 2005

Fiona David, "Trafficking of women for sexual purposes" Australian Institute of Criminology, 2008

In 2008, more than 117 countries, including Australia, have ratified the United Nations Trafficking Protocol. In the Australian context, there is now a variety of criminal offences under federal law, ranging from debt bondage – which attracts a penalty of less than 12 months imprisonment – to slavery, punishable by 25 years in jail. Key debates coalesce around issues including the realities of transnational migration for work, the difficulties of defining (and proving) key concepts such as exploitation and sexual violence, and the challenges of giving due respect to the agency of individuals in situations where choice is heavily constrained. While the pool of primary data that can be drawn on for research has grown, research on trafficking in persons still has challenges. It can be difficult or even impossible to de-identify information or draw trends from such a small sample. In a context where "exploitation" is a key component of the crime type, individual and institutional political perspectives have a profound impact on selection, presentation and interpretation of information. Download report, 2meg

Call girls : private sex workers in Australia, Roberta Perkins and Francis Lovejoy

Crawley, W.A. : UWA Press, 2007, ISBN: 9781920694913, Dewey Number: 306.7420994
Link to more information

Sexworkers Critique of Swedish Prostitution Policy by Petra Ostergren

Link here

The law against procurement of sexual services (promotion or deriving profit from prostitution) and a recent law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services introduced in 1999 are the two main ways the Swedish state sees itself as "combating" prostitution. Swedish politicians and feminists are proud of the state's prostitution policy. They insist that it has positive effects. Sex Workers are of a different view.

Research for Sex Work, No. 10 (June 2008) Sex Workers Rights!

Download Research for Sex Work #10, 1.10Meg

Download Research for Sex Work #9

Link to Research for Sex Work official website

Scarlet Alliance supports Research For Sex Work

RS4SW #10 Contents:

Editorial, Melissa Ditmore
Resisting Raids and Rescue, VAMP Collective and SANGRAM
SexWorker Activists: Embodying Aberrance, Stewart
A participatory-action and interventional research approach to HIV prevention and treatment among women in survival sex work, Shannon and Bright
“My one-way ticket to Kamathipura”: Rights of sex workers compromised, Karandikar and Próspero
The PEPFAR “Anti-Prostitution Pledge”: A Case Study from Nigeria, Elder
Sex worker organising in Madagascar, Greenall and Rasoanaivo
Unfriendly encounters, Freeland
Street SexWork and SexWorker Rights? Blinding Connections, McCracken
Tribes Bangin in Da City, Jeffreys, Tapuhi, Abigail and Huynh

Working girls : prostitutes, their life and social control by Roberta Perkins

ISBN 0 642 15877 0 Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1991
Link here

An analysis of prostitution laws throughout Australia are presented in this book as Perkins discusses the need for the decriminalisation of prostitution. Detailed findings from a survey of Sydney prostitutes and excerpts from in-depth interviews are included. Perkins also reviews a vast literature on the subject of prostitution. This book made an incredibly important contribution to sex worker rights in the early days of the movement; the research validates sex work as work comes from a sex worker rights framework.

Updated 25 March 2009