Clear Correlation.pdf

The 'End Demand' legislation, which criminalizes the purchase of sexual services, has been implemented in 58 of 188 countries, and its enforcement has increased. This legislation is often framed as a strategy to promote gender equality and combat trafficking, but it has been found to make women sex workers more vulnerable to violence, discrimination, and exploitation. Women sex workers face harassment, persecution, and arbitrary arrest by authorities, and the focus of anti-trafficking organizations on eradicating sex work is detrimental to the identification of victims of human trafficking. The legislation has resulted in over-policing of spaces occupied by women sex workers, leading to frequent police stops, identity checks, and questioning, as well as increased arrest, detention, and penalization. Migrant women sex workers are particularly targeted and face deportation. The legislation also increases stigma against women sex workers, infantilizing, dehumanizing, and pathologizing them. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects argues that 'End Demand' legislation fails to promote gender equality and instead prevents the realization of human rights for women sex workers.