Woe To The Behind The Taboo Sex Workers

Julia Roberts as a prostitute in Pretty Woman (Source: IMDB)

JAKARTA - Commercial sex workers are one of the oldest jobs in the world. For certain cultural contours, its existence is always controversial. In Indonesia, for example. Clash with norms is eternal. Sex workers are indispensable defendants in social courts. Even worse, because the criminalization of sex workers is actually dangerous for social life, especially in the context of health and economy. The dilemma never ends.

In 2015, Amnesty International called for the decriminalization of sex workers as the best way to defend sex workers against human rights violations, more importantly: exclusion from health care. Research from the Lancet also claims the decriminalization of sex workers has a major impact on the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among sex workers, even throughout the population. Criminalization is also said to be expanding the spread of the HIV epidemic.

A team of researchers from the University of Melbourne, George Washington University and UCLA examined the effects of decriminalizing the sex market in high-income countries. Although previously found that decriminalization of sex workers has a positive impact on the health of sex workers, it is unclear whether the criminalization of sex workers also affects low-income countries. The research was expanded.

The researchers conducted an analysis of the impact of criminalizing sex workers in low-income settings. In these countries, the participation of women in the sex market is known to be higher. It also promotes the continuity of the HIV epidemic. In Indonesia, the research was conducted in a district in Malang, East Java.

Health impact

In 2014 the government announced it was closing all sex worker brothels. Researchers examined the impact of localization closure by comparing what happened in districts where sex workers were criminalized with neighboring districts, where sex workers remained legal and businesses continued as normal.

Researchers examined the impact of localization closure on sex workers, their clients, and their families. After various studies were conducted, the immediate impact of this criminalization was evidenced by the shrinking sex market. The number of sex workers working in criminalized establishments fell sharply between September 2014 and May-June 2015. The same decline was not seen in the non-criminalized areas of the sex market.

However, on the other hand, there is an increase in the number of STIs. The test results showed that the rate of STIs among sex workers increased by 27.3 percentage points or 58 percent compared to areas where sex workers are not criminalized. This is a big improvement.

"Data from sex workers and clients suggest that this is driven by lower access to condoms, increased condom prices, and increased non-condom sex." said the research, quoted from Voxdev.org.

Transmission of the disease is not only a risk for the sex workers themselves, but also the wider community. STIs from sex workers are transmitted to service users and to their second partner.

"In the long term, the increased prevalence of STIs among female sex workers implies an increase in the likelihood of STI transmission to the general population of between 22 percent and 59.3 percent for men, between 13.6 percent and 48.3 percent for women, depending on assumptions. about changing market sizes, "he said.

Meanwhile, the size of the sex market shrank by about 60 percent in the short term, lowering the likelihood of STI transmission to the general adult population. But five years later, the sex market has returned to its pre-criminalization size.

Economic impact

Apart from the health side, the closure of lokalisasi also has an impact on the economic welfare of sex workers. The criminalization of sex workers is often designed to force women out of the world.

Sex workers who quit forcibly end up struggling with lower incomes and are more difficult, impacting their ability to send their children to school. The impact is longer, children have to work to increase household income.

So far the size of the sex market in Indonesia may be smaller than if there had been no criminalization. This raises the assumption that criminalization has been successful.

However, from a public health perspective, the criminalization of sex workers has a negative impact on the efforts of many government health departments and NGOs to reduce the spread of STIs and HIV / AIDS. The closure or criminalization of localization limits the ability of organizations to support sex worker health.

In addition, criminalization also hinders the ability of sex workers to access support and services openly.