Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a view of the city in the background. Date: circa 1908.
Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo
A missing girl, a sensational trial, and the troubled history of anti-trafficking.
Clients of sex workers may be key to reducing HIV transmission in South Africa.
Justin Sholk
Narrow, unimaginative public health responses inhibit reducing HIV, exploitation and marginalisation within sex work.
A person living with HIV shows her clinic appointment and anti-retroviral drugs regimen card.
TONY KARUMBA/AFP/GettyImages
COVID-19 restrictions created life-threatening challenges to female sex workers as they weren’t able to access their medication, support or their clients.
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A major review on sex work laws has just been handed to the Victorian government.
Tim Wimborne/AAP
The UN warns sex workers face increased discrimination under COVID-19. In Australia, they have been an ‘afterthought’ in the country’s pandemic response.
The red umbrella is a symbol used by sex worker activists to draw attention to the work conditions and human rights of people in the sexual service industry.
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Work in the sexual services industry has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and workers have been left without access to government support.
Tipping from a social distance at The Lucky Devil strip club in Portland, Oregon.
Steve Dykes/Getty Images
Strippers, by the nature of their jobs, need to get close to others. Is there a way to do this safely during the coronavirus crisis?
Australian trans performer Marissa Minx on set in Los Angeles, recording exclusive behind-the-scenes footage for her fans.
Sophie Pezzutto
In today’s economy, adult video stars can’t rely on films alone to make their income. Here’s how they earn all of the rest.
Gustave Boulanger, The Slave Market, 1886.
Wikimedia Commons
From a young age, Neaera was trained for the life of a hetaira, or courtesan. Her tragic story comes to us only through court documents, but she deserves to be remembered.
A law enforcement guide to human trafficking sits on a table at a drop-in center for victims of sex trafficking in Washington.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Jeffrey Epstein may be the current face of sex trafficking, but buying and selling youth for sex is a common practice in the US.
Sex worker rights – fought for at this red umbrella protest in Vancouver – are under threat by ‘hospitality’ programs which ask civilians working in hotels to ‘report’ on their guests.
Caroline Doerksen
Citizens-watch programs designed by police to aid anti-trafficking efforts threaten the rights and safety of sex workers.
Hotels and motels along major highways are common spots for sex trafficking.
Ken Stocker/shutterstock.com
While there’s still a great deal that is unknown about sex trafficking, research studies and nonprofits have been able to gather telling data on this industry’s victims and perpetrators.
Trafficking is a very real threat for kids in Nigeria.
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An investigation into the recruiting strategies of traffickers and their networks could be helpful in arresting this menace.
Hotels and motels along major highways are common spots for sex trafficking.
Ken Stocker/shutterstock.com
New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft’s criminal charges in a suspected sex trafficking case draw new attention to this illicit underground economy.
Sugar baby websites exemplify a wider trend of casualisation in working relationships.
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Sugar daddy capitalism is deformalising relationships and erasing the lines between commercial and non-commercial worlds.
Burmese fishermen raise their hands as they are asked who among them wants to go home. Human trafficking sometimes occurs in the seafood industry.
AP Photo/Dita Alangkara
Estimates of modern slavery vary widely, whether they try to pin down numbers in the U.S., across the globe or just in certain industries.
Protesters in front the Supreme Court of Canada in 2013 when the court was hearing arguments on the constitutionality of Canada’s prostitution laws.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canada’s prostitution laws are based on the idea that prostitution is dangerous. Legalizing prostitution doesn’t eliminate the risks of violence and psychological harm.
Private corporations have now become the arbiters of community standards, making decisions about what content is permissible to circulate.
Sexual subcultures create space for critical social conversations and the formation of meaningful political alliances.
Trans porn star Korra Del Rio camming from her room in Las Vegas.
Sophie Pezzutto
With pirated and amateur pornography widely available online, porn no longer provides a steady income for many working in the adult industry.
Sex workers protest in Westminster in early July.
Andy Rain/EPA
The opinions of current sex workers must be sought before any changes are made to the law governing the websites they use.