Addressing the Intersecting Needs of People Engaged in the Sex Trades, Globally: Contestations and Implications for Research and Practice

Sex trading refers to the exchange of sex or sexual services for money, food, drugs, housing, or other resources. Use of this term is intended to be neutral, referring to the behavior and not the conditions under which it occurs. However, current literature includes rich debates on theoretical frameworks (e.g., inequalities stemming from gender and social inequities; radical, liberal, or intersectional feminisms) and legal policies (e.g., legalization, decriminalization, Nordic model). Such debates also influence terminology used by practitioners, lived experience experts, and researchers (e.g., sex work, sex trades, sex trading, sex trafficking; transactional sex) as well as social work practice approaches. The debates surrounding sex trading have caused significant harm to adults and minors with lived experiences and problematic consequences for researchers and practitioners who engage people in the sex trades. Without a nuanced understanding and approach that is cognizant of the differing stances and contestations, we potentially risk compromising the relevance, quality, feasibility, and credibility of the research as well as the accessibility and inclusiveness of proposed interventions, policies, and programs. Understanding this context and centering the perspectives of multiply minoritized people in the sex trades is essential to ethically conduct research that ultimately addresses needs, reduces harm, and furthers social justice.

Following introductions, this roundtable will: 1) Focus on engaging participants in a discussion about the diverse continuum of the sex trades, including an overview of contestations about power, choice, circumstance, coercion, and consent, and the history of these terms and how each has shaped existing practices differentially. This component will also offer participants a brief primer on the myriad reasons people engage in the sex trades as well as the varying locations (place/street/brothel) and arrangements of sex trading. 2) Describe the multi-level risks among people engaged in the sex trades including intersectional stigmas, the burden of violence, mental health, and HIV risks, and macro-level issues such as criminalization and policies that enact harm alongside the resulting systems that fail to protect people who engage in sex trades. 3) Draw from examples of the panelists' research across multiple global locations and populations to describe where we situate our work along the contested continuum, how people we have engaged in our research efforts do or do not identify with existing labels, and how they describe their experiences and needs for intervention and prevention programs and policies. We will also discuss the panelists' efforts and reflexivity in working with people who engage in the sex trades to develop responsive programming and the ways in which they address the micro-, mezzo-, and macro-level factors. In this discussion, we will emphasize how anti-oppressive frameworks may seemingly collide with cultural humility and ways that this collision may be appropriately addressed. 4) Engage in a dialogue with the audience about the implications for the populations we work with depending on where one is situated and the marginalizing effects of language, framing, and approaches. We will close with some reflections on where the field is and suggestions for future research.