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This article considers the issues of ‘street prostitution’ and ‘community safety’ in terms of the discursive construction of each. It argues that in the late‐modern age, concepts such as ‘community’ and ‘safety’ are problematic and their meaning cannot be taken for granted. The discussion then probes discursive constructions of ‘the prostitute’ and explores the causes of prostitution, its legal regulation and the apparent resilience of street sex markets to various forms of intervention in different places and at different times. The article concludes by considering prostitute women as members of the community and reflects on what this might mean in terms of community safety strategies.

This article considers the recommendations to the government's public consultation exercise for drug‐using sex workers (Home Office, 2004). It argues that the ‘problem’ of drug use by sex workers cannot be separated from wider social problems experienced by this group, especially the problem of poverty. It suggests that the new prostitution strategy conflates drug use and sex work, reducing involvement in the latter to a problem of the former. Thus, other social problems experienced by these women, particularly the problems of poverty and social exclusion, are side‐stepped. By so doing, the government absolves itself of responsibility to tackle the underlying conditions that drive women and young people into prostitution and problematic drug use, leading me to argue that the new strategy offers a ‘cheap fix’ for drug‐using sex workers.

Against Violence & Abuse (AVA) and DrugScope undertook research into good practice interventions for supporting women involved in street-based prostitution and substance use. The purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of a survey of service providers and interviews with both service users and providers about women's involvement in prostitution and substance use, their associated support needs and how these can be met by services.

As part of a mixed methods study, this paper focuses on the findings of interviews with 19 women involved in prostitution and of a survey of and interviews with 64 services that support women involved in prostitution.

Generic substance misuse services are more likely to associate women's involvement in prostitution with funding their own or their partner's substance use. By comparison, specialist sex work projects are more likely to report women using substances to manage the emotional and physical pain of selling sex. These beliefs impact on the interventions delivered, with specialist services offering a more diverse package of care than generic services.

This study covered predominantly two English regions. A more systematic study of service provision across the UK would be welcomed and could be used to inform guidance for national and local policymakers.

This paper adds to the existing evidence base of “what works” in supporting women involved in prostitution. It is novel in its focus on women involved in prostitution who also use substances and in offering a detailed picture of the types of support currently available in England.

There is scarcity in the literature, both empirically and theoretically, regarding the relationship between transgender discrimination and prostitution. This study aims to offer a new framework for conceptualizing workplace discrimination and prostitution by examining the mediating role of poverty in the relationship between discrimination and prostitution.

The conceptual framework of this study is based on the social identity theory and the theory of prostitution.

Transgender is a neglected group in society, and more often, they are the ones who are unable to find jobs and when employed, find it challenging to sustain their employment because of their gender identity. This leads them to be discriminated at their workplaces. Subsequently, they are forced to leave their workplace and settle to work as prostitutes for their economic survival.

Further research should empirically test the design model.

Managers play an essential role in eliminating discrimination in the organization. Managers need to take measures in crafting gender-free and anti-discrimination policies. They take steps to design recruitment policies in which there is no need to disclose applicant identity.

Discrimination, on the basis of gender identity, promotes a culture of hate, intolerance and economic inequality in society. Prostitution has devastating effects on society.

In the field of organizational behavior, discrimination as a factor of prostitution was not explored. This study provides a significant contribution to the transgender and discrimination literature along with the prostitution theory and the social identity theory by proposing a model that highlights discrimination as one of the factors that compel the transgender community to be involved in prostitution.

A central tenet of Progressive era responses to prostitution was the alleged over-representation of white, US-born daughters of foreign parentage in the prostitution population. We detail a statistical error in an influential 1913 study from the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford as an important source of this tenet. Using archival data to more accurately reconstruct the Reformatory population, we find that Black women constituted the only over-represented group, but were all but ignored by reformers. We foreground how ideas about race and immigration informed the social response to prostitution in this period, highlighting the importance of critically analyzing historical sources.

Radical feminists position any forms of sex work as gender violence against individuals and more broadly for all women in society. I argue against the ideological stance that sex work is inherently violent and as a result should be outlawed, setting out how this ideology and dogma has allowed structural factors to persist. In this paper, I argue that despite the unacceptable high levels of violence against sex workers across the globe, violence in sex work is not inevitable. Through a review of the literature as well as drawing on research from the United Kingdom, I deconstruct the myth of inevitable violence. In turn I argue that violence is dependent on three dynamics. First, environment: spaces in which sex work happens has an intrinsic bearing on the safety of those who work there. Second, the relationship to the state: how prostitution is governed in any one jurisdiction and the treatment of violence against sex workers by the police and judicial system dictates the very organization of the sex industry and the regulation, health and safety of the sex work communities. Third, I argue that social status and stigma have significant effects on societal attitudes toward sex workers and how they are treated. It is because of these interlocking structural, cultural, legal, and social dynamics that violence exists and therefore it is these exact dynamics that hold the solutions to preventing violence against sex workers. Toward the end of the paper, I examine the UK’s “Merseyside model” whereby police treat violence against sex workers as a hate crime. It is in these examples of innovative practice despite a national and international criminalization agenda against sex workers, that human rights against a sexual minority group can be upheld.

Dirty workers occupy jobs and perform tasks that are unpleasant and considered distasteful or “tainted” to other members of society. However, while they experience challenges in managing stigma, they are generally successful in creating positive self-identities. Among these dirty jobs is prostitution. As dirty workers, women sex workers in American history have been treated with humor, ridicule and derision. This study aims to explain the social contexts and the limited economic choices these women faced and examine how they may have managed their dirty work’s stigma to create positive self-identities.

This paper uses primary and secondary sources to examine a 53-year period of American history and to frame these women’s stigma management within a “dirty work” perspective.

The author suggests that sex workers in riskier roles (e.g. street walkers, crib workers or “upstairs girls” in saloons) would have been less able to effectively manage stigma and create positive self-identities as compared to brothels workers, due to the brothel’s strong social support, healthier work culture and richer resources.

While sex work has changed significantly in the past century, the principles of identity management in this difficult and dirty work remain. Understanding the economic, social and individual challenges faced by these dirty workers will aid our understanding of the difficulties confronted by today’s sex workers.

Sex work is nearly absent from scholarly management literature. The lack of historical perspective and knowledge in this field limits a full understanding of how various types of dirty workers manage stigma.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted a new Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182) in 1999. The aim of this paper is to analyse the United Nations (UN), ILO, Council of Europe (COE) instruments related to child exploitation and discuss whether child pornography and prostitution are economic crime or work that should be regulated.

This paper compares the definitions of child pornography and prostitution and child labour in the UN, ILO, COE instruments.

Although child labour does not imply child prostitution and pornography, the Convention No. 182 Article 3 includes child prostitution and pornography in the term “child labour” and identifies child pornography and prostitution as among the worst forms of child labour. The paper concludes that, no matter what role the children have in participating in the sexual activities, they should be viewed as victims and witnesses. They should not be viewed as “sex workers” or “child labourers”. The view that sexual exploitation of children is a kind of labour might be seen to legitimise it in some countries and might cause more trauma for children.

This paper argues that the ILO should have either considered child pornography and prostitution as a kind of modern slavery in a separate paragraph in the C. 182 or introduced a separate instrument to combat against child sexual exploitation.

The recently published Home Office strategy document, A co‐ordinated prostitution strategy and a summary of responses to Paying the price (Home Office, 2006), focuses on the role of men in prostitution. However, this focus is centred on men being the abusers of women and children involved in the sex industry, and vilifies men as the perpetrators that drive the sex market. This article traces the implications of the strategy for men involved in prostitution.

In the UK the indoor sexual marketplace of brothels, saunas and massage parlours has historically been left to manage itself, with limited regulation from policing agencies. This paper examines the current nature of the indoor sex markets in light of the Home Office's co‐ordinated prostitution strategy. It looks critically at the impact of ‘disrupting sex markets’, and examines the arguments for rejecting a system that regulates the indoor sex venues. It also discusses the proposal to change the law to enable ‘two (or three)’ women to work together indoors and plans to minimise exploitation through an action plan on trafficking and the implications for practitioners and policy are assessed.