Violence against prostitutes
[1] A long-term study published in 2004 estimated the homicide rate for active female prostitutes who had worked in Colorado Springs from 1967 through 1999 to be 204 per 100,000 person-years.
[2] This homicide figure is considerably higher than that for the next riskiest occupations in the United States during the 1980s (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers).
[4] A study of 1,000 female (both cisgender and transgender) prostitutes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, found 93% of women surveyed had been the victim of rape in the past year.
[8] A different study found a slightly lower rate with 74% of sex-workers reported experiencing some form of physical abuse in their lifetime.
[10][11][12] The United Nations Population Fund says that this type of violence "includes, but is not limited to, being insulted (e.g. called derogatory names) or made to feel bad about oneself; being humiliated or belittled in front of other people; being threatened with loss of custody of one's children; being confined or isolated from family or friends; being threatened with harm to oneself or someone one cares about; repeated shouting, inducing fear through intimidating words or gestures; controlling behavior; and the destruction of possessions.
"[13] There are certain types of psychological or emotional abuse that sex workers are more prone to such as denial of basic needs, forced drug or alcohol consumption, and being arrested for carrying condoms to name a few.
[7] These high levels of sexual violence suffered by sex workers have very traumatic effects on the men and women working as prostitutes.
[17] There are a variety of contributing factors, including the social stigmas surrounding transgender women that push them into sex work as a means of survival; this includes high unemployment rates typically due to legalized discriminations, a lack of education or career opportunities, and mental health issues resulting from transphobic experiences from adolescence through adulthood.
[18] It is shown in one study that transgender women chose to remain in sex work despite the risks of violence and HIV contraction as a means to gain the social and economic support that society typically fails to provide.
[17][19] This is specifically seen with black transgender women who are paid less for sex work, and are therefore pushed to see more clients, increasing their chances of exposure to violence.
One study includes 48 transgender women of color from San Francisco who share their experiences with violence during sex work—one participant recalls: "The police see you on the sidewalk, they will snatch your hair off your head, if you have on a wig and they will call you 'boy', loud, so everybody can hear over the speaker phone" [p. 774].
[22] There are substantial differences in rates of victimization between street prostitutes and indoor sex workers who work as call girls, or in brothels and massage parlors.
In certain states anti-prostitution mandates carry a minimum sentence and can increase to felony charge after multiple arrests, which leads to difficulty finding housing and employment, and disqualification for welfare benefits.
Joel Rifkin confessed to killing 17 sex workers in the New York area between 1989 and 1993, without there having been a missing persons report filed on any of the women during that time.
He has now been convicted of the murders of six women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and is suspected by police of killing at least twenty more (though no charges have been filed in relation to their deaths).
The United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), in conjunction with several other organizations, recommends community empowerment, led by sex workers, as a way to combat violence against sex-workers.
This policy has resulted in inadequate attention being paid to the health needs of prostitutes and limits the ability of the government to address the specific needs that sex workers have.
[37] One possible policy option that the Netherlands has done would be to designate specific places for sex workers and clients to meet up and arrange and engage in sexual activities.
[21] This would provide a safe and secure place for sexual services to be sold without having to remain in private which can be a risk factor for violence against prostitutes.
