#thierry schaffauser

[yourdailyqueer]

Thierry Schaffauser

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: Born 1982  

Ethnicity: White - French

Occupation: Sex worker, activist, actor, writer

[vincentreproches]

Au final, il semble que le suppléant trans n'était plus le bienvenu(e). On lui a retiré l'étiquette mais elle a pu garder le chien

[translationsgohere]

98% of sex workers oppose criminalising clients : politicians are deaf to their pleas

(Thierry Schaffauser, writing in the Nouvel Observateur)

A new study [by Nick Mai at the Université d’Aix-Marseille] has recently confirmed what we already know: a huge majority of sex workers, 98% to be precise, opposes the penalisation of clients. 

Our self-designated protectors must explain themselves

This opposition should have been obvious, but all the sex workers who protested or spoke out against client criminalisation were accused of only representing a privileged minority.

However, the study shows that this view is shared by all sex workers, whatever their nationality, the way that they work, including those who did not choose to work in this industry, because they believe that it would put them in more danger.

Now that this fact is confirmed by a scientific study, it should be clear to that those who work in favour of client criminalisation that they are not working for us but against us. They will have to justify the reasons that push them to work against the views of the most affected, and will no longer be able to claim to be our self-designated protectors. They will have to explain why they know better than we do what is good for us.

7% of those interviewed were victims of trafficking

Another discovery that initially went unnoticed is also important. For the first time, a scientific study has produced an estimate of the number of sex workers who are victims of human trafficking in France. According to the researcher Nick Mai of the Université d’Aix-Marseille, who spoke to 500 men, women, and transgender people working in the French sex industry, 7% of those spoken to are potentially trafficking victims (the figure is 11% for migrant workers).

This number is quite close to the estimates already known for the United Kingdom (7.8%), Denmark (4%), the Netherlands (8-10%) [1] and New Zealand (3.9%). On the other hand, it is a long way from the 90% claimed with no evidence for years by Socialist members of parliament, the government, and prohibitionist activists.

The question must be asked: have these people who have lied for years done it out of ignorance of the subject, or simply in order to more easily manipulate public opinion?

Criminalisation has consequences for our lives

In either case, their credibility is seriously undermined. Not only do they have no legitimate claim to speak in our name, but they are distorting our realities with the goal of promoting a criminalisation which we do not want.

This wouldn’t be so bad if criminalisation didn’t have disastrous consequences on our lives. But that is the case. The risks of isolation, exploitation, of violence and stigmatisation are denounced in report after report. 

All the organisations fighting against AIDS, for public health, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Development Programme, UNAIDS, the National AIDS Council, the Commission Nationale Consultative sur les Droits de l’Homme (National Human Rights Consulting Commission), Médecins du Monde, Family Planning, and many more, have raised concerns about the health risks associated with client criminalisation, which have also been documented in several studies published this summer in The Lancet [2].

It is high time that politicians listened to sex workers, and relied on the existing scientific studies rather than ideological prejudices before legislating our lives.

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[1] Rapport Regioplan, et Hendrik Wagenaar, Université de Sheffield

[2] The Lancet, HIV and Sex workers, July 2014, P66 "Human rights violations against sex workers: burden and effect on HIV". Decker, Crago, Chu, Sherman, Seshu, Buthelezi, Dhaliwal, Beyrer.