International Center for Combating Human Trafficking, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Pornography and Sex Industry
International Center for Combating Human Trafficking, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Pornography and Sex Industryis a non profit organization working as speciaL consultative status with United Nations Human Rights Council - OHCHR
THE CENTER WORK WITH UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHT
Sex work involves the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers (prostitution, lap dancing) as well as indirect sexual stimulation (pornography, stripping, telephone sex, live sex shows, erotic webcam performances). The sex industry refers to the workers, managers, owners, agencies, clubs, trade associations, and marketing involved in sexual commerce, both legal and illegal varieties.
(1) Sex Work
FRANCE 24 Reporters : Asia's sex indust
Foundation For Combating Human Trafficking, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Pornography and Sex Industry
Sex work involves the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers (prostitution, lap dancing) as well as indirect sexual stimulation (pornography, stripping, telephone sex, live sex shows, erotic webcam performances).
The sex industry refers to the workers, managers, owners, agencies, clubs, trade associations, and marketing involved in sexual commerce, both legal and illegal varieties.
Sex for sale is a lucrative growth industry. In 2006 alone, Americans spent $13.3 billion on X-rated magazines, videos and DVDs, live sex shows, strip clubs, adult cable shows, computer pornography, and commercial telephone sex.1 Rentals and sales of X-rated films jumped from $75 million in 1985 to $957 million in 2006. In just one decade, the number of X-rated films released annually more than doubled, from 5700 in 1995 to 13,588 in 2005.
There are around 3500 strip clubs in America, and the number has grown over the past two decades. In addition to these indicators of legal commercial sex, an unknown amount is spent on prostitution. A significant percentage of the population buys sexual services and products. In 2002, 34% of American men and 16% of women reported that they had seen an X-rated video in just the past year.5 As of 2000, 21% of the population had visited an Internet pornography site (32% of men, 11% of women). The most recent figures on strip club attendance are from 1991, when 11% of the population said they had done so in the past year; fewer people (0.5%) had called a phone sex number in the past year. And a significant percentage of American men have visited a prostitute. The General Social Survey reports figures on the number of men who said that they had ever paid for sex-between 15-18% in eight polls from 1991 to 2006 (in 2006, 4% said they had done so in the past year). Remarkably similar figures are reported for Australia (16%) and the average within Europe (15%), and 11% of British men say they have paid for sex with a prostitute.
Because prostitution is stigmatized, the real figures may be significantly higher. In some other societies, even more men say they have paid for sex. For example, in Spain 39% of men have done so during their lifetime, and in northeastern Thailand 43% of single men and 50% of married men had visited a prostitute. An unusual question was included in a recent British survey: respondents were asked whether they would “consider having sex for money if the amount offered was enough”: 18% of women said yes, as did 36% of men.
A steady trend is toward the privatization of sexual services and products: porn has migrated from the movie house to the privacy of the viewer’s house. Video, Internet, and cable TV pornography have exploded in popularity, almost totally replacing the adult theaters of decades past. The advent of the telephone sex industry and escort services also has contributed to the privatization of commercial sex. And the Internet has changed the landscape tremendously-providing a wealth of services, information, and connections for interested parties. Internet-facilitated sex work has grown as a sector of the market, while street prostitution has remained relatively stable over time, although it has declined in some areas.
Despite its size, growth, and numerous customers, the sex industry is regarded by many citizens as a deviant enterprise: run by shady people and promoting immoral or perverted behavior. There has been some “mainstreaming” of certain sectors of the sex industry, but it would be premature to conclude that sex for sale has now become normalized, as some claim. Polls show that 72% of Americans think that pornography is “an important moral issue for the country,” and 61% believe that it leads to a “breakdown of morals.” The most recent poll (in March 2008) reported that fully half the population defined viewing porn as “sinful behavior.” And almost half the population thinks that pornography is “demeaning towards women” (one-quarter disagreed and the remainder were undecided).
When asked about the idea of “men spendingan evening with a prostitute,” 61% of Americans consider this morally wrong, and two-thirds believe that prostitution can “never be justified,” while 25% considered it “sometimes justified” and 4% “always justified.” (The term “justified” in this question is somewhat opaque, and we can only speculate as to what respondents have in mind when they say prostitution can “sometimes be justified.”) Two-thirds of the British population believes that “paying for sex exploits women,” and young people are even more likely to hold this opinion: 80% of those aged 18-24.
Regarding public policies, most Americans favor either more controls or a total ban on certain types of commercial sex. More than three-quarters (77%) of the public think that we need “stricter laws” to control pornography in books and movies, and half believe that pornography is “out of control and should be further restricted.” In 2006, two-fifths of Americans (39%) felt that pornography should be banned, and this figure has remained about the same for two decades (41% held this view in 1984). A huge majority of women (70%) want porn outlawed today, compared to 30% of men.
Stripping and telephone sex work also carry substantial stigma. Almost half of the American public believes that strip clubs should be illegal, while na even higher number (76%) thought telephone numbers offering sex talk should be illegal. Despite these personal opinions, people seem to think that the country is headed in the direction of increasing tolerance. There are no national polls on this question, but a 2002 survey of Alabama residents found that 73% believed that “society as a whole” sees stripping as an occupation for women to be “more acceptable today than ten years ago.”
Many Alabama residents are dissatisfied with this trend, however. In the same poll, 54% felt that “stripping as an occupation is degrading or demeaning to the women,” and only 24% thought that it was not, with the remainder undecided. What we have, therefore, is a paradox: a lucrative industry that employs a significant number of workers and attracts many customers but is regarded by many people as deviant and in need of stricter control, if not banned outright. The sex industry continues to be stigmatized, even when it is legal. We will see what happen in the world from Brazil and Colombia to Russia, Ukraine, China, Thailand, Turkey and Spain.
COMPETING PARADIGMS
When one person mentioned the topic of prostitution to a friend recently, he said, “How disgusting! How could anybody sell themselves?” A few weeks later an acquaintance told him that she thought prostitution was a “woman’s choice, and can be empowering.” These opposing views reflect larger cultural perceptions of prostitution, as well as much popular writing on the topic.
Many people are fascinated, entertained, or titillated by sex work; many others see it as degrading, immoral, sexist, or harmful; and yet others hold all these views. Indeed, some prominent people have simultaneously condemned and patronized the sex industry, and have been caught in hypocritical behavior:
-Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) prosecuted prostitution rings when he served as the state’s Attorney-General, but resigned the governorship in disgrace after it was revealed in March 2008 that he had spent $4300 on an escort employed by the exclusive Emperor’s Club agency. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that he had also been a client of another escort agency, Wicked Models. Prosecutors later determined that Spitzer had paid for sex “on multiple occasions,” yet they declined to press criminal charges against him.27
-In 2007, Senator David Vitter (R-La) was linked to a Washington, DC, escort agency. He refused to relinquish his Senate seat, but nevertheless issued a public apology: “This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible.” He was also accused of repeatedly visiting a New Orleans brothel in the late 1990s, according to both the madam and one of the prostitutes. Vitter is well known for his conservative, “family values” positions.
-In 2006, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Ted Haggard, resigned after revelations that he had frequently paid for sex with a male prostitute and had used methamphetamine with him. The Association claims to represent 30 million evangelical Christians in the United States.
-In 1988, a prominent television evangelist, Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, resigned his church leadership after photos were released of him with a call girl in a New Orleans hotel (she later appeared on the cover of Penthouse magazine). He continued his television ministry. Three years later, when stopped by a police officer in California for a traffic violation, a prostitute in his car told the officer that Swaggart had propositioned her for sex.
-In Britain, Anthony Lambton, the Under-Secretary for Defense, resigned in May 1973 after being photographed in bed with a call girl. A few days later, another Cabinet member and the leader of the House of Lords, George Jellicoe, resigned after confessing his own liaisons with call girls, what he called “casual affairs.” Jellicoe had been in Parliament for 68 years, and he and Lambton were members of the Conservative Party.
-Another member of the British Parliament, Mark Oaten, resigned in 2006 after it was reported that he had a year-long relationship with a male prostitute.
These are just a few of the many examples of public figures who have purchased sex illicitly. And, in addition to political and religious elites, the clients include officials in the criminal justice system, with police chiefs and prosecutors sometimes caught buying sex even as they are obligated to enforce the laws against prostitution.
The poles of condemnation and normalization are reflected in two paradigms in the social sciences. One of these, the oppression paradigm, holds that sex work is a quintessential expression of patriarchal gender relations and male domination. The most prominent advocates of this position go further, claiming that exploitation, subjugation, and violence against women are intrinsic to and ineradicable from sex work-transcending historical time period, national context, and type of sexual commerce. These indictments apply equally to pornography, prostitution, stripping, and other commercial sex. The only solution is elimination of the entire sex industry, which is precisely the goal of those who adopt the oppression paradigm.
In addition to these essentialist claims, some writers make generalizations about specific aspects of sex work: that most or all sex workers were physically or sexually abused as children; entered the trade as adolescents, around 13–14 years of age; were tricked or forced into the trade by pimps or traffickers; use or are addicted to drugs; experience routine violence from customers; labor under abysmal working conditions; and desperately want to exit the sex trade. These writers often use dramatic language to highlight the plight of workers (“sexual slavery,” “prostituted women,” “paid rape,” “survivors”).
“Prostituted” clearly indicates that prostitution is something done to women, not something that can be chosen, and “survivor” implies someone who has escaped a harrowing ordeal. Customers are labeled as “prostitute users,” “batterers,” and “sexual predators.” As shown later, these labels are misnomers when applied to most customers and most sex workers.
Violating a core canon of scientific research, the oppression paradigm describes only the worst examples of sex work and then treats them as representative. Anecdotes are generalized and presented as conclusive evidence, sampling is selective, and counterevidence is routinely ignored. Such “research” cannot help but produce tainted findings and spurious conclusions, and this entire body of work has been severely criticized. Unfortunately, the writings of oppression theorists are increasingly mirrored in media reports and in government policies in the United States and abroad. A diametrically opposed perspective is the empowerment paradigm. The focus is on the ways in which sexual services qualify as work, involve human agency, and may be potentially validating or empowering for workers.
This paradigm holds that there is nothing inherent in sex work that would prevent it from being organized for mutual gain to all parties-just as in other economic transactions. In other words, coercion and other unseemly practices are not viewed as intrinsic aspects of sex work. Analysts who adopt this perspective tend to accent the routine aspects of sex work, often drawing parallels to kindred types of service work (physical therapy, massage, psychotherapy) or otherwise normalizing sex for sale. Eileen McLeod argues that prostitution is quite similar to other “women’s work,” and that both sex workers and other women “barter sex for goods,” although the latter do so less conspicuously. Writers who adopt the empowerment perspective also argue that the tenets of the oppression paradigm reflect the way in which some sex work manifests itself when it is criminalized. Much less is known about prostitution in legal, regulated systems. It is important, therefore, to avoid essentialist conclusions based on only one mode of production.
This kind of work may enhance a person’s socioeconomic status and provide greater control over one’s working conditions than many traditional jobs. It may have other benefits as well: “Many prostitutes emphasize that they engage in sex work not simply out of economic need but out of satisfaction with the control it gives them over their sexual interactions.” Some writers who adopt the empowerment paradigm go further and make bold claims that romanticize sex work. Shannon Bell describes her book, Whore Carnival, as “a recognition and commendation of the sexual and political power and knowledge of prostitutes,” which sounds rather celebratory.
Both the oppression and empowerment perspectives are one-dimensional and essentialist. While exploitation and empowerment are certainly present in sex work, there is sufficient variation across time, place, and sector to demonstrate that sex work cannot be reduced to one or the other. An alternative perspective, what I call the polymorphous paradigm, holds that there is a constellation of occupational arrangements, power relations, and worker experiences. Unlike the other two perspectives, polymorphism is sensitive to complexities and to the structural conditions shaping the uneven distribution of agency, subordination, and workers’ control. Within academia, a growing number of scholars are researching various dimensions of the work, in different contexts, and their studies document substantial variation in how sex work is organized and experienced by workers, clients, and managers.
Together, these studies undermine some deep-rooted myths about prostitution and present a challenge to those writers and activists who embrace monolithic paradigms.Victimization, exploitation, choice, job satisfaction, self-esteem, and other dimensions should be treated as variables (not constants) that differ between types of sex work, geographical locations, and other structural and organizational conditions.
(2) Sex Work
Real Street Prostitutes of Medellin, Red Light
100 Countries and Their Prostitution Policies
TYPES OF SEX WORK
A brief discussion of different types of sex work will illustrate the polymorphous approach.
Prostitution
Prostitutes vary tremendously in their reasons for entry, risk of violence, freedom to refuse clients and particular sex acts, dependence on and exploitation by third parties, experiences with the authorities, public visibility, number and type of clients, relationships with coworkers, and impact on the surrounding community.
Before proceeding to a description of the different types of prostitution, it is important to note that individual workers may cross one or more categories. For instance, independent call girls may also accept regular or occasional appointments from an escort agency, and massage parlor or brothel workers sometimes moonlight by meeting customers in private and keeping the earnings for themselves. It is rare, however, for workers to experience substantial upward or downward mobility. As a general rule “the level at which the woman begins work in the prostitution world determines her general position in the occupation for much of her career as a prostitute.
Changing levels requires contacts and a new set of work techniques and attitudes.”Occasionally, an upper or middle-tier worker whose life situation changes (e.g., because of aging, drug addiction) is no longer able to work in that stratum and gravitates to the street. But transitioning from street work to the escort or call girl echelon is quite rare, because most street workers lack the education and skill set required for upscale indoor work. Likewise, very few call girls and brothel workers have previously worked on the streets. If a move takes place, it is usually lateral and of limited mobility, such as from the streets to a down-market peep show or from a massage parlor to an escort agency or from an escort agency to independent work.
The most consequential is that between street prostitution and the various indoor types. In street prostitution, the initial transaction occurs in a public place (a sidewalk, park, truck stop), while the sex act takes place in either a public or private setting (alley, park, vehicle, hotel, etc.). Many street prostitutes are runaways who end up in a new locale with no resources and little recourse but to engage in some kind of criminal activity-whether theft, drug dealing, or selling sex. Many street workers, both runaways and others, experience abysmal working conditions and are involved in “survival sex.” They sell sex out of dire necessity or to support a drug habit. Many use addictive drugs; work and live in crime-ridden areas; are socially isolated and disconnected from support services; risk contracting and transmitting sexual diseases; are exploited and abused by pimps; and are vulnerable to being assaulted, robbed, raped, or killed on the streets. This is the population best characterized by the oppression paradigm. Other street prostitutes, especially those free of drugs and pimps, are in less desperate straits but still confront a range of occupational hazards..
When most people think of prostitution, they are thinking of street prostitution, but off-street sexual transactions are just as important and, in many countries, far more common than street work even though we lack data on the exact numbers in each sphere. (In Thailand, for example, an estimated 0.7% of prostitutes work the streets, while the figures for the United States, Holland, and Britain are reportedly closer to 20%.). We do know that ads for escort agencies and for independent call girls on the Internet are abundant and ever increasing.
Indoor prostitution takes place in brothels, massage parlors, bars, hotels, and private premises. Compared to street prostitutes, indoor workers are much less likely to have a background of childhood abuse (neglect, violence, incest), to enter sex work at a young age, to engage in risky behavior (e.g., to use addictive drugs and to engage in unprotected sex), and to be victimized by others. Off-street workers who have not been coerced into prostitution are much less likely to experience assault, robbery, and rape. A British study of 115 prostitutes who worked on the streets and 125 who worked in saunas or as call girls found that the street prostitutes were much more likely than the indoor workers to report that they had ever been robbed (37 vs. 10%), beaten (27 vs. 1%), slapped/punched/kicked (47 vs. 14%), raped (22 vs. 2%), threatened with a weapon (24 vs. 6%), or kidnapped (20 vs. 2%). Other studies similarly find disparities in victimization between street and off-street workers, with some reporting high percentages of indoor providers who have never experienced violence on the job. Although random sampling was not possible in these studies, the fact that they consistently document significant street–indoor differences lends credence to the general conclusion. In addition to differences in ever being victimized, street workers are more likely to experience more frequent and more severe victimization.
This does not mean that indoor work is risk free: structural conditions are a key predictor of vulnerability-conditions that include workers’ immigration status, drug dependency, third-party involvement (as protectors vs. exploiters), etc. Moreover, indoor work in the Third World usually exists under harsher conditions than in developed countries, even when it is legal. Having said that, there is no doubt that indoor settings are generally safer than the streets. Overall, “street workers are significantly more at risk of more violence and more serious violence than indoor workers.” Moreover, it appears that legal context makes a difference: that is, the safety of indoor work increases where prostitution is legal. Those who work collectively indoors-in brothels, massage parlors, saunas, clubs-have the advantage of the presence of gatekeepers and coworkers, who can intervene in the event of an unruly customer. Indoor venues often have some screening mechanisms, video surveillance, and alarm systems. Call girls and escorts are more vulnerable given their isolation when doing outcalls at hotels or clients’ residences. But they also have a greater proportion of low-risk; regular clients and they have their own methods of vetting potentially dangerous customers (though these methods are not foolproof). They share with other workers stories of bad clients who are then blacklisted, and they routinely check in by phone with the agency or a friend at a designated time before and after a visit. As one agency booker stated: “The girls call to check in when they first get to an appointment. We had code words, like ‘Red Bull.’ If I heard her say she needed a Red Bull, I’d try to distract the guy on the phone so she could get out of there.” The autobiography of former prostitute Dolores French describes her unique ways of alerting her agent (Sarah) that she was in danger in a man’s hotel room: Sarah told me certain code names that were to be used for cops and crazies. . . .
“Judy” meant a cop; “Phyllis” meant a crazy. ... So I called Sarah and said: “Everything is fine here. By the way, has Judy been in the office lately? Well, if Judy comes by, tell her I’d like to meet her for coffee.” [Sarah said] “Did he ask you to have sex?” “Oh yes, he’s lots of fun.” Any positive answer I gave meant yes, any negative answer . . . meant no. It was amazing how wonderfully this all worked. As soon as Sarah understood there was danger, she was on full alert . . . She knew I was in a bad situation, and she knew it was up to her to help get me out of it.
Such providers learn ways of screening their clients before they meet as well. A study of independent call girls noted that they develop sensitivity to detecting potential danger in the caller’s attitudes, manners, tone of voice, or nature of the conversation.”
It is not widely known that indoor and street prostitutes differ in the services they provide. Because street workers spend little time with customers, their social interaction is fleeting. As one street worker remarked, “Usually, they’re not even interested in talking to you. What they want is quick sex.” Indoor interactions are typically longer, multifaceted, and more reciprocal. Diana Prince, who interviewed 75 call girls in California and 150 brothel workers in Nevada, found that most of them believed that “the average customer wants affection or love as well as sex.”Consequently, indoor workers are much more likely to counsel and befriend clients, and their encounters often include a semblance of romance, dating, friendship, or companionship-what has become known as a “girlfriend experience” and the counterpart “boyfriend experience” offered by male escorts. As one study of call girls discovered, “for many men, sex is the pretext for the visit, and the real need is emotional.”48 Indeed, escort agencies and independent call girls increasingly advertise their expertise in providing nonsexual benefits to clients. The Emperor’s Club escort agency, for instance, billed itself (on its website) as offering an experience that would make life “more peaceful, balanced, beautiful, and meaningful.” In a sense, the customer buys a kind of “relationship” with an escort rather than just sex. Some customers who become “regulars” have long-term relationships with providers and develop a real emotional connection, albeit one that is paid for.
The nature of physical contact also differs, in the sense that it is more varied and more “romantic” than what a client and provider experience on the street. Indoor workers are more likely than street workers to be caressed, kissed, massaged, or hugged by, and to receive oral sex or manual stimulation from, a client. Indeed, in at least some indoor venues, the workers expect and request such sensual and sexual behavior from clients as a routine part of the encounter.
Indoor workers tend to be more adjusted and satisfied with their work than street workers, and the former differ little from non-prostitutes in mental health and self-esteem. The stress and danger associated with street work contribute to psychological problems. By contrast, escorts and call girls tend to have the “financial, social, and emotional wherewithal to structure their work largely in ways that suited them and provided . . . the ability to maintain healthy self-images.” Although call girls generally express greater job satisfaction than do those employed by third parties (brothels, massage parlors, escort agencies) and are subject to employer demands, the latter are nevertheless more satisfied than street workers. An Australian study found that half of call girls and brothel workers felt that their work was a “major source of satisfaction” in their lives, while seven out of 10 said they would “definitely choose” this work if they had it to do over again. And a worker in one of Nevada’s legal brothels remarked: “I’ve always been a sexual person. I enjoy doing it. I mean, the money’s wonderful but, hey, I enjoy what I do for a living too. I love the people, it’s safe, it’s clean.” A majority of indoor workers in other studies similarly report that they enjoy the job, feel that their work has at least some positive effect on their lives, or believe that they provide a valuable service.
Prince’s comparative study of streetwalkers and call girls in California and legal brothel workers in Nevada found that almost all of the call girls (97%) reported an increase in self-esteem after they began working in prostitution, compared with 50% of the brothel workers but only 8% of the streetwalkers. Similarly, a study of indoor prostitutes (most of whom worked in bars) in a Midwestern city in the United States found that three-fourths of them felt that their life had improved after entering prostitution (the remainder reported no change; none said it was worse than before); more than half said that they generally enjoy their work. Why would self-esteem be high or increase among those working in the upper echelons? Psychological well-being is associated with a range of structural factors, including education, income, control over working conditions, relations with third parties, and client base. Income is a major source of self-esteem among call girls. While middle range call girls earn $200–$500 an hour, top-tier workers charge between $1000–$6000 an hour (or a session) and they are also lavished with fringe benefits, such as expensive gifts and paid travel to meet clients. Escort agency, brothel, and massage parlor employees make considerably less because a large share (30–50%) goes to the agency. Another reason for an increase in job satisfaction is revealed by indoor workers who describe “feeling ‘sexy,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘powerful’ only after they had begun to engage in sexual labor and were receiving consistent praise from their clients.” In other words, in addition to the material rewards of high-end sex work, positive reinforcement and other good experiences may help enhance workers’ self-images.
At the same time, prostitutes of all types experience stigma from the wider society, as shown by opinion polls and by public condemnation during sex scandals involving public figures. This disapproval compels sex workers to engage in various normalization strategies, including: compartmentalizing their deviant work persona from their “real identity”; concealing their work from family and friends; distancing themselves from clients; using neutral or professional terms to describe their jobs (“working woman,” “provider”); and viewing their work as a valuable service (providing pleasure or sex therapy, comforting lonely men, keeping marriages intact).
The studies reviewed here and by other scholars provide strong evidence contradicting some popular myths and the central tenets of the oppression paradigm. While certain experiences are generic to prostitution (coping with stigma, managing client behavior, avoiding risks), the literature indicates that other work-related experiences, as well as the harms typically associated with prostitution, vary greatly. The prostitution market is segmented between the indoor and street sectors-marked by major differences in working conditions, risk of victimizatihn, and job satisfaction and self-esteem.
Characteristics of Types of Prostitution
Types – Business Location – Prices Charged – Exploitation by Third Parties – Risk of Violent Victimization – Public Visibility – Impact on Community
Call Girl – Independent operator; private premises/hotels – High – Low to none – Low- None – None
Escort – Escort agency; private premises/hotels – High – Moderate – Low to Moderate – Very low – None
Brothel Worker – Brothel – Moderate – Moderate – Very low- Low – None, if discreet
Massage Parlor Worker – Massage parlor – Moderate – Moderate – Very low – Low – Little, if discreet
Bar or Casino Worker – Bar/casino contract; sex elsewhere – Low to moderate – Low to moderate – Low to moderate – Moderate – Equivalent to impact of bar/casino
Street Walker – Street contact; sex in cars, alleys, parks, etc. – Low – High – Very high – High - Adverse
We need to consider more types like models and dancers work in night clubs.
The brothel and massage parlor workers depicted here do not include those who have been trafficked against their will or otherwise forced into prostitution, whose experiences differ from those who have entered this work consensually.
Exploitation by third parties means third party receipt of at least some of the profits. Risk of violent victimization refers here to victimization of prostitute, not of customer.
Impact on community refers to effects on the surrounding neighborhood`s quality of life.
The InternationalCenter for Combating Human Trafficking, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Pornography and Sex Industry
The InternationalCenter for Combating Human Trafficking, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Pornography and Sex Industry a non-profit organization working as special consultative status with United Nations Human Rights Council - OHCHR
THE CENTER WORK WITH UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHT
Sex work involves the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers (prostitution, lap dancing) as well as indirect sexual stimulation (pornography, stripping, telephone sex, live sex shows, erotic webcam performances). The sex industry refers to the workers, managers, owners, agencies, clubs, trade associations, and marketing involved in sexual commerce, both legal and illegal varieties.