Vulnerability and involvement in drug use and ... - Sex Work Europe

Particularly strong correlates of youth prostitution appear to be homelessness; running away;
experience of life on the street; a desire for money especially where linked to drug use; and
being ‘looked after’ in local authority care.
It is important to establish that although there are many risk factors and predictors of entry to
sex work, authors virtually never argue that any of these variables d i r e c t l y causes an
individual to become involved in sex work, nor that any of these factors are necessary for
e n t ry into sex work. Hot debates however, do continue about the nature of corre l a t i o n s
between childre n ’s experience of sexual abuse and their subsequent involvement in sex
work. Some authors such as McMullen (1987) hypothesise a direct causal link in which
abuse produces loss of self-worth, indifference to treatment and in which abuse is seen as
rehearsal for sex work. Others, such as West and de Villiers, (1992) argue that any causal
link is indirect with intervening connections such as running away, living in local authority
care, or indulgence in risky or adventurous activity (such as adolescent crime sprees) having
an associating role. This ‘indirect causation’ model considers child prostitution a surv i v a l
s t r a t e g y. Still other writers have questioned connections between sexual abuse and sex
work. Widom and Ames (1994) write:
there is an assumption in the literature that there is a direct pathway between being
sexually abused as a child, becoming a runaway as an adolescent and then
becoming a prostitute as an adult. This study provides clear support for the first part
of this relationship: that is, abused and neglected children in general are significantly
more likely to be runaways than control children… These findings do not provide
support for the notion that there is a direct causal link between childhood
victimisation, becoming a runaway and in turn becoming an adult prostitute. T h e
adults arrested for prostitution were not the runaways in this sample.
(Widom and Ames, 1994: 312)
Nadon and colleagues (1998) compared young sex working women with a control gro u p
of women matched for background and situational factors but not involved in sex work.
The sex worker sample were no more likely to have suff e red childhood abuse or family
disfunction, but were more likely (87% compared with 61%) to re p o rt having run away
f rom home.
Whatever the power of personal experience to incline a person towards involvement in sex
work, this can still only be possible in specific cultural conditions. The phenomenon of
commercial sex has the sexual double standard, poverty and an unequal labour market as
prerequisites. It should not be expected that sex work will either disappear or occur with
Introduction
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