Beyond Decriminalization: Sex-work, Human Rights and a New ...

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PIVOT LEGAL SOCIETYSex workers supported job training as a vehicle for providing sexual-health education. A sex workbusiness owner described the training that takes place for her staff:104A. It [training] should be huge. I mean – when we hire people and we tell them, y’know,we book them to come in for training, they laugh at us. It’s like, for training? Whatdo you mean? They are thinking, I have done this before, what are you possibly goingto tell me to do? And they – they laugh at us. But it – we like to sit down and gothrough everything. A lot of it is just administrative stuff. Well, y’know, this is whatyou need to clean in a room, when you are finished, and this is what you need toreplace. And this is y’know, where the laundry goes. A lot of it’s just administrativestuff. But we spend a huge amount of time talking about hygiene. And what goes onin a room. Because what goes on before a girl goes into the room, and what goes onwhen a girl comes out of the room, we see. All of that. So if there’s things we wantsomeone to do differently, or need them to do – Oh no, we don’t put that there, wedo that there. And oh yeah, you have hand prints all over the mirror, you need togo in there and clean that. Y’know that’s stuff that we see. We could correct it, andeveryone eventually will – will fall into place. But what goes on in that room for anhour, we don’t see. And if someone is jeopardizing their health, you don’t want to findabout it a month later. So you need to be pro-active and y’know we – our trainingprobably, is only three hours long – but you can’t make it any longer than that. Peopledon’t have the attention span, they are not hearing you anymore, they are not listeningto you anymore. So, we really need to sit down and tell people what is a health risk. Weget a lot of people who have worked for a very long time, and they already know thesethings. A lot of people that have worked a long time and don’t know these things. We geta lot of people who have never worked before and they are very naive, very mouldable.Very vulnerable. And you could tell them to do anything and they would do it. And it’s– it’s horrible because there’s many places that do.- female massage parlour owner, former sex workerIt was commonly felt that the employer should be responsible for providing and covering the cost ofthe training, and that training should be mandatory:Q. And what about training on the job? What sorts of training should an employerprovide?A. Well, now, see, I’m not sure that it’s an employer that should provide the training. Ithink that before somebody is hired, it should be compulsory, regardless, I mean, thisgoes all the way back to whatever level we’re talking, I don’t care if you find somebodyout on the street and the first time say sorry before we see you on the streets the nexttime we want a certificate that says you did this training, and, and it’s mandatoryand if you don’t do it, we’ll make you sit through class . . . and it doesn’t even haveto be class, it can be on a videotape, so there’s no real good excuse to say, somebody’sworking, um, for six weeks without taking this course, it’s like sit down and watchthis video. Um, and then, you know, come out tomorrow and work. But, but, Imean, it should be, it should be multi, multi-faceted. I mean, sure you’ve got yoursexually transmitted diseases, and how to prevent them. Unwanted pregnancies theyshould have, as uh. Personal safety too, all the possible scenarios. They’ve got themon TV, these things are easy to tape, to put a compilation together. They shouldn’t gofurther than that though, they should teach people about good health, uh, where theycan go for drug addictions and counselling, and twelve step programs and ADACand things like that, and other resources, shelters. All the things that people need to
BEYOND DECRIMINALIZATION: Sex Work, Human Rights and a New Framework for Law Reformknow as a foundation, so that if they ever want to change their course they can, andthen it should be realistic enough to say that some people will never change theircourse so let’s give them something to aim for.- female off-street out-call sex workerMany sex workers stressed that training should cover occupational health and safety. Sex workersdescribed how this type of training is currently taking place in some workplaces:A. We have policy there and we go through training and if anyone is caught doinganything without protection, they are going to get fired. But nobody knows what goeson behind closed doors right? So . . . I noticed that in the massage parlour everybodyis very careful and nobody wants to do anything that puts their health at risk.- female off-street in-call sex workerIn addition to health and safety training, some sex workers felt that the employer should providetraining on specialized types of sex work, such as bondage. Project participants stated that sex workersshould help to develop such training programs:Q. Should there be training for sex workers on how to do their job?A. Yes.Q. If so who should provide it? If so what sort of training?A. The employer.A. The employer.A. The employer so if there’s a “bondage and discipline house” who’s going to provide allthe training, have certain little classes.A. Training classes.A. Because they need to be trained.Q. What should the training be? Let’s talk a bit about what a training session wouldentail. It’s kinda interesting.A. You learn things I think as you work and those are the kinds of things you wishsomeone had told you. Right? Does anyone have any of those?A. Oh ya, I do.Q. So what should it include?A. Like a client comes in maybe at a discounted price and the trainee sits and watchesin the corner I guess.A. They could also have like a couple of transformation dates when they want to betransformed into a woman. We call those transformation dates.A. Cross dressing.A. Ya, cross dressing dates so they have those also.Q. Training people on how to do that?A. It could be non sexual too.A. What about oral? You have to train a girl how to give head.Q. What kind of stuff on safety?A. For example a lot of the kits that they’re handing out on the street will advocate puttinglube on a condom. It’s not really an idea if you’re working because it slips off.A. Uh huh, it slips off.A. It’s good for head. It’s not good for sex. That’s an important mistake that I made soyou know I wouldn’t want to see girls making that mistake.Q. What else? What about something like self defence or protection from . . .A. Oh definitely.A. Yes.105
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