ILPC 2027

The legal status of sex workers is one of the most highly debated public policy issues during the last 15 years. In recent years, sex workers have begun to organize in trade unions. However, domestic policies governing sex work vary greatly between nations, ranging from complete bans to different degrees of legality and regulation. This evidently has an impact on the possibility for sex workers  to organize in unions, but also raises the question of how and why policy on labor rights for sex workers looks so different in different domestic settings. Different ideas on what sex work is considered as; a form of labour or a form of mens act of violence against women, can act as constraints or opportunities for both labor unions seeking to organize workers and this particular group of workers who seek to unionize. 

Previously, the study of sex worker unionization has mainly centred around industrial relations and the recent changes in state regulations which has provided sex wok with greater legitimacy pushing them to organize. However, to be able to explain the presence or absence of the development of trade union organization for sex workers it is of great importance to include not only the perspective of an emerging sex as work discourse in cases where the development of sex worker organization is most advanced, but the barriers to sex work organization in cases where ideas of sex work as a form of opression has influenced policy. Furthermore, an analysis of not only stakeholder perspectives, but ideas carried by public authorities and policymakers is of great significance. 

Thus, this paper takes an ideational approach and investigates the influence ideas have on policy outcome by looking at Sweden, a case where domestic ideas on sex work have affected the labor movement to exclude sex workers. To demonstrate how domestic ideas have been used, and consequently influenced policy outcome, the Swedish ideational framework affecting how sex work is perceived is examined by looking at the development of the 1999 “sex purchase law” banning the procuring, albeit, not selling of sexual services. Furthermore, two Swedish labour union representatives were interviewed. 

The paper finds that the impact of domestic ideas regarding gender equality managed to block the possibility of a joint statements on how to deal with the organisation of sex-workers. This has implications, not only for the study of domestic ideas as an explanatory variable for policy outcome, but for the stakeholders.