je ne suis pas furieuse contre moi-même

Hélène Le Bail’s study, made public on Thursday, shows that the decrease in the number of clients forces sex workers to lower their prices and put themselves in danger

By Gaëlle Dupont

The report is scathing: “The prostitution law [which criminalised clients] endangers the people it was supposed to protect,” concludes Hélène Le Bail, a researcher at CNRS and the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI - International Study and Research Centre). Since the law was voted on on the 13th of April 3016, she has carried out a thorough investigation into sex workers on behalf of a dozen organisations, published on Thursday the 12th of April.

These organisations - among them Médecins du monde, les Amis du bus des femmes, le planning familial [Family Planning], le Syndicat des travailleurs du sexe (Strass) [a sex workers’ rights organisation] – were always opposed to the law, especially to the criminalisation of clients, fearing its consequences.

“We investigated hypotheses on the negative impact of the law on the health and safety of people,” reports Le Bail, herself a volunteer with Médecins du monde. “These hypotheses were sadly confirmed. The real situation is even worse.”

In total, 70 individual interviews were carried out, 38 additional people were interviewed through targeted meetings. A quantitative investigation allowed the opinions of 583 sex workers to be collected and 25 organisations were interviewed. Not a representative sample, but a significant one, especially for a population which is difficult to contact.

Fewer clients

One of the principal findings of the report is that clients, targeted by a fine of up to 1,500€, are less numerous - this despite the small number of verbalisations [similar to a police report?], as slightly more than 2000 clients have been punished. This was the objective of the law: to fight prostitution by discouraging the demand.

However, the effect is less pronounced on sex work that is advertised online. Furthermore, the decrease in street-based clients is accompanied by a significant decline in the already-precarious living conditions of sex workers (of whom 85% are women): lower incomes, difficulties with housing, buying food, and so on, according to the study.

These problems are confirmed in the reported accounts, like that of Yacine*, an Algerian travesti [typically translated as transvestite although the identity can be more complex]: “He asks me “how much is it?” I tell him it’s 30 euros. He says, “Ah, no, I only have ten.” Previously I wouldn’t have accepted this. Even my friends wouldn’t take 10 euros. But now I’ll accept it.” Or that of Grace, a Nigerian woman: “It’s different because they know there aren’t many clients. They take a risk by coming to see me, so they want me to lower the price.”

Thus some sex workers work longer hours, and demands for bareback services are more common and more frequently accepted in order to attempt to counteract the loss of income for street-based workers.

A lack of money, “we take the risk anyway”

“Good clients”, who accepted the rules established from the beginning, are becoming rarer. “We don’t have any money, so if we run into bad clients, we take the risk anyway,” Min, à Chinese woman, reports. Marie, a Frenchwoman, has thought about “possibly accepting clients from [her] blacklist once again.” In order to reassure their clients, the sex workers interviewed in this study wait in more isolated, darker places, which increases the risk of violence. The repeal of soliciting as an offence, which was part of the law, has not improved the situation. Many sex workers remain wary of the police, either because they have no papers (the large majority are foreigners), or because the municipalities where they work make anti prostitution arrests.

The last part of the law, pertaining to exiting sex work, which allows a person to receive compensation and a temporary residence permit if they quit work, took a long time to be implemented. Currently, it does not appear to be very attractive for the majority of those interviewed, notably due to the small amount of compensation (330€/month [for reference, the poverty line in France is set at around 1000€/month according to the information I was able to find: https://www.thelocal.fr/20171109/revealed-the-truth-about-poverty-in-france-in-2017 ]). Only fifty or so applications have been filled out, some of which were refused because of unwillingness to offer residency permits.

Organisation which support the law (Mouvement du nid, collectif Abolition 2012) continue to defend the principle and have planned protests for Thursday to support “its complete and entire application.”