Sex Work and Mental Health project releases findings
28 July 2021
The Sex Work and Mental Health Project have recently published their report on sex workers’ access to and experiences of mental health services across Europe. The project, led by Dr.Giulia Garofalo, Dr. PG Macioti, and Professor Nicola Mai, tries to understand sex workers’ mental health issues and needs as well as their experiences of mental health services and support available to them.
The key recommendations from the report are:
- Fully decriminalise sex work, including third parties, sex work clients and migrant sex work.
- Involve sex workers in decision and policy making from their inception. address sex work stigma by introducing targeted anti-discrimination laws and funding anti-stigma campaigns.
- Acknowledge existing stigma and safeguard sex workers’ anonymity, abolishing the filing and registration of sex workers, and expunging any pre-existing records (including health and criminal ones) about their work
And for services within the UK specifically to:
- Fund specialised, anonymous, and free peer to peer mental health support services for and by sex workers, accessible by all workers regardless of their residence status.
- Stop all filing of sex workers by the NHS and expunge all existing records.
- Fund and provide intersectional anti-stigma training ran by sex workers to all NHS practitioners, mental health as well as other health professionals.
- Fund and promote training to become a counsellor or therapist for sex workers / peer educators.
- Decriminalise all sex work, including by migrant sex workers.
You can read the full report from the study here. An abridged summary by George, NUM’s Mental Health Support Services Co-ordinator, can also be found here.