Doing criminological research 1
Sex work
Literature review
Prostitution, sometimes is referred to as one of the world’s oldest professions and yet
many people may argue and say that prostitution is not a job and never will be. There are many different types of sexual services whether there is direct physical contact or whether the seller is working independently e.g. on the street or working through third party for example a pimp, brother or some sort of agency. An Online survey has been carried out from June to December 2018, which has received 1180 responses in totaland of which 529 so that would be 45% were individuals identifying themselves as sex workers. While selling sex is legal in the UK, owning or managing a brothel is not however it is okay to work in one because technically sex workers do not own it somebody else does so therefore they cannot get prosecuted. Erotic and Exotic dances are known to be one of the services they offer as well as erotic massage. Independent and agency escorting is also what they offer however these can be outside the brother such as sex parties, pornography, street sex and telephone, text- based, TV-based, live voyeurism (Matolcsi et al., 2020).
Like having some form of risk at every job this one is not any different in fact when
talking about sex work there are many more problems issues sex workers face on daily basis for example unintended pregnancies. High number of unintended pregnancies may very often lead to abortions. According to the research report the reason for such high number of unintended pregnancies are sex workers missing monthly contraceptive supplies because of inconvenient clinic operating hours or perhaps skipped contraceptive pills after consuming drugs or alcohol. Female sex workers have a higher need for contraceptive pills compared to women in the general population which is evident from the high numbers of unintended pregnancies. The fear of losing income during pregnancy is also another reason for sex workers to have an abortion done (Faini et al., 2020). HIV among sex workers is a problematic issue today because unlike rest of the public sex workers are less likely to go doctors and get it treated. Globally HIVincidents are slowing however HIV among sex workers are increasing. Around 1 in 10 sex workers are estimated to be living with HIV all around the world (Lyons et al., 2020).
Sex work stigma is pervasive in the general population, and among mental health
professionals e.g. relationships therapist and therefore such stigma can lead to unfair
treatment of commercial sex work. Although there is a clear need for guidelines for
mental health, no guidelines have been developed so far. Therefore, drawing on
feminist, multicultural and sex positive philosophies (Antebi-Gruszka, Spence and
Jendrzejewski, 2019) have come up with 10 guidelines specifically designed to increase mental health self-awareness. The first guideline talks about an access to engagement in sex work, guideline 2 talks about the importance of affirming commercial sex workers right after they share their engagement in sex work. Guideline 3 talks about accepting sex work as a legitimate occupation, guideline 4 talks about trying to not overestimate and underestimate the significance of engaging in sex work for commercial sex work.
Guideline 5 is about becoming self-aware of explicit and implicit biases towards sex
work. Guideline 6 is quite important one as it talks about educating oneself how society treats sex work and what are the possible harmful effects on the well- being of
commercial sex worker. These are few of the guidelines that have been listen in order to get an idea of someof the (Antebi-Gruszka, Spence and Jendrzejewski, 2019) work.
Some get into sex work industry because they feel like that is the right job for them
however on the other hand many women have no choice but sell their bodies in
exchange for money. This is why today there are several programmes that helps women transition out of sex work e.g. ‘exit doors here’ programme which works with women to create some changes in their lives, this programme have recently seen a dramatic increase which shows the effectiveness of this programme (Shareck, Buhariwala, Hassan and O’Campo, 2020).
Research aims and objectives;
The aim of the research is to explore the lived experience of being a sex worker whether there have been any regrets in choosing this specific profession or the other way around. What made them choose this profession or perhaps they did not have a choice but do what they had to do in order to survive.
The objectives are;
1. To be able to help and educate women on the consequences and risk factors of being a sex worker.
2.Evaluate the effectiveness of some of today’s programmes and analyse how effective these programmes.
3. Explore the issue of violence within sex work and be able to reach for the right source of help when is needed.
4. Explain such high numbers of unintended pregnancy and why do women not ask for help
5. Develop and present a research based on face to face interaction with the sex worker
Methodology
This proposal research will involve the collection of secondary data. This interview will need to be designed in a way which is sensitive to the needs of the
participants because they may not be mentally stable enough to speak about their
experience right away so it will be necessary to be prepared for potentially
unpredictable splash of emotions during the interview. The main reason for having in- depth qualitative research is to try and dig into the unique phrases and emotions that participants will ascribe to their experiences and try to fully engage with an ongoing topic so that the participant does not feel like he/she are being judged in any form.
This will reflect the level of care which will be taken to ensure that the interview is a good experience for the participant, rather than one in which participant does not feel safe and welcomed by the interviewer which may lead a participant to burst in tears and possible flashbacks. It would be even better if interviewers had a knowledge of stress and anxiety management techniques to ensure that if the interviewer does trigger the dark parts of participant’s memory then the interviewer would know how to calm the participant down right away. This research approach will reflect on subjectivism which is believed to be suitable for the investigation as people have their own ideas and it will be in subjectivism way that the result will be conducted. The methodology will be based oninterviews, qualitative, interpretivism and subjectivism (Bryman, 2016).
The researcher will conduct 5 interviews with 5 different participants with an aim to
minimise numbers of participants in one interview so it is better if all interviews are face to face with no more than one participant at the time which will help to get a good understanding of participant’s experience. This research will have a face to face semi- structured interviews in order to understand the effect of working within sex industry.
The reason why a semi-structured interview has been chosen is because in semi-
structured interview it is okay not to strictly follow a formalized list of questions and
instead the questions can be more open-ended questions allowing a good discussion to take place rather than having an interview where straightforward questions are being asked and having formal answers because in that way no participant would be able to speak as freely as someone in semi-structured interview would. The strength of this type of proposed research method is that it gives interviewer sometime to prepare questions beforehand to help and guide the conversation encouraging two way communication.
Another strength of this type of proposed research method is its high validity and it is fairly easy to analyse. Last but not least structured interviews feel more like a
conversation which again is suitable for sex work topic and it can be sensitive.
However there are some weaknesses such as there is not guarantee in participants honesty which would then lead to incorrect answers which would then make open-ended questions difficult to analyse. For secondary data journal sources will be used to get better understanding of sex work. The qualitative result gained from the interviews will be used in two ways, firstly it will be compared to secondary data and then to the practice.
The interview will also be recorded as a part of the research.
Ethical Consideration
One of the main ethical consideration is to pay close attention to not to cause any further distress to the participant. For example by asking a questions in a certain way may cause distress to participant this is why the interviewer has to be extra caution and not forget that these women perhaps have had a very serious reason for choosing such dangerous profession, so therefore the questions will have to designed in a way in which the participants will feel safe and comfortable enough to answer them without having an emotional breakdown or worse. This topic is a sensitive topic as it is not psychologically easy for people to talk about their reasons and experience along with it therefore this study might cause potential splash of emotions to the individual. Appropriate approach at the start of the interview is also very important and should be taken into ethical consideration.
It is very crucial to abide by the British Psychological Society’s Code of
Ethnics (Code of Ethics and Conduct, 2009). The participants must be aware of the rights they have during and after the interview. Participants do not have to answer anything that they do not wish to do so by any reasons as well as they have the right to take a break any time they wish or withdraw. All of the collected data from interviews will be confidential which means only authorised individuals will be able to have an access to the data and nobody else (Data protection, 2018). At the end of the project all data will be destroyed and all audio data will also be Destroyed as part of data protection Act 2018. It is against the law to keep somebody’s personal data such as the persons racial of ethnic origin, physical or mental health condition, religious beliefs and personal information such as home address and contact number after the participants consent of giving that information ends. Ethical consideration can be specified to be as one of the most important parts of the research. According to Bryman and Bell (2007) the following points represent the most important values related to ethnical consideration:
1. Participants should not be exposed to harm in any way
2. Respect participants dignity
3. Full consent should be obtained
4. Ensured protection of the participants privacy
5. Confidentiality of the research data must be ensured
6. Anonymity of the participants must be ensured
7. All exaggeration of the research must be avoided
8. Ensure that the research is done with honesty
9. Any biased findings or misleading information of primary data must be avoided
Referencing
Antebi-Gruszka, N., Spence, D. and Jendrzejewski, S., 2019. Guidelines for mental health practice with clients who engage in sex work. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 34(3), pp.339-354.
Bell, E. and Bryman, A., 2007. The Ethics of Management Research: An Exploratory Content Analysis. British Journal of Management, 18(1), pp.63-77.
2009. Code of Ethics and Conduct. The British Psychological Society, pp.2-26.
GOV.UK. 2018. Data protection. [online] Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/data-protection> [Accessed 20 February 2021].
Faini, D., Munseri, P., Bakari, M., Sandström, E., Faxelid, E. and Hanson, C., 2020. “I did not plan to have a baby. This is the outcome of our work”: a qualitative study exploring unintended pregnancy among female sex workers. BMC Women’s Health, 20(1), pp.2-5.
Lyons, C., Schwartz, S., Murray, S., Shannon, K., Diouf, D., Mothopeng, T., Kouanda, S., Simplice, A., Kouame, A., Mnisi, Z., Tamoufe, U., Phaswana-Mafuya, N., Cham, B., Drame, F., Aliu Djaló, M. and Baral, S., 2020. The role of sex work laws and stigmas in increasing HIV risks among sex workers. Nature Communications, 11(1), pp.1-9.
Matolcsi, A., Mulvihill, N., Lilley-Walker, S., Lanau, A. and Hester, M., 2020. The Current Landscape of Prostitution and Sex Work in England and Wales. Sexuality & Culture, 25(1), pp.39-57.
Shareck, M., Buhariwala, P., Hassan, M. and O’Campo, P., 2020. Helping women transition out of sex work: study protocol of a mixed-methods process and outcome evaluation of a sex work exiting program. BMC Women’s Health, 20(1), pp.2-9.
