This chapter focuses on cis and trans sex workers’ experiences with law enforcement, and how various regimes of regulating sex work including full and partial criminalisation, legalisation, and decriminalisation shape the human rights and the work environments of sex workers globally including access to occupational health and safety, police protection, and legal recourse. Criminalisation and policing of sex work constitute forms of structural violence that perpetuate and exacerbate experiences of interpersonal violence and negative health outcomes among sex workers globally. Country spotlights from the global North and South provide examples of different regimes of regulation and draw attention to how laws and regulations interact with specific work environments in various settings to shape sex workers’ lived experiences of health, safety, and human rights. This chapter highlights how various approaches to criminalising and policing sex work undermine sex workers’ safety, health and human rights, including violence and poor health and concludes with an evidence-based call for the decriminalisation of sex work globally.
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