Thread by @EllyArrow

Every femicide in the sex trade warrants action and no country is doing enough to stop men using lethal violence against women in #prostitution. But the radio silence on the recent case of a woman murdered in a German apartment brothel, compared to the Irish case is deafening.

I don't think anyone can prove their case on what policy is better based on homicide data alone because as far as I'm aware no country is tracking murders of women in prostitution specifically. The cases and survivor reports we do have indicate lethal violence is a concern always

In any country, call it "legalization", "liberalization" or "decrim" women in #prostitution are given advice on how to not get robbed, raped, and murdered on the job from organizations that speak of #sexwork. Clearly, it remains a significant concern under all models of law.

Murders of women in prostitution happen in every sector of the trade - streets, brothels, escorting - and are consistently mostly perpetrated by johns & pimps. Granted johns are the biggest group of men women interact with. Still this means fearing the customer as part of the job

In every country, no matter the law, men who rob, batter, rape, and kill women in #prostitution are very often the same ones who purchase access to their bodies on the regular. A mentality of women as emotional, physical, and sexual punching bags abounds.

In every country, no matter the law, the sex trade is largely clandestine cause johns want it so. They are often in relationships or otherwise have a reputation to protect. Women in relatively anonymous apartments are the norm (though if you know where, you can find them online).

Murders also happen in very visible prostitution establishments with security systems and many people who know what goes on inside reduxx.info/netherlands-me… so it's not that making it slightly less clandestine stops lethal violence, but still apartments remain the preferred form.

The pro-prostitution lobby argues the best response to is women not "working" alone best enabled by removing all related bureaucracy so you can open an apartment brothel anywhere anytime. I agree women shouldnt be punished for sharing apartments but this too doesn't stop killers.

Not only is a legal but completely unregulated zero oversight apartment brothel market a gift to traffickers (see how New Zealand mini brothels have rotations of Asian women in them most of the time, certainly not feminist co-ops) there are double homicides in apartment brothels.

Many an aggressive man can take two women at once. I've read repeatedly of women who ran in to help a "colleague" being injured or killed by a man with a knife. A large number of men are also capable of killing women with their bare hands - suffocation/strangulation is not rare.

The pro-prostitution lobby refuses to acknowledge:

1) Almost all men are stronger than almost all women
2) Being naked and engaging in sex acts makes a woman inherently vulnerable
3) Prostitution is inherently dehumanizing & inspires misogynistic violence

This will never change

While I think its important to remember the individual murder victims as people as I did for 4 decades of German femicides in the sex trade here ellyarrow.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/who… The conversation that needs to happen after every homicide is not about the individual but structural situation

No country has managed to put a working security system in place for prostitution. You shouldn't need an elaborate security system when being intimate with smn. If you need one that means its not safe & something is very wrong. Rape and femicide should not be occupational hazards

I actually support harm reduction measures such as distributing condoms, self-defense classes etc. but never ever tell a woman it's up to her not to get traumatized or murdered in the sex trade (and I see a lot of that in the highly individualized #sexwork discourse).

We must phase out an industry that makes men view women as quick dehumanized sexual "relief stations", where bodies are rated down to "labia quality", where sexual boundaries are at the mercy of market forces & trends in porn and he thinks he owns her at least for the next 30 min

Read the "Why?" section of this text on #prostitution homicide in Germany to see how the idea that he gets to kill her is an escalation of the basic misogynistic sexual entitlement and the idea of women as "born greedy nymphos" that underpins the industry. ellyarrow.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/who…