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SURVEY ON THE CRIMINALISATION OF CLIENTS IN FRANCE – 25 MARCH 2015
98% OF SEX WORKERS ARE AGAINST THE CRIMINALISATION OF CLIENTS
Executive Summary of Survey Findings
The Project
The survey on the criminalisation of clients is part of the project Emborders : problematising
sexual humanitarianism through experimental filmmaking. The project compares the impact
of humanitarian interventions targeting migrant sex workers and sexual minority asylum
seekers in the UK (London) and France (Marseille/Paris). Its methodological approach
combines participant observation, the undertaking of 100 semi-structured qualitative
interviews and the production of two experimental ethnographic films (ethnofictions).
Between March 2014 and March 2015 the qualitative approach of the project was completed
with a survey of 500 women, men and transgender people working in the sex industry in
order to find out what they thought about the criminalisation of the purchase of sex in France.
Methodology
In all of the street and offline contexts of the research the questionnaire was delivered
individually and attention was paid to make sure that the participant was able to respond
freely. Questions have been asked in a neutral and not leading way in order to secure the
objectivity and reliability of the survey results.
Extra care was taken to avoid the results being influenced by the presence of onlookers and
particularly of gatekeepers, managers, pimps and people belonging to criminal networks
having a vested interest regarding the outcome of the questionnaire.
Participants were explicitly asked to provide false names and no pressure was exerted to fill
the questionnaires. Respondents participated spontaneously as they felt that the
criminalisation of clients was putting their lives and jobs in danger.
The survey was conducted with 500 sex workers between March 2014 and March 2015.
Respondents include a majority of women, as well as men and trans working in the main jobs
available in the French sex industry. Trans workers include a majority identifying as women
as well as a minority of trans men.
78 % of respondents are street workers, the remaining are off-street sex workers and escorts,
including domination services.
39% of respondents are French, the remaining being migrants living and working in France
from the most relevant countries of origin including Algeria, Brazil, Cameroon, China,
Colombia, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, and Romania, these being the 10 largest migrant
groups encountered.
Respondents were recruited both through social support projects and directly through their
work contacts (phone, websites, street, etc.) in a deliberate effort to avoid the usual over-
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representation of subjects seeking help and thus contribute to the widespread perception of
sex workers as exclusively victimised.
The project adopted a participative ethical approach, characterised by the inclusion of people
working in the sex industry or for organisations representing and supporting sex workers in
the formulation of the research questions, as well as in the gathering and analysis of the
interview material.
Supporting organisations include: Acceptess – T (Paris), Bus des Femmes (Paris), Lotusbus
(Paris), Cabiria (Lyon), and Griselidis (Toulouse), as well as the STRASS (Paris and internet
surveys).
The questionnaire was translated into English, Spanish, Chinese, Romanian and Bulgarian.
The combined linguistic skills of the Principal Investigator (PI), of the postdoctoral
researcher and of the project based researchers and volunteers that were involved in the
gathering of the questionnaire meant that we were able to offer migrant workers the
possibility of being interviewed in a variety of languages, including: Albanian, French,
English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Main findings
98 % of all respondents are against the criminalisation of clients, which they see as
increasing their vulnerability to violence and poverty by pushing the industry
underground and discouraging safer clients.
The small minority of respondents who were in favour of the criminalisation of clients were
planning to leave the sex industry soon, which further corroborates the finding that people
working in the sex industry are overwhelmingly against it.
Many respondents, both migrants and non-migrants, felt that the effects of the criminalisation
of clients had partially been anticipated as prices had decreased and safer clients stopped
calling for fear of being fined.
These are the words of a 27 French escort based in Paris:
The threat of criminalisation in the near future has already scared away some of my clients: the most respectful
ones.
And these are the words of a 40 years old Algerian transvestite selling sex on the streets of
Marseille:
It is already happened. Every time there they talk about the law on TV clients go down, and then they come up
again, slowly. I now do for 20 what I would not have even considered doing for 40 just a year ago. I get on cars
I would not have gotten into. There are no clients. So you have to get what you can.
Relationship to trafficking and consent
The questionnaire included four questions addressing the extent of trafficking in the French
sex industry. A first question asked respondents whether they though they had decided to
work in the sex industry for themselves. A second question asked respondents whether they
had subsequently decided to work in the sex industry, if they had not decided initially, in
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order to measure the possibility of voluntary implication after the first experiences of
coercion. A third question asked respondents if they were aware that they were going to sell
sex in France before leaving their country of origin. Finally a fourth question asked
respondents if they sold sex to repay their debts with those who had helped them migrate.
These four questions have been formulated in order to understand if the experiences of
migration and sex work of survey participants corresponded to the definitions of trafficking
provided by the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human
Beings1
‘Trafficking in human beings’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception,
of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual
exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of
organs.
In order to identify respondents whose experiences of migration and sex work match this
definition we decided to adopt an inclusive approach. We considered as potential victims of
trafficking all those who indicated that they did not decide to work in the sex industry, those
who did not know that they were going to sell sex before coming to France and all those who
indicated that they were selling sex in order to repay debts with people who had helped them
migrate.
According to these questions and criteria 33 migrant respondents can be considered as
potential victims of trafficking, corresponding to approximately 7% of the total sample, 11%
of all migrant respondents and 15% of all migrant female respondents. These are 6 women
from Ghana, 25 women from Nigeria and 2 women from Sierra Leone.
A large minority (38%) of the Nigerian women we contacted did not decide to work in the
sex industry. They indicated that economic problems and the lack of legal status (papers)
were the two constraints under which they felt had no choice but to sell sex.
That fact that these were the same factors that made all the remaining 62% of women decide
to sell sex highlights the relevance of the economic dimension in the vulnerability of
Nigerian women to trafficking. All of them felt under pressure from the necessity to help
their families and were hoping to obtain the legal documentation allowing them to work
outside the sex industry.
All Nigerian women, and particularly those who felt that they did not decide to work in the
sex industry, were strongly against the criminalisation of clients, which they felt would have
made it even more difficult to meet their economic needs. These shared concerns are best
expressed in the words of Joy, a 20 years old Nigerian woman working in Paris:
No, I did not decide, what was I going to do? My family is suffering in Nigeria and I have no papers, what else
can I do? They should give us papers instead of fining clients! It is only going to make things more difficult for
us than they are already. They should give us work if they want us to stop doing this!
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1 http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/197.htm
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The survey addressed directly existing assumptions that the majority of migrant sex workers
are trafficked and therefore structurally unable to consent to sell sex. Its answers confirm
that:
- The vast majority of respondents (89% of migrants, 93% of all respondents and
85% of migrant women) decided to work in the sex industry.
- Only a minority of migrants (11% of all migrants women, men and trans and
15% of migrant women) did not decide to work in the sex industry.
- The lack of legal documentation and economic constraints are the two key
factors influencing respondents’ decision to work in the sex industry.
As these four questions address criminal activities eliciting the surveillance of police and
traffickers extra care was taken to survey migrants individually and only after they were
familiar with researchers and reassured that we were not associates of the police or of the
people potentially controlling them.
The fact that a substantial number of women revealed that they did not decide to work in the
sex industry shows that it is possible to obtain direct answers regarding sensitive issues such
as pimping and trafficking when research is carried out ethically and professionally through
the participation of sex workers and the organisations that represent and support them.
Marseille, 25 March 2015
Nicola Mai