SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY
Number of sex workers
Sex industry in Lithuania widely exists. Since it is illegal it is difficult to provide adequate statistics, but according to various sources there might be 5000 – 8000 of people involved in sex work in Lithuania. A big part of sex industry are sex workers working in bad conditions – on the streets and in the ports. Main problems they face are access to health services, social disjuncture, low self-esteem, abuse and social problems.
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY
Number of sex workers
Sex industry in Lithuania widely exists. Since it is illegal it is difficult to provide adequate statistics, but according to various sources there might be 5000 – 8000 of people involved in sex work in Lithuania. A big part of sex industry are sex workers working in bad conditions – on the streets and in the ports. Main problems they face are access to health services, social disjuncture, low self-esteem, abuse and social problems.
Entry reasons
Reasons for people to involve in sex work are complex, connected to social factors, sexual abuse, economical or other reasons. According to sex workers themselves, providing sex services is unpleasant and dangerous work, always threatening their health and life. But sex work is the only way to earn money for many of them. They identify low education, lack of work experience, drug use and income higher than from other work they could do as the reasons to engage in sex work.
Availability of information
In Lithuania there is not much information about sex workers and sex industry, it is not collected and analyzed properly, institutions hardly share data they have. Lack of information and other institutions’ initiatives are identified as one of obstacles to evaluate the situation and to successfully improve service-providing network.
Legislation – need to decriminalize
Legislation regulating sex work is exclusively strict – punishing both sex service providers and those using their services. Without additional research it is difficult to evaluate how really the legislative regulation is implemented. The data and opinions available in this study showed that legislative regulation is problematic. Professionals and a part of society don’t support current legislative regulations of sex work, and a big part of society hasn’t got strong opinion. Professionals working with sex work issues often agree that decriminalization of sex work is needed, whereas sex workers themselves avoid publicity and often don’t give clear statement of their opinion on which kind of legislative status would be more appropriate for them.
Problems sex workers face
Problems sex workers face are physical and psychological abuse, threat, judging attitude of society, conflicts with clients, policemen, and other sex workers. Sex workers prefer to solve these problems themselves, not hoping for help, being afraid to approach institutions for help (because of negative attitudes, illegal nature of their work, not having documents) or not knowing about the institutions which provide services. Often sex workers have low self-esteem and this adds to the general negative attitude of society to those providing sex services.
Available services
Sex workers identify some reliable institutions and organizations in Lithuania, mostly those providing specific services for people involved in prostitution, drug users and other vulnerable groups. Most needed help for sex workers are counseling of professionals, such as social workers, doctors, psychologists.
Problems with service providers
The main disadvantage in organizing and implementing legislative model, identified in this research, is lack of collaboration of institutions. Most institutions dealing with sex work issues work separately, collaborating only with some organizations of same towns or cities. There are separate organizations and institutions intending to collaborate with others, but most often they are waiting for initiatives from others and there is no official policy how collaboration should be organized.
Another problem are the involved professionals, low quality of their training and motivation, lack of long-term plans to work in the field, often due to short-term funding, aptitude to punish and judge people, rather then provide help, etc.
The way to solve the problems
According to researchers, it is possible to solve these issues. One of the ways to do it is to involve sex workers in education and also in decision making about what kind of services which should be provided and how they should be organized. Another enabling strategy would be to better inform policy makers and involved institutions about the current situation and provide them with social, medical and economical facts.
REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS
For policy makers and responsible ministries:
– To acknowledge that in solving sex work issues the status of sex workers is extremely important.
– To come to an agreement that an integrated model should be created that would link law enforcement, social, health care and education functions; to decide who is responsible for developing such a model and how to ensure its long-term funding.
– To create a coordinating body on the national and regional levels which would help implement and improve the service provision network and address other sex work issues.
– To give more attention to public debates and discussions of specialists about sex work, sex worker situation and legal regulation basing these discussion on rational arguments and evidence.
– To ensure that in public discussions of politicians and specialists and in addressing sex work issues the opinion of sex workers would be presented (through representatives, surveys, etc.).
– To avoid gender discrimination In legal acts and in public discussions, namely the presumptions that sex workers are only women.
For law-enforcement institutions:
– To improve relations with institutions in other public sectors and to share information without violation of confidentiality.
– In cases of arrest for prostitution, to ensure that information about possible and available assistance is provided.
– To improve the attitude towards sex workers so that assistance is provided without stigma and discrimination when sex workers seek help in case of abuse and in other cases in all law enforcement institutions.
– To monitor how equally the legal persecution on the grounds of prostitution-related breaches is conducted and how resources are allocated for addressing sex work issues and to analyze how to use them more effectively.
For the representatives of the social and health care sectors:
– To integrate education about sex worker health care and other needs into graduate and post-graduate studies, to organize special trainings and to encourage workers to take part in them, thus decreasing the stigma and discrimination in institutions in these sectors; to improve employees’ ability to work with vulnerable groups.
– To involve sex workers into planning, implementation and evaluation of assistance programs and training programs.
– To increase the scope of assistance services and to improve current services with a special emphasis on organizing “low threshold” and outreach services and taking into account working hours and days, geographical availability, the variety of services, etc.
– To improve relationships with law enforcement institutions; to develop a collaboration model, which would refer those arrested for prostitution from law enforcement institutions to health care and social services.
– To share information with other institutions, organizations and media.
For the representatives of the education sector:
– To improve the education system so that both youngsters and adults, who had temporarily dropped out of any level of education (primary, basic or secondary), would have more possibilities to renew/continue their education.
– To incorporate information on sexual and reproductive health, personal hygiene, issues of vulnerable groups, social skills and civic engagement into educational programs.
– To encourage research about sex industry and people involved in it including small towns where these issues may be more hidden and stigmatized.
For human rights organizations and other groups, advocating for sex workers:
– To escalate public discussions about sex work issues, discussions in regional and national government institutions.
– To initiate educational measures for law enforcement workers, workers of health care and social sectors, thus seeking to decrease stigma and increase awareness.
– To strengthen sex worker communities and improve their possibilities to advocate for themselves.
For more information: Lina Verseckaitė, Coalition I Can Live, Lithuania
Email: lina_verseckaite@yahoo.com
About Coalition I Can Live
Website: www.galiugyventi.lt