Sex work is the exchange of sexual services, performances, or content between consenting adults for money or other compensation. The term includes a wide range of activities, including in-person sexual services, erotic dancing, pornography, online content creation, fetish work, phone sex, and other forms of adult labor.
Not all sex work is prostitution, and not all sex workers provide physical sexual services.
Decriminalization means removing criminal penalties for consensual adult sex work. It does not legalize trafficking, exploitation, coercion, abuse, violence, or the involvement of minors in the sex trade.
Under decriminalization:
Decriminalization is supported by major human rights and public health organizations worldwide, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.¹⁻⁴
These terms are often confused, but they are very different.
Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for consensual adult sex work. Sex workers and their clients are no longer subject to arrest simply for engaging in consensual adult activity. Existing laws against trafficking, exploitation, coercion, assault, rape, child abuse, and other crimes remain fully enforceable.
Legalization creates a government-controlled system in which sex work is legal only under specific conditions, such as licensing requirements, registration systems, mandatory health checks, zoning restrictions, or other regulations. People who operate outside the legal system may still face criminal penalties.
Many sex workers, human rights organizations, and public health experts support decriminalization rather than legalization because legalization systems often exclude the most marginalized workers and can create a two-tiered system where some people can work legally while others remain criminalized. ¹⁰
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNAIDS, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, the World Health Organization, and many other human rights organizations support the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work as part of efforts to combat human trafficking.
Human trafficking and consensual adult sex work are not the same thing. Trafficking involves force, fraud, or coercion. Consensual adult sex work involves adults making their own decisions about their labor.
Research shows that criminalization can make trafficking harder to identify because workers fear police and are less likely to report violence, exploitation, or suspicious activity. Decriminalization allows sex workers to work together, screen clients, access support services, and report crimes without risking arrest.⁵
No. Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for consensual adult sex work. It does not change laws against trafficking, coercion, exploitation, assault, rape, child sexual abuse, kidnapping, extortion, or any other form of abuse.
In fact, decriminalization can make it easier to identify and prosecute trafficking because sex workers can report suspicious activity, violence, and exploitation without fear of arrest themselves. Traffickers benefit when victims are isolated, afraid of law enforcement, and unable to seek help. Policies that reduce stigma and criminalization can help connect vulnerable people with services and support while allowing law enforcement to focus resources on actual coercion and exploitation.⁵
No. There is no evidence that decriminalizing consensual adult sex work causes trafficking.
Trafficking is driven by factors such as poverty, housing instability, migration barriers, discrimination, and labor exploitation, not by whether consensual adult sex work is criminalized.⁵⁻⁸
Policies that focus on reducing vulnerability to exploitation are more effective than policies that criminalize adults engaged in consensual sex work.
For many sex workers, decriminalization is first and foremost a safety issue.
Criminalization can force people to work alone, rush negotiations, avoid carrying condoms, hide from police, and hesitate to report violence. Decriminalization allows workers to take common safety precautions, share information, work together, and seek help when needed.
Sex workers deserve the same access to safety, dignity, and legal protection as anyone else.¹⁰
Decriminalizing consensual adult sex work is an LGBTQIA+ rights issue because the fight for LGBTQIA+ equality has always been tied to broader struggles for bodily autonomy, privacy, freedom from discrimination, housing security, and the right to live safely.
Many LGBTQIA+ people, particularly transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, experience disproportionate rates of housing instability, employment discrimination, and policing. Criminalization reinforces many of the same systems of stigma and discrimination that LGBTQIA+ communities have long fought against.¹⁶
Like many low-level offenses, prostitution laws are enforced disproportionately against people of color.
Studies have consistently shown that Black and Indigenous people are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, and prosecuted across the criminal legal system. These disparities also exist in prostitution enforcement. Women of color, transgender women of color, and other marginalized communities often face heightened surveillance and policing.
Decriminalization helps reduce unnecessary contact with the criminal legal system and its long-term consequences.¹⁰
Criminal convictions related to prostitution can have devastating immigration consequences, including denial of immigration benefits, visa complications, detention, and deportation.
Decriminalization helps ensure that immigrants are not punished for engaging in consensual adult activity and can access legal protections, healthcare, and community resources without fear.¹⁶
Numerous public health agencies have concluded that decriminalization is one of the most effective policy changes available to reduce HIV and STI transmission.³ ⁴
When sex work is criminalized, workers may avoid carrying condoms or accessing healthcare out of fear that those actions could attract police attention. Reducing stigma and criminal penalties increases access to testing, treatment, prevention, and health education.
Public health experts widely recognize that criminalization creates barriers to healthcare that harm both sex workers and public health more broadly.³ ⁴ ⁹
People with disabilities have the same needs for intimacy, connection, relationships, and sexual expression as anyone else. Some disability rights advocates have argued that discussions about sexual autonomy should include access to consensual adult sexual services and recognition of the barriers that many disabled people face in forming intimate relationships.
More broadly, decriminalization promotes bodily autonomy and the right of all adults to make consensual decisions about their own bodies and relationships.¹⁰
Many sex workers fear that reporting crimes could expose them to arrest, prosecution, child custody consequences, immigration consequences, or public stigma.
As a result, perpetrators often target sex workers because they believe their victims will not seek help.
Decriminalization improves public safety by making it easier for sex workers to report violence, provide witness testimony, and cooperate with law enforcement when crimes occur.² ⁹
Criminalization creates opportunities for abuse by giving law enforcement extraordinary power over marginalized populations.
Across the United States, numerous cases have involved police officers accused of sexually exploiting or assaulting people they encountered during prostitution-related investigations. Because of the power imbalance involved, many survivors fear retaliation if they come forward.
Reducing unnecessary criminalization can help decrease opportunities for abuse while strengthening trust between communities and public institutions.
Every year, law enforcement agencies spend substantial resources arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people for consensual adult activity.
Those resources could instead be directed toward investigating violent crimes, processing untested rape kits, supporting trafficking survivors, preventing domestic violence, and addressing serious public safety concerns.¹⁰
There is no evidence that consensual adult sex work causes domestic violence, sexual violence, or other crimes against women.
In contrast, research consistently shows that criminalization increases vulnerability to violence by making it more difficult for sex workers to screen clients, work together, access support services, and report crimes.¹⁰
Reducing criminal penalties improves safety and access to justice.
The Nordic Model (also called the Equality Model or End Demand Model) criminalizes clients, managers, landlords, drivers, and others involved in sex work while exempting the person selling sex from prosecution.
Supporters argue that this reduces demand. However, evidence from multiple jurisdictions suggests that criminalizing clients can increase risks for sex workers by pushing transactions underground, reducing workers’ ability to screen clients, and making it more difficult to work safely.
Studies and reports from New Zealand, Northern Ireland, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Foundations, and others have documented concerns that client criminalization can increase violence, health risks, and exploitation while failing to eliminate the sex trade.¹¹⁻¹⁵
For these reasons, major human rights organizations support full decriminalization rather than client criminalization.¹ ²
Sources for the information in this FAQ are available in the Sources and Further Reading section below.
updated 2 June 2026