Network in the North Against Prostitution and Violence The Sami have organized against the institution of prostitution. The Sami are indigenous peoples in what is now Scandinavia, Finland, Lapland, and Russia.

Prostitution Research

• What REALLY happened in New Zealand after prostitution was decriminalized in 2003?
  

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• Prostitution Harms Women Even if Indoors
  

  Melissa Farley 2005

  This article describes the social invisibility of indoor prostitution, the lack of evidence suggesting that indoor prostitution is “safe,” and summarizes testimony of women who reported violence in strip club prostitution and warnings about violence from groups promoting indoor prostitution.

• 'Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart': Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized
  

  Melissa Farley 2004

  With examples from a 2003 New Zealand prostitution law, this article discusses the logical inconsistencies in laws sponsoring prostitution and includes evidence for the physical, emotional, and social harms of prostitution. These harms are not decreased by legalization or decriminalization. The article addresses the confusion caused by organizations that oppose trafficking but at the same time promote prostitution as a justifiable form of labor for poor women. The failure of condom distribution/harm reduction programs to protect women in prostitution from rape, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and HIV is discussed. The success of such programs in obtaining funding and in promoting prostitution as sex work is also discussed.

• Challenging Men's Demand for Prostitution in Scotland
  

  A Research Report Based on Interviews with 110 Men Who Bought Women in Prostitution

  Jan Macleod, Melissa Farley, Lynn Anderson, and Jacqueline Golding, 2008

  Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 110 Scottish punters.

• Reclaiming Their Lives and Breaking Free:
  An Afrocentric Approach to Recovery From Prostitution
  

  Valandra 2007

  Little research has examined the specific healing needs of prostituted African American women. In this qualitative research study, eight African American women who were receiving culturally specific services at an Afrocentric agency participated in a focus group and in-depth semistructured interviews.

• Prostitution and the Invisibility of Harm
  

  Melissa Farley 2003

  The harm of prostitution is socially invisible, and it is also invisible in the law, in public health, and in psychology. This article addresses origins of this invisibility, how words in current usage promote the invisibility of prostitution’s harm, and how public health perspectives and psychological theory tend to ignore the harm done by men to women in prostitution. Literature which documents the overwhelming physical and psychological harm to those in prostitution is summarized here. The interconnectedness of racism, colonialism, and child sexual assault with prostitution are discussed.

• Prostitution & Trafficking in Nine Countries: an Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
  

  Farley, M., Cotton, A., Lynne, J., Zumbeck, S., Spiwak, F., Reyes, M.E., Alvarez , D., Sezgin, U. 2003

  Researchers interviewed 854 people currently or recently in prostitution in nine countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, turkey, United States, and Zambia), inquiring about current and lifetime history of sexual and physical violence. Findings contradict common myths about prostitution: the assumption that street prostitution of men and boys is different from prostitution of women and girls, that most of those in prostitution freely consent to it, that most people are in prostitution because of drug addiction, that prostitution is qualitatively different from trafficking, and that legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution would decrease its harm.

• Prostitution, Violence, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
  

  Melissa Farley, Howard Barkan 1998

  Research summary of childhood violence and violence in prostitution of 130 women, men, and transgendered people in San Francisco.
  

• Prostitution in 5 Countries: Violence and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
  

  Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin 1998
  

  
  Research summary and discussion of the life conditions of 475 people in prostitution in South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA & Zambia.

• Prostitution: A Critical Review of the Medical and Social Sciences Literature
  

  Melissa Farley & Vanessa Kelly 2000
  A review of articles that tend to focus on HIV but simultaneously ignore the massive violence that affects the lives of those in prostitution.

• A Comparison of Pimps and Batterers
  

  Evelina Giobbe 1993

  
  A description of the abusive power relationships women in prostitution and their pimps; comparing these dynamics to those of battered women and their partners.