Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain

During the COVID-19 health crisis, the Spanish Government launched a series of urgent measures to protect the population from its economic effects. At first, it seemed that sex workers would have access to this protection, given that, technically, their access to the star measure, the IMV (anagram i...

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Main Authors: Acién González, Estefanía, Arjona Garrido, Ángeles
Format: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Language:English
Published: MDPI 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10835/13685
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author Acién González, Estefanía
Arjona Garrido, Ángeles
author_facet Acién González, Estefanía
Arjona Garrido, Ángeles
author_sort Acién González, Estefanía
collection DSpace
description During the COVID-19 health crisis, the Spanish Government launched a series of urgent measures to protect the population from its economic effects. At first, it seemed that sex workers would have access to this protection, given that, technically, their access to the star measure, the IMV (anagram in Spanish for Ingreso Mínimo Vital) (minimum living income), was explicitly expressed. However, in the end, this group was excluded as the final text specified that only those deemed to be victims of gender violence, sexual exploitation, or trafficking could access said measure. We propose to study the usefulness of the concept of deservingness of social benefits to explain this lack of protection in a framework that takes into account political power contexts, the empirical observations of sex workers on their level of access to the IMV, and an exploration of its association with the theoretical construct of deservingness. Through a revision of secondary sources, interviews with key informants, and applying discourse analysis, we found these connections and the evident exclusion of sex workers from the social benefit. Likewise, we found that social stigma and moral and ideological judgments are behind this undeservingness and confirm a process of “NGOization” of care for this group that implies the depoliticization and professionalization of civil society entities such as NGOs.
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spelling oai:repositorio.ual.es:10835-136852023-04-12T19:24:31Z Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain Acién González, Estefanía Arjona Garrido, Ángeles deservingness social policy sex work social exclusion stigma COVID-19 During the COVID-19 health crisis, the Spanish Government launched a series of urgent measures to protect the population from its economic effects. At first, it seemed that sex workers would have access to this protection, given that, technically, their access to the star measure, the IMV (anagram in Spanish for Ingreso Mínimo Vital) (minimum living income), was explicitly expressed. However, in the end, this group was excluded as the final text specified that only those deemed to be victims of gender violence, sexual exploitation, or trafficking could access said measure. We propose to study the usefulness of the concept of deservingness of social benefits to explain this lack of protection in a framework that takes into account political power contexts, the empirical observations of sex workers on their level of access to the IMV, and an exploration of its association with the theoretical construct of deservingness. Through a revision of secondary sources, interviews with key informants, and applying discourse analysis, we found these connections and the evident exclusion of sex workers from the social benefit. Likewise, we found that social stigma and moral and ideological judgments are behind this undeservingness and confirm a process of “NGOization” of care for this group that implies the depoliticization and professionalization of civil society entities such as NGOs. 2022-05-06T17:24:10Z 2022-05-06T17:24:10Z 2022-05-01 info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2076-0760 http://hdl.handle.net/10835/13685 10.3390/socsci11050199 en https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/5/199 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess MDPI
spellingShingle deservingness
social policy
sex work
social exclusion
stigma
COVID-19
Acién González, Estefanía
Arjona Garrido, Ángeles
Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title_full Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title_fullStr Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title_full_unstemmed Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title_short Prostitution and Deservingness in Times of Pandemic: State (Non) Protection of Sex Workers in Spain
title_sort prostitution and deservingness in times of pandemic: state (non) protection of sex workers in spain
topic deservingness
social policy
sex work
social exclusion
stigma
COVID-19
url http://hdl.handle.net/10835/13685
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