Beth Reid’s financial prospects are bleak. Her work is banned under Sydney’s shutdown. Her limited savings are dwindling as bills accumulate. The 36-year-old is preparing to apply for Australian unemployment benefits, which have increased in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s a familiar story. But Reid faces an added obstacle: While her line of work — as a dominatrix — is legal where she lives, it remains highly stigmatized. To receive benefits, she would have to register as a sex worker with the federal government, creating a record that could have implications for her future.
Still, she knows she’s among the lucky ones: In all but a handful of countries, the sex industry is illegal. That means millions of sex workers, mostly women, are excluded from government programs meant to address widespread unemployment and economic hardship as the coronavirus continues to spread.
Even in Australia, where sex work is legal in some states, Reid said she has seen an increase in “precarious housing situations, and also super precarious mental health” among colleagues left out of the system.
“There are loads of sex workers who don’t have access to either of the welfare measures,” she said, referring to the federal government’s two unemployment programs, “like migrant workers or those who don’t have a fixed address.”
Sex workers in Australia and around the world, she said, are in dire need of the same support that other people are set to receive for loss of income, health care and housing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...-around-world/
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Sex workers are falling through the cracks in coronavirus assistance programs around the world
