Abstract
There has been an exponential rise in use of the term vulnerability across a number of political and policy arenas, including child protection, sexual offences, poverty, development, care for the elderly, patient autonomy, globalisation, war, public health and ecology. Yet despite its increasing deployment, the exact meaning and parameters of this concept remain somewhat elusive. In this article, we explore the interaction of two very different strategies—one in which vulnerability is relied upon by those seeking improved social justice as a mechanism by which to identify, problematise and compel state responses to a universal condition of precarious dependency, and the other in which it is used as a category of neo-liberal governance which legitimates state encroachment whilst constructing ‘vulnerable’ individuals as ‘risk-managers’ who must behave ‘responsibly’ in the face of disadvantage. We suggest that the co-existence of these divergent approaches highlights the fluidity and malleability of the concept of vulnerability. Using sex work as a specific case study, we explore the ways in which vulnerability bears multiple meanings, and has been used in recent times in the furtherance of moralistic and regressive agendas, which collude with, rather than challenge, state power. Without seeking to reject the label or normative import of vulnerability, we call, therefore, for a more circumspect approach to its usage, and a more critical evaluation of recent claims which hail it as a mechanism, preferable to the conventional use of equality paradigms, by which to secure progressive feminist outcomes.
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Notes
United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Crime, 2000.
Sexual Offences Act 2003, c.42, ss 57–59.
Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act 2007, asp 11, s 1.
Policing and Crime Act 2009, c. 26, ss 14–20.
Criminal Justice & Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, asp 13, ss 45–47.
Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, Warsaw, 16.V.2005.
Policing and Crime Act 2009, c. 26.
Home Office Circular 006/2010, Provisions in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 that relate to prostitution (sections 14 to 21), 29 March 2010.
R v Massey [2007] EWCA Crim 2664, per Toulson LJ at [20].
R v Bedford (2010) ONSC 4264; Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford 2012 ONCA 186.
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The authors are indebted to Katie Cruz for her excellent research assistance, and to the anonymous reviewers at Feminist Legal Studies for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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Munro, V.E., Scoular, J. Abusing Vulnerability? Contemporary Law and Policy Responses to Sex Work in the UK. Fem Leg Stud 20, 189–206 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-012-9213-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-012-9213-x