Formal reporting: the barriers and enablers of legal mobilisation

In this chapter, we examine how sex workers interact with the criminal legal system, focusing on the challenges they face in reporting violations and seeking justice. Research shows that sex workers rarely engage with the police and broader criminal justice system, facing injustices, discrimination, and limited access to justice worldwide. To advance knowledge and discussions, we aim to uncover the nuances and consequences of different governance models and assess how sex workers mobilise the law for their assistance. We explore variations in confidence in the police among sex workers across our case-study jurisdictions. For those who have engaged with the criminal justice system, we examine their experiences with police and court processes. We also investigate why sex workers withdraw from the criminal justice system and sometimes prefer other forms of intervention. Finally, we identify the most favourable conditions for sex workers to engage with police and the criminal justice system, highlighting best practices and trauma-informed interventions. As in previous chapters, we analyse these findings through the lens of legal consciousness. We focus on how sex workers’ understanding of formal law, especially their willingness to seek formal redress, is influenced by the perceptions and responses of other actors, such as fellow sex workers, brothel staff, police, and judicial system actors (Young in Law & Society Review 48(3):499–530, 2014).