This World Mental Health Day, let’s talk about survivors of prostitution

“A few months before and after I came out of prostitution, I started having what I now know was panic attacks and lost the ability to speak. I just couldn’t talk, no sound came out, I shut myself down.”

This is how one prostitution survivor describes the situation extreme trauma who followed her even after she left the sex industry.

For many who have managed to escape the terrifying grip of prostitution, the battle for freedom, happiness and peace is only half won. Even when threats of gang rape, degrading sexual acts, suffocation/strangulation, stalking and assault are no longer part of their daily lives, survivors of prostitution now face a much more subdued threat, one that often prevents them from finding full liberation – serious. psychological disorders.

Mental health issues loom beneath the surface, not an immediately visible threat to survivors, yet an undeniable roadblock in their pursuit of healing.

Why are sex workers left out of the global conversation about mental health?

Today it is World Mental Health Day. In recent years, there has been an incredible increase in mental health advocacy, leading to an undeniable increase in cultural awareness and sensitivity regarding this struggle.

As successful as the mental health awareness movement has been, there is one demographic group that is consistently left out of these conversations: sex workers.

Given what we know about the severity of the abuse that occurs in prostitution, making the connection with mental illness does not require great imagination. But we don’t have to simply imagine it; there is overwhelming data supporting this hypothesis.

Research shows the devastating effects of prostitution on mental health

An analysis of 478 adult women arrested for prostitution shows 29% had ever attempted suicide. In addition to suicidal ideation, a cross-sectional data analysis of 72 sex worker women in Australia found that 47% met criteria for lifetime PTSD diagnosisAnd mild to severe depressive symptoms were experienced by an overwhelming majority of 87%. A 2012 study of 562 African American prostitutes in Miami yielded equally devastating results; serious mental illness occurred in 74% of womenreporting symptoms of depression, anxiety or traumatic stress.

Few prostitutes seek help for psychological disorders

Although the link between prostitution and mental disorders has been clearly demonstrated in the research, the mental burden of exploitation is still a burden that many survivors must bear alone and in silence. In the aforementioned study of African American women in Miami only 21% of women with serious mental illness reported receiving any form of mental health care. Those who suffer face a shared stigma that makes it extremely difficult to find spiritual refuge and release – the stigma of having been in prostitution, and the stigma surrounding mental health.

As shown, sex workers are a demographic group experiencing an astonishing mental health crisis. The hidden wounds of prostitution can no longer be overlooked. These individuals deserve not only a life free from exploitation, but also free from the mental burden that abuse inevitably places on them, forcing them to relive their experiences over and over again, even once they escape. Finding justice for these victims involves not only escape, but also rehabilitation.

Sources

If you or someone you know is suffering from the mental health effects of prostitution, you can find help from the following resources: