Cambridge City Council stopped short of calling to completely decriminalize sex work, but its policy order Monday night asked City Hall to act to create a safer environment for sex workers in Cambridge. The order directed the city to establish a crisis help line, anti-poverty measures, and support for LGBTQIA+ youth, who are disproportionately vulnerable to trafficking. Eight councillors voted in favor of the measure, with Councillor Timothy Flaherty voting present.
The policy order was introduced by Councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler in collaboration with Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective (BSWAC) – an advocacy nonprofit born out of a Cambridge Women’s Center support group for area sex workers.
Cambridge police already have an informal policy against arresting local sex workers in most cases. In the policy order, councillors formally requested that police continue making this one of its “lowest law enforcement priorities.” It also asked the Middlesex District Attorney’s office to stop prosecuting sex workers in the county.
Sobrinho-Wheeler acknowledged the policy order “cannot change the law; that would be done at the state level. But it does send a message to our state and county elected officials.”
Cambridge isn’t the first city in the area to put a directive like this in writing. In 2019, Somerville City Council voted to direct Somerville police not to arrest sex workers.
Councillors, however, struck a line from the order advocating for the “full decriminalization” of sex work, which would include the act of buying sex. They cited disagreement among sex workers, trafficking survivors and academics.
Help line “absolutely” necessary
The policy order asked the city to establish a line for sex workers at the Community Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) team to help them navigate legal options and social services available to them when crises happen. Sex workers who fear being arrested are often scared to call 911 when they are abused by clients, said Shameka Gregory, executive director of the Cambridge Domestic and Gender Based Violence Prevention Initiative. Gregory was asked by councillors to speak to the impact of the policy order during Monday night’s meeting.
Councillor E. Denise Simmons asked Gregory if she thought the help line was necessary, given the low rates of sex worker arrests — police data shows that since 2020, four people have been arrested for prostitution “Absolutely,” Gregory said. “There is consensus across the board about the lack of trust” in law enforcement. She added that while Cambridge police don’t habitually arrest sex workers, it “doesn’t mean they have full trust in law enforcement, right?”
Sex workers’ concerns go beyond fear of arrest, said Jessica Van Meir, BSWAC policy chair and a PhD candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. She cited allegations against the Worcester Police Department of systematically abusing sex workers. (The U.S. Department of Justice found these allegations to be credible, but the Trump administration decided to drop the case.)
Vav Meir called the vote to instate the help line “a really huge accomplishment.”
Debate over full decriminalization
The vote on the order was delayed a week because Councillor Patty Nolan exercised her charter right over the line calling for the “full decriminalization” of purchasing sex. Nolan, like the other councillors who voted in favor of the policy order, is in favor of decriminalizing suppliers of sex.
Van Meir said BSWAC would have liked to keep the line, but compromised “because we still feel that the rest of the policy order accomplishes what we set out to accomplish.”
Whether buying sex is a criminal act creates genuine division among researchers, said Jacqueline Bhabha, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, lecturer at Harvard Law School and human rights attorney, in an interview with Cambridge Day. She said there is disagreement over whether sex work is a legitimate profession or must always be consider “basically a human rights violation against women.”
She said on a practical basis, “the way to protect sex workers is not to criminalize demands, but it’s to make sure that access to police protection and healthcare are really there in a non-discriminatory way.”
Public comment reflected this divide. One speaker who identified herself as a trafficking survivor said “Consensual, safe sex work will never be possible.You cannot screen out a rapist.”
But many sex workers who spoke during public comment said they enjoyed their jobs and saw their clients as generally good people. They pointed out if sex work was fully decriminalized, rape and purchasing sex from minors would still be illegal. For them, full decriminalization would create a wider legal distinction between clients who treated them with respect and those who engaged in criminal abuse.
Rita Romero, who has worked as a sex worker for over 20 years, spoke during public comment about her sense of control in the work she does now compared to the trafficking she once experienced when she was younger.
“I charge for my time, and my time only,” she said. “Sex is never guaranteed, and what happens in your time with me after you have passed my screening will depend on your behavior. I make the decisions.”
Continuing to criminalize the purchase of sex also creates a tricky legal situation, Van Meir said, where sex workers are not protected in cases where clients coerce them into an agreed act without ever intending to actually pay. In places like New South Wales, Australia, that is now considered sexual assault.
“If you don’t think that sex work can ever be consensual, then you can’t distinguish between a good client who pays the sex worker what they ask to be paid and who treats them respectfully,” Van Meir said, “versus someone who crosses their boundaries and violates the terms of their consent.”
The policy order is not legally binding because both buying and selling sex is illegal in Massachusetts. Even so, Gregory said if the city takes the steps outlined in the policy order, it will create positive change.
“There are various views on the issue of decriminalization, but there is unanimous understanding of the needs, the immediate needs to protect sex workers,” Gregory said.
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