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Research Papers and Briefings

At the end of their year on the Griffins Society Fellowship Programme, Fellows produce a 10,000 word Research Paper on their findings. Research Papers are available here to view or download as a PDF (the size of each file is given).  

For all papers you will find the REPORT IN FULL, and also a single-page ABSTRACT.  For more recent papers, an EXECUTIVE SUMMARY is also available.

Fellows' research can be freely copied and distributed as long as the author and the Griffins Society are credited.

 

Losing my voice: A study of the barriers and facilitators to disclosure for sex-working women in residential drug treatment

Author: Kirsty Tate
Published: 2016

Sex workers present a complex and unique footprint of needs and behaviour patterns. This is especially the case when those women also have drug and alcohol issues. Yet, when many of these women enter drug treatment system, their histories of sex work and the complex patterns of needs that such histories generate are often overlooked. This is not surprising. In comparison to dealing with the immediate needs subsequent to drug and alcohol issues, tackling the needs arising from sex work can seem less urgent. Drug treatment is a momentous process of change, but the background question to this research report is whether just dealing with the drug and alcohol issues is enough or whether it is also necessary for a woman who has sex-worked to create an ex-sex worker role, and what stands in the way of or promotes that?

The focus of this research is on sex workers and the residential drug rehabilitation – a setting wherein they are attempting to produce momentous change in their lives. I interviewed street sex workers, escorts and parlour workers. The aim was to contextualise the meanings sex workers placed on sharing their internal world with others and the powerful impact of disclosure of sex work in relation to their treatment.

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