Social support for women working in the sex business

Abstract

The article’s primary goal is to analyse the social support of sex workers in the private sex business, and to find out what its rate is and what factors affect it (age, education, length of practice in the sex business, and its form). The general level of social support is significantly lower for a specific target group than the general population. Quantitative studies in this area are absent in our environment, so the research is innovative. We used the standardized Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire (FSSQ) to collect data on a research group of sex workers in the private sex business (n = 77). We processed the obtained data and determined hypotheses using the IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 programme at the determined level α = 95%. We used correlations and t-test. The results showed that there is a statistically significant difference in social support level regarding sex business types. The length of activity in the sex business has a statistically significant effect on social support. The results did not prove the influence of age and education on social support. Social support is an important topic among sex workers because it can be a significant factor in the case of quitting, or exit programme, violence or human trafficking.