Subsistence and Survival: Strategies Women in the Republic of Barbados Engaged in Transactional Sex Work Employ to Stay Safe

Abstract

Women engaged in sex work (WESW) are at increased risk for exposure to work setting violence. This phenomenological study examines the experience of work setting violence and strategies utilized to maintain safety for WESW in Republic of Barbados in the Caribbean. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 cis-gender WESW in Barbados. This study found participants experienced work-related violence that includes physical assault, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder. Participants were actively engaged in strategies for maintaining safety that were central to their business practices. Moreover, local HIV prevention intervention efforts including condom assertiveness training, free condom distribution, and rapid, accessible STI testing further enabled participants to assert and enforce safe business practices. Unfortunately, poor economic conditions at the time of the study, which reduced the market of available customers who were willing to pay full price while increasing the number of WESW, diminished the participants’ power to insist on safe business practices. This has implications for interventions to prevent and counteract gender-based violence, as well as gender-based social and economic development efforts.