Female Migrant Street Prostitution during COVID-19 in Milan. A Qualitative Study on How Sex Workers Coped with the Challenges of the Pandemic

The article presents the outcome of a qualitative study on female migrant sex workers in-volved in street prostitution during the first two waves of COVID-19 in Italy, by focusingon their responses to the challenges posed by the pandemic in terms of economic strainand health hazards. The study, carried out from January 2020 to January 2021, has fo-cused on the street sex market, given that this sector was particularly affected by mobilityrestrictions adopted during the pandemic, and on the city of Milan since it is one of themain hubs of human trafficking in Europe and one of the main sex markets in Italy, aswell as one of the Italian cities most heavily hit by COVID-19. According to the findingsof the empirical research — based on interviews and participant observation —, migrantwomen’s experiences in the sex market during the pandemic show two concomitant ele-ments, one referring to agency and the other to exploitation. This outcome has led usto put forward a third balanced theoretical perspective, between the two views polarizingthe debate on sex trafficking — namely the “victimization approach” and the “critical ap-proach” — that is grounded on the conceptual tool “layers of vulnerability” discussed inthe bioethics debate