Abstract
Since the field’s formal inception in the nineteenth century, American social work has construed sex work as a “social problem.” Contemporary literature, however, all too frequently leaves this history — and the ways in which it manifests in contemporary social work practice — unexamined. Sex workers overwhelmingly face oppression and stigma within social services, if they are not barred from accessing them entirely. Today, “diversion” remains the predominant model in social work services explicitly designed for sex workers, which mandates exit from sexual commerce altogether. An interdisciplinary systematic review shows the fraught history between American social work and sex work, including the social work field’s historic role in legitimizing anti-sex work stigma and legislation. This project will argue for the social work profession’s large-scale embrace of the global sex workers’ rights movement — in service of the NASW’s ethical imperatives of client/client group self-determination and social justice more broadly — and culminates with recommendations for the profession moving forward.