By Dulcie LeeThe reality behind a buzzword that is hindering the fight for women’s safetyHundreds of pop-up brothels are springing up across the country. Budget holiday homes, Airbnbs, and private lets are being turned into “sex clubs”. Crimestoppers have launched a campaign to try and stem their supposedly indomitable rise.Only last week the Sunday Times reported that […]
SWARM and ECP congratulate the three women who last week won in court the right not to reveal their criminal convictions for prostitution to prospective employers.The women have multiple convictions for soliciting or loitering under the Street Offences Act, and their records will be amended to filter out these convictions. The women in this landmark […]
To mark International Sex Worker Rights Day on 3rd March NUS LGBT+ Campaign has joined forces with sex worker-led organisations to create a briefing for students’ unions on how they can better support student sex workers.Read our briefing on how students’ unions can better support student sex workers.In 2016 NUS LGBT+ and Women’s Campaigns undertook a […]
(The Guardian, unpublished).Dear Madam/Sir,Like our sisters in Haiti (‘Aid staff would pay more’: sex workers in Haiti speak out), sex workers who have survived disasters and face the calamity of criminalisation every day, must start with our need to support ourselves and our families. Women from Empower, a sex workers collective in Thailand, were in […]
Dear Friends, Please join us on International Women’s Day 8 March at this event. We have worked with hundreds of mothers over many years who face not only criminalisation but having their children removed when they go into sex work.
“We wanted to remind people these are women, these are human beings, they have their own realities.”Sophie WilkinsonDoes scary stuff happen on the way? Does stuff jump out at you?” a tourist asks our guide, who informs her it’s not that sort of tour. Because though we’re in east London, close to the scene of […]
Sex workers and entertainers claim that police are more interested in criminalising them than investigating crimes committed against them, and also have reported vastly different approaches in policing up and down the country. Hannah Al-Othman When Maria was robbed at knifepoint in her bedroom by men who stole hundreds of pounds in cash from her, […]
SWARM and ECP are devastated by the death of Laura Lee. Laura was a major figure in the sex worker rights movement; a fearless campaigner, a loyal comrade and, to many of us, a dear friend. Our thoughts are with Laura’s family and, in particular, her daughter Cat. Laura’s loss is unspeakably sad. A sex worker […]
The English Collective of Prostitutes collect and publish reports of raids and arrests that we receive through our network, they show how the police continue to criminalise women selling sex in a variety of ways. It is completely unjust that women, who often enter into sex work due to poverty, receive criminal records that prevent […]
Wednesday 24 January 7-8:30pmCrossroads Women’s Centre, 25 Wolsey Mews, London, NW5 2DXRachel West is in London from San Francisco and will report on a recent victory for sex workers there. US PROStitutes Collective, working with other sex worker groups, was instrumental in winning an amnesty from arrest and prosecution for sex workers accused of prostitution […]
