Media coverage
If we are to protect sex workers, basic human rights must be allowed to triumph over the state’s moral squeamishness. You don’t have to take a Hobbesian view of the world to conclude that one of the first duties of a state to its citizens is to keep them safe. Not just some, but […]
Joan Smith acknowledges that “women are driven into prostitution by poverty”, but doesn’t address benefit cuts, low wages, debt, lack of affordable housing, and addiction to expensive drugs. Instead, she targets clients (“Prostitutes are victims not criminals”, 13 April). She claims that police can’t deal with sex workers being beaten or raped because they are […]
WOMEN’S safety campaigners warned on Thursday that Ipswich local authorities’ plans for a “zero-tolerance” policy on street prostitution will compromise prostitutes’ safety. The Safety First coalition, which is co-ordinated by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), warned that the proposals replicated almost exactly those in place before the horrific murder of five street prostitutes in […]
Julie Bindel’s obsession with male sexuality hides that it is women’s poverty and lack of viable economic alternatives that keep prostitution alive (Not a service like any other, January 16). Most sex workers are mothers and young people struggling to survive. Even government research found that “74% of women working indoors cited the need to […]
Dear Sir,My interview (Mean Streets, 13 January 07) on what forces women into prostitution, takes what I said about pimps and Black men out of context.The interviewer asked if there were pimps and drug suppliers, and if they were mostly Black men. I said I didn’t know any drug dealers or pimps and that the […]
A sex workers’ support group has called for an amnesty for prostitutes and clients after three women were found dead and two reported missing. The naked bodies of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol and a third woman were found near Ipswich over the past eight days. Police are also looking for prostitutes Annette Nicholls and Paula […]
Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes has asked for a temporary amnesty with the police to allow workers and their clients to come forwardVice girls fearing they may be targeted by a serial killer are urging the police to launch an amnesty.Given their long-held mistrust of the police the offer hand-in-hand with the […]
There’s been criticism from sex workers about the Suffolk police strategy of getting sex workers off the streets of Ipswich. It’s being claimed it’s moving the problem elsewhere rather than tackling the root causes. The murders of five women in Suffolk in 2006 has put the county in the centre of the debate about how […]
ON May 15 The Voice (‘Sex Slaves Freed’) reported on the joint police/immigration Operation Pentameter which claims to have freed 19 victims of sex trafficking. But police are reportedly arranging with charities to return some of the women to Malaysia. Deportation is the reality behind the headlines.The Poppy Project, set up to deal with victims […]
Dear Sir or Madam,Ninety-five per cent of sex workers are not drug users — not even the Home Office claims that (Guardian 18 Jan 2006) women who don’t use drugs don’t use the Home office funded projects on which these figures depend. These figures dominate while the major factors that force women into prostitution – poverty, domestic violence, homelessness […]