Latest news - English Collective of Prostitutes

5th July 2020

Shado-Mag: “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”

It was Tuesday 2nd June, ironically, International Sex Workers’ Day. But there were no sex workers there. For nearly three months, the streets of Patpong, Bangkok’s oldest red-light district, were silent and deserted.Two men sporting Covid-masks sit distanced at a streetside board game as a single hunched figure walks past briskly, clutching an umbrella. Unlit […]

27th June 2020

Support the campaign for a Care Income Now!

Dear friends,Please join us in supporting the campaign for a #CareIncomeNow. During the COVID-19 crisis sex workers in the UK have been left without an income and deprived of the support many other waged workers are entitled to. When we have raised our demands for emergency cash help and worker status, we’ve been disparaged and dismissed. […]

25th June 2020

Statement: Victory in Seattle!

Seattle City Council votes to repeal drug and prostitution loitering laws which have a “deep and harmful racist history” and are shown to have “a disproportionate impact on women of color, both cis- and transgender”.Today Seattle City Council repealed drug and prostitution loitering laws that endangered SW safety, unjustly targeted non-violent peoples, and disproportionately impacted […]

9th June 2020

Bulletin: Sex workers and COVID-19 – Media coverage sent in by our network

Summary Sex workers, many of whom are mothers, have been left without an income by the coronavirus crisis and lockdown and are facing destitution, debt and homelessness. But because sex work is criminalised, sex workers are being deprived of the support, payments and protections available to others. Migrant sex workers subject to No Recourse to […]

3rd June 2020

BBC News: Coronavirus – Sex workers fear for their future

Estelle Lucas has lost nearly all her income during the coronavirus outbreakWith social distancing rules in place and strip clubs and brothels closed, sex workers around the world have seen their incomes disappear almost overnight as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Fearing for their livelihoods, as well as their health, some are offering services […]

2nd June 2020

Freedom United: Taking the trafficking out of sex work

Sex trafficking has long been separated from the broader crime of human trafficking. But some are beginning to question whether this separation is useful—or even whether it’s actively harmful. Sex workers’ rights advocates argue that the division makes it easier for people to conflate all sex work with trafficking, inspiring misled campaigns to eliminate sex […]

21st May 2020

Wired: In the midst of a pandemic, sex workers have nowhere to turn

Destitute sex workers are working through the pandemic. It doesn’t have to be that wayIn the coronavirus pandemic, few professions are as hazardous as sex work. The disease spreads through close physical contact, and sex work is an activity with a high risk of transmitting the virus. But, unlike almost all other professions, sex workers […]

19th May 2020

ICRSE: UK sex workers response to COVID-19

“The virus comes on top of a crisis of poverty, especially among women. Most sex workers are mothers, mainly single mothers, who have been made poorer by austerity cuts. One and a half million people have been made deliberately destitute by government policies and four million children are living in poverty. That means that 100,000s of families […]