Under the current prostitution laws, police are given sweeping powers, including the power to arrest women for working on the street or for sharing premises for safety. These powers are most often used to target, harass, and criminalise sex workers rather than protect us.

For years, the public has been told that police sexism, racism, corruption, and illegality are rare – that there are just “a few bad apples.” Sex workers’ experiences, backed by extensive research, reveal a very different story.

Sex workers told us about their dealings with the police, both when they were targeted for raids and arrests, and when they sought help as victims of violence. What they describe is “saturation policing and no protection”. Fear of arrest, deportation, losing their children to social services and general retaliation by police meant that most sex workers did not report it when they were attacked and those that did faced dismissal, hostility or further harm.

Independent research confirms what sex workers describe. One study found that 42% of sex workers had experienced violence from the police themselves[1]. Another found that 90% of crimes against sex workers go unreported, largely because of fear of arrest or discrimination.[2]

Some women we interviewed have been sex workers for decades and not one of them said that police treatment had improved over time. The only change is cosmetic: police forces now invest more in public relations, repeating a mantra that they “treat sex workers as victims.” But on the ground, nothing has changed.

Labeling sex workers as victims is routinely used as a cover for continued criminalisation. “Safeguarding,” “welfare visits,” and “operations to protect vulnerable women” allow surveillance, intelligence gathering, and are a pretexts for raids[3]. Many of the raids are justified in the name of “saving victims of trafficking and modern slavery”, but while immigrant sex workers face arrest and deportation, actual victims rarely get help. Arrests, deportation threats, the closure of premises, and the destruction of women’s income and safety are the result[4].

Sex workers are terrorised by raids and arrests. After a police crackdown on the street or raids on premises, word spreads fast. Women are less likely to report violence, seek medical help, or come forward as witnesses. As a result, rapists and other violent men are left to act with impunity.

Migrant sex workers are disproportionately targeted for raids and arrests. Many complain about being wrongly labelled as trafficking victims, even when they say they are working independently. Migrant women in the ECP have spearheaded campaigns against police racism and illegality, which escalated sharply after the Brexit referendum.[5]

We would like to know about the financial incentives behind this policing. In particular, how much funding police forces receive for implementing trafficking and modern slavery legislation, given how often raids are justified as efforts to “save victims,” yet victims are rarely found.[6]

Claims that policing protects sex workers, or combats trafficking, ring hollow when the government is hell bent on stripping away protections for trafficking survivors[7]

We work closely with Women Against Rape and rely on their experience when sex workers are trying to report rape and other violence. Sex workers are particularly vulnerable to police rape and abuse of power and this is not new. In 2022, officers at Charing Cross police station were found to have been having sex at the station with vulnerable victims and sex workers they had arrested!

A growing, sex worker led movement for decriminalisation has played a key role in exposing police illegality, sexism and racism against sex workers. The Black Lives Matter movement, alongside the outpouring of grief and fury after the murder of Sarah Everard and the convictions of officers who shared selfies with the two murdered women Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, has also shifted the terrain. As a result, when sex workers complain of police violence, threats and mistreatment, we are more likely to be believed.

The experience outlined by sex workers below should help counter attempts by MPs to expand police powers through the criminalisation of men who buy sex (the so-called Nordic Model). When police cannot be trusted with the powers they already have, granting them more powers is dangerous and will place sex workers at even greater risk – especially women of colour and/or migrant sex workers.

Sex workers we interviewed described poverty, homelessness and economic need behind their decision to go into sex work. Cuts to asylum support, benefits, and a cost-of-living crisis are pushing more women into prostitution. Instead of addressing women’s – particularly mothers’ – poverty, the response has been harsher policing. 

Sex workers we interviewed were very clear about what they do want: decriminalisation. Taking the police out of prostitution would allow women to report rape and other violence more easily, organise for safety, work with others, and access justice.

1. When the Police Are the Attackers

Sooki: “They put me down on the floor, strapped my hands behind my back and strapped my legs up… picked me up like I was a pig going to slaughter and threw me in the back of the van… Blood everywhere.”

Rina: “The police start to interrogate me… not even offering to let me sit down or have water. They made me remove my robe so I’m standing there in underwear… One officer pretended to text but was taking photos.”

Rita: “There was this copper… he kept pestering me for sex. I had to leave the place I worked just to get rid of him.”

2. No Protection from the Police Against Violence

Camilla: “My friend was robbed at knifepoint… The police were nice, but it was the sixth house robbed. The gang was only caught because they robbed so many of us.”

Maria: “We were robbed by five men with knives… Police asked more about our work than about the gang… Then they sent a letter saying if we were seen in the house again we’d be deported.”

Layla: “Some girls are scared to call the police. Robbers know this. Of course we are easy prey.”

Mariela: “I was threatened by men who said I must work for them… Police said they can’t help me and that if I don’t leave I will be arrested.. . . Every time we ask for help, police never give it. My friend was attacked; even with name, photos, license plate, they did nothing.”

Sooki: “I was attacked by a client… but nobody was ever caught. The police look down on us. It’s like our lives don’t matter. Girls were murdered and nothing was done. They behave like we are criminals. They think they can do what they want because they have laws they can use to get at us. A lot of working class people get treated badly by the police.”

3. Migrant, Trans, Women of Colour and Street‑Based Women as Targets

Mary (Chinese migrant): “They always think Asian people are trafficking… They take the money first, always.”

Rina (Brazilian trans woman): “We know the police are not there to help us. Being trans, migrant, poor – it all makes you a target.”

Mali (Thai trans woman): “The women on the street are easy targets… Police pick them up, threaten them, demand sex.”

Camilla (Brazilian trans woman): “In immigration detention they gave papers in formal English you can’t understand… pressure you to sign your own deportation.”

Maria (Romanian street worker): “They stop me in the street even when I’m not working… One officer said, ‘These women need to be dead.’”

4. Criminalisation, Fear of Arrest and Losing Custody of their Children Deters Women From Reporting Violence

Mary: “If anything happened we cannot report. They would arrest US.”

Rina: “I would not go to the police for anything. The laws make it impossible.”

Layla: “They said if we come back to the house, they will press charges… If we are scared of police, how can we call?”

Maria: “I was naïve to call the police. After the robbery they only threatened to deport us.”

Camilla: “Girls keep quiet because they don’t have documents and fear deportation.”

Maria: “To make the job safer, we need to not fear the police.”

Victoria: “I was attacked and I was very badly injured, I went to the hospital . . . the police officer had probably mentioned to the doctor that I was a sex worker, and all of a sudden the doctor came and said, “Oh yeah, I need to involve the social services.”

5. Police and immigration raids terrorise, humiliate and displace sex workers

Mary: “They raid the flat, take the money, never give a receipt. They never give it back.”

Mali: “They took everything – money, computers, CCTV… They close the parlour and say they are helping us.”

Rina: “They searched the whole house and took money and laptops. They told us to leave or be arrested.”

Maria: “My computer was taken for two years. I never got back my photos.”

Tula: “They raided my house looking for my husband. My daughter was with me, she was about five and a half. They put me in a hotel for the night with my daughter. And then the next day they took her. The next day. She was gone. My dad has spent 20 grand on legal fees trying to get her back for me.”

6. Discrimination, Harassment, and Humiliation

Rita: “They take the piss… laughing… One said to a Brazilian woman, ‘You’re a bit fucking old to be doing this.’”

Rina: “They asked if I had a sex change… humiliating questions while I was half‑dressed.”

Mariela: “They stop me on the street and are very rude… They told me the man who killed prostitutes ‘did a good job.’”

Mali: “Police made racist, sexist, transphobic jokes. Treated us like children, like we cannot make choices.”

7. How Criminalisation Emboldens Violent Men

Maria: “Gangs robbed many women because they knew the police would do nothing.”

Mary: “Clients know we cannot call police. That’s why they attack with impunity.”

Mariela: “Men threatened to make me work for them. Police said they cannot help. So men know this.”

8. What Would Improve Safety and Police Relations

A. Decriminalisation

Mary: “To decriminalise sex work. If anything happened we could report without doubt.”

Mali: “For it all to be legal because then police cannot have the same power.”

Rina: “Stop deportations and decriminalise. It removes the main way they abuse us.”

Camilla: “It’s a fear when you’re illegal in the country something might happen with you. Who you gonna go to to protect you? It feels, like we are unprotected because of the legal status.”

Mariela: “Make prostitution legal so we are safe. If it was legal then customers who hit women would go to prison.”

Sooki: “We should be able to work together. if they didn’t have the law on their side as an excuse to harass us then that would help. The job is a job. It should be regarded as that. I think the bad ones should be made to leave the police.”

Layla: “We are scared to work together because they call it brothel‑keeping.”

Rina: “You cannot train away misogyny and racism, but laws can stop some abuses.”

B: “Money in mothers’ hands.

“There isn’t a lot of options when you’ve got kids. As I say, if you want to look after your children and give them a proper life, then the benefits and things have really got to change.”

——–

[1] Grenfell. P, et al. (2024). East London Project: a participatory mixed-method evaluation on how removing enforcement could affect sex workers’ safety, health and access to services in East London. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39711037/

[2] University of Nottingham Policy Brief: Can we improve trust in the police? https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/policy-and-engagement/documents/policy-briefs/larissa-sandy-can-we-improve-trust-in-the-police.pdf

[3] Hanks, S. (2022). The safeguarding delusion: Sex work and policing in Wales. Justice, Power and Resistance, Volume: 5, Issue: 1-2 https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59002

[4] Research on policing as enforcement rather than protection: University of York – Policing Vulnerability Project https://www.york.ac.uk/business-society/research/spsw/policing-vulnerability-sex-worker-liaison-role/

[5] English Collective of Prostitutes (2020) Migrant Sex Workers Fight Police Illegality and Racism https://prostitutescollective.net/migrant-sex-workers-fight-police-illegality-racism/

[6] The Independent, 21 December 2022 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sex-work-trafficking-victims-raids-police-b2244505.html

[7] After Exploitation (2025) Immigration changes would harm survivors of modern slavery https://afterexploitation.com/2025/11/27/explained-immigration-changes-would-harm-survivors-of-modern-slavery/