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Reports

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Proceed Without Caution

The Impact of ‘Prostitute’s Cautions’ and Convictions on Sex Workers’ Lives

Thousands of women in the UK have received a ‘prostitute’s caution’ and/or been convicted for prostitution offences, that is for loitering or soliciting for working on the street and for brothel keeping or controlling prostitution for working together in premises with others. The ECP interviewed 12 women about the impact of ‘prostitute’s cautions’ and convictions on their lives. This community-based research was conducted by sex workers, many of whom have convictions themselves, who interviewed their work mates and friends.  Read more.

Reports

What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Job Like This?

In our research paper What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Job Like This? published in 2019, we compared pay and conditions between sex work and other jobs disproportionately done by women. In doing so, we uncovered many similarities and some crucial differences. By looking at sex work in the context of other jobs traditionally done by women, we broke through mystifications and the divisions between sex workers and other women workers, highlighting exploitation across the range of jobs, showing evidence that sex work isn’t inherently, or exclusively, exploitative. Read more.

Sex workers rights protest illustration

EU Migrant Sex Work in the UK Post-Referendum

Newly published research by Dr Laura Connelly (University of Salford) and the English Collective of Prostitutes finds violence, xenophobia and threats of deportation against migrant sex workers from the European Union have risen since the EU Referendum. Read more.

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Sex Workers are Getting Screwed by Brexit

As the clock ticks down to Brexit and with sex work unrecognised as work in the UK, EU sex workers living and working in the UK are fighting for the right to stay in the country. Arrests and deportations of EU migrant workers have been rising, particularly since the Brexit referendum in 2016. With the help of Legal Action for Women and, in a few cases, lawyers, we’ve researched legal rulings and prepared letters laying out sex workers’ rights which migrant women have used to defend themselves from deportation. Read more.

Reports

Decriminalisation of Prostitution: The Evidence

In November 2015, the parliamentary symposium ‘Decriminalisation of Prostitution: the Evidence’, took place in the House of Commons. The symposium brought together, for the first time in the UK, the largest and most robust body of evidence to date on decriminalisation. In the report, we included the key findings and the full transcript of the evidence submitted on the day and in writing, which provides a definitive source of statistical and qualitative information to inform law and policy. Read more.

Covid-19 survey

Sex Workers’ Access to Covid-19 Support in the UK

This survey aims to examine the impact of Covid-19 on the everyday lives of sex workers in the UK. On 22 March 2020, the UK entered its first Covid-19 lockdown. Sex workers stopped working and had no income. Many women were immediately pushed into destitution, unable to pay their rent or feed themselves and their children. Read more.

Undeserving Victims

Undeserving Victims?

This Community Report on Migrant Sex Worker Victims of Crime in Europe was developed by the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA) with partners in 10 countries, including the ECP. It highlights some of the key obstacles faced by sex workers in reporting crime and accessing justice.  Read more. 

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Sex Workers Too: Summary of Evidence for VAWG 2020-24 Consultation

In February 2021, we collaborated with National Ugly Mugs and Umbrella Lane to gather sex workers’ experience of violence to feed into the Home Office 2020-2024  Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) National Strategy. Read more.

Sex Workers on the Frontline

Sex Workers on the Frontline

In this report, the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA) summarises the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on sex workers across Europe in 2020, focusing on how their socio-economic conditions, health and safety were compromised throughout the year. The report also highlights the various grassroots actions that ESWA members, including ECP, carried out during the crisis, illustrating the power and resilience of sex worker collectives. Read more.

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No Silence to Violence: a report on violence against women in prostitution in the UK

We contributed to this report from Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM) in 2018. it discusses violence experienced by sex workers and is specifically intended to reach people working in organisations and services tackling violence against women in the UK, drawing on sex workers’ experiences of selling sex and accessing services.  Read more. 

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The Fight to Decriminalise Sex Work

We contributed to this collection, published in 2020 by Beyond Trafficking and Slavery/openDemocracy which invited sex workers’ rights groups and allies around the world to discuss what works and doesn’t work when arguing for the decriminalisation of sex work. Read more. 

Sex Workers organising to end exploitation

From Vulnerability to Resilience: Sex Workers Organising to End Exploitation

This resource is the final outcome of the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)  programme Rights not Rescue. This project aimed to empower migrant sex workers to fight trafficking and exploitation in the sex industry and strengthen ESWA’s advocacy on issues relating to migration, exploitation and trafficking. Through this project, ESWA was able to provide support to 12 sex workers’ rights organisations, including the ECP, which developed national activities to tackle exploitation and amplify voices of migrant sex workers Read more. 

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Visual Violence: Sex Worker Experiences of Image-Based Abuses

This research report from National Ugly Mugs in partnership with ECP, Umbrella Lane, Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM), and the Sex Workers’ Alliance Ireland (SWAI) demonstrates sex workers’ experiences of visual violence – from image theft, to filming without consent, to blackmail  Read more. 

Access to Justice report

Sex Workers’ Access to Justice

This report featured in a special issue of the International Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Law records the information and policy recommendations from our 2020 webinar Sex Workers: Access to Justice which brought together sex workers, violence against women organisers, academics, and human rights groups to examine the extent of violence faced by sex workers, what exacerbates the risks of violence, and the obstacles experienced when reporting violence to the police and accessing justice.  Read more.