Sunday Times: Letters to the Editor – Strip club ‘sting’ is threat to workers
April 7, 2019
You report that the Not Buying It group is paying men to spy on strippers at Spearmint Rhino, to catch them breaking the no-touching rule (“Sting at strip club lays bare feminist split over sex work”, News, last week). This surveillance, aimed at closing down strip clubs and depriving women workers of an income, is abusive, humiliating and harmful.
That income is needed. One of the strippers in our network is trying to pick up more shifts where she works to cover the shortfall she will face when she is transferred onto universal credit. She is worried sick about keeping her family afloat and her children out of care.
This isn’t a “split in feminism”. Real feminism starts with women’s needs, campaigns for a living wage so no one is driven into sex work by poverty, and for decriminalisation so women in the sex industry can win employment rights like other workers.
Niki Adams, English Collective of Prostitutes
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/letters-to-the-editor-critics-must-accept-that-stop-and-search-saves-lives-wr0m268lw