By Frankie MirenUntil recently, Holbeck in Leeds was unlikely to see a news reporter from one end of the year to another. Lying on the southern edge of the city, Holbeck is partly residential, partly industrial, with a scattering of businesses: a tile shop, piano shop, printers, a tanning salon. Sex workers have hustled on […]
As the UK looks poised to decriminalise sex work, Siobhan Fenton meets the English Collective Prostitutes to discuss what life is like for sex workers under the current prostitution lawsSiobhan FentonIn years gone by, sex workers might have been viewed by society as people to be pitied, mocked or even judged, with whispered stereotypes about ‘fallen […]
By Margaret Corvid. From the column ‘Europe: The Final Countdown’ Against the backdrop of the EU referendum campaign, London-based Romanian women sex workers are using EU law to challenge the police and fight for their rights. Under Operation Nexus, the Met are monitoring Romanian sex workers, rounding them up and ordering them to leave the […]
Women targeted by Operation Nexus, which aims to deport foreign offenders, say they are legitimately self-employedAlthough freedom of movement is guaranteed within the EU, the right to stay after three months is dependent on new arrivals working or studying.A policy aimed at deporting “high-harm” EU-national criminals and those not entitled to remain in Britain is […]
With the freedom to work, organise and fight, sex workers will end coercion in the trade. BY MARGARET CORVID I am lucky to have taken up my work as a dominatrix amid a revolution in our thinking about sex work. Writers like Laura Agustín and Melissa Gira Grant have taken apart our sexualised, othered image, and sex workers and […]
My name is Paulina, I am a sex-worker. When I first came to this country I was forced to come here, forced to be a sex-worker. I suffered violence every day and drugs and alcohol. I was being watched 24 hours. I was begging a police officer to come to ask me if I was […]
Legal Action for WomenCrossroads Women’s Centre PO Box 287 London NW6 5QUTel: 020 7482 2496 minicom/voice Fax: 020 7209 4761E-mail: law@allwomencount.netBernard Hogan-HoweMetropolitan Police Commissioner,New Scotland Yard, 8-10 Broadway,London, SW1H 0BG 18 September 2012Dear Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe,On 5 September, police officers from West End Central Vice Unit and ORB Safer Spaces Neighbourhood Team raided a […]
1. The public’s understandable concern for victims of trafficking including young people is being used to promote a moralistic and dangerous crusade against prostitution. The anti-trafficking campaign allied with law enforcement and the religious right claims that all prostitution is rape/sexual exploitation. It has led to proposals to increase arrests of sex workers on the street, advertising on […]
BY RACHEL WESTTaking advantage of the recent turmoil over the huge city budget cuts, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Carmen Chu, have pushed though malicious legislation imposing criminal charges and restrictions on massage parlors. Many are outraged that this costly legislation was prioritized — we want to know why it was, and how much it […]
Protect workers’ safety! Stop the closure of massage parlors! Stop targeting immigrant sex workers!Under the pretence of stopping sex trafficking, Supervisor Carmen Chu and Mayor Newsom want to impose criminal charges and exorbitant fines on massage parlors despite workers’ concerns that it will push the industry underground making them more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. […]