Sex workers in Mayfair have been part of the ECP’s network since 2009 when police raided flats without warrants, bullying and threatening prosecution. In the same year, Westminster Council threatened women with closure of the flats under planning law on the grounds that they were residential properties being used for a business. Then a few […]
Faima Bakar When you think about porn, racism probably isn’t the first thing on your mind. But racism worms its way into every corner of human life, and the world of sexual fantasies, fetishes and sex work is no different. A quick search reveals just how often porn sites use racist stereotypes, as mentions of […]
Article written by:Frankie Miren For 12 days in late 1982 the English Collective of Prostitutes occupied a church in King’s Cross to protest police brutality. Frankie Miren interviews women who were at the centre of the dispute, and explores explores the legacy of their action today. It’s November 1982 and you wake up on the […]
This extraordinary interview with Natalia, a trans woman from Brazil in the ECP network, starts with her life growing up in a working-class community of “strength and kindness” but where the police wage war against them. Ostracised from her family when she comes out as trans, she finds care and a community with other trans […]
Sarah Walker Sarah Walker first came across the English Collective of Prostitutes at the North London Polytechnic, where she was studying English, in the early 1980s. In May 2018, Sarah and I sat down to record her memories of the ECP occupation of the Holy Cross Church in King’s Cross in 1982. Sarah talked about […]
The English Collective of Prostitutes gives help and advice to sex workers fighting criminal charges, civil orders, and in trying to get justice against violence. The criminalisation of sex work makes it harder for sex workers to work safely by forcing us to work in isolation. Frequently women come to the ECP complaining that the […]
In August 2009, a woman who was working on her own from home in Tyne and Wear was charged with the archaic offences of “running a disorderly house” and “running a bawdy house under common law”. She believed she was targeted by police because she had previously reported a serious racist attack by a neighbour […]
On 6 October 2005, over 40 police and immigration officers raided 55 flats in the Baker Street area of central London. 70 sex workers were held and questioned, some for up to five hours. Women working as ‘maids’ for the working girls were forced to sign cautions under threat that otherwise the flat would be […]
Speech by a Black woman in the International Prostitutes Collective at the Forum “Sex Work, Sexual Violence and Sexual Choices”, on the 20th anniversary of the English Collective of Prostitutes, London, 29 June 1995. There’s discrimination against ail prostitute women, but Black prostitute women face an additional racism. Its often hidden, and increases your workload. Dealing […]