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 […]
Margaret Prescod, Every Mother is a Working Mother and Black Coalition Fighting Back Seriel Murders”Racist implementation of the law means that for sex workers on the street it is Black and Brown women who will be first arrested.There is an economic crisis going on in this country and the millions of dollars going into criminalising […]
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 […]
Since 1981, when the English Collective of Prostitutes issued the first rights sheet for prostitute women in England and Wales, we have been taking up cases of false arrest and intimidation by police. In 1982, we occupied the Church of the Holy Cross in King’s Cross, London, for 12 days. We were inspired by […]