Prostitution is increasing because of austerity. A 60% increase in street prostitution recorded in Doncaster is primarily attributed to destitution caused by benefit sanctions,.with charities saying: “Women are being forced to sell sex for £5 because of benefit sanctions.” Sheffield reports a 166% increase (2014) while charity workers in Hull report: “ . . . women who are literally starving and they are out there to feed themselves.”
Sex work helplines have seen calls increase by a third in recent months, as more women seek to start – or restart – sex work. Radhika Sanghani speaks to sex workers and support workers to find out why.When Victoria was 18, she was earning minimum wage in McDonald’s, financially supporting her father who’d lost his job. […]
From our sister organisation US PROStitutes Collective Download full report here. Press coverage here. What is the Guaranteed Care Income Pilot? The Guaranteed Care Income San Francisco (GCISF) pilot was a one-year program (June 2024–June 2025) that provided 10 low-income single mothers in San Francisco with $2,000 a month in unconditional cash payments. Crucially, it […]
Now that the no-strings-attached payments have stopped, some are unsure how they’ll get by. Shantanae was desperate. Homeless after fleeing a violent ex and selling her body for a controlling pimp on a notorious block of the Mission, the young mother of two often didn’t know where she’d sleep each night. Often, she’d stay at […]
Poverty and cautions trap women in sex work – good policies could resolve this. But politicians don’t want to know Niki Adams There are a few dates in the calendar that sex workers mark. The day to end violence on 17 December is often a sombre affair, when we honour the sex workers who were […]
SIGN ONLINE HERE Or email ecp@prostitutescollective.net to be added. Dear Home Secretary, We are writing to ask that you take action to abolish ‘prostitute’s cautions’ which trap women in sex work, prevent them from leaving abusive and violent relationships, and push them further into poverty. ‘Prostitute’s cautions’ are cautions that the police can give to […]
Wales This Week has found that the number of women selling sex in Wales has almost doubled in the last 18 months. In the grip of a cost of living crisis, the programme investigates why more women are turning to sex work to make ends meet, and hears calls for a change in the laws, to […]
An increasing number of women are turning to sex work “to make ends meet”.The number of active accounts registered to women in Wales on the website AdultWork.com has risen from 260 at the beginning of 2023 to 461. The website describes itself as an “online directory for adult service providers”.Laura Watson, a spokesperson for the […]
In December 2022 Newham Council issued a consultation on its proposal to bring in a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) in the Romford Road.The justification for the PSPO was that sex workers were:“. . . offering sexual services to passersby, engaging in sexual activities in public spaces” and that clients were kerb-crawling and that this […]
The Women and Equalities Parliamentary Committee launched an inquiry into the impact of the rising cost of living on women. The ECP submission reports on the increase in women in crisis coming to us for information about starting work and going back into sex work – some who have left many years ago. Most are […]