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.”
“We wanted to remind people these are women, these are human beings, they have their own realities.”Sophie WilkinsonDoes scary stuff happen on the way? Does stuff jump out at you?” a tourist asks our guide, who informs her it’s not that sort of tour. Because though we’re in east London, close to the scene of […]
LETTER TO THE EDITOR.UnpublishedMick Parkin’s in his article Prostitution Is Not Work – It Is A Uniquely Extreme Form Of Commodification And Abuse joins a long line of men (and women) with apparently no qualms about defining sex workers’ experience for us.He claims to be concerned that our “intimate parts” shouldn’t be objectified but says […]
Stella Winter is a sex worker and the mother of two children. She volunteers with the English Collective of Prostitutes. During the 15 or so years I worked as a sex worker, I estimate that two out of three of the other working women I met were mums. Of course, this isn’t surprising considering 90 […]
The residents, sex workers and activists I spoke to told me it’s only going to force everything into a new area. Last week, Hull City Council won a landmark ruling to create Britain’s first “prostitution-free zone”. The new orders mean that any sex workers or curb crawlers caught around the impoverished Hessle Road area – where […]
A significant number of sex workers in the UK are also mothers, research suggests. So what is it like to sell sex while bringing up a child? “I’m certainly not ashamed of what I’ve done,” Sherri, 42, from Essex says. “And I’m quietly furious about the lack of recognition that myself and other women I […]
Tabi Jackson Gee “I was a full time mum, and a part-time prostitute. But I was never a regular working girl. I went out one or two nights a month to get money to pay a bill, or for something that needed replacing in the house.” Jenny* is in her mid-forties. She lives in the North of England, where […]
Austerity measures like benefit sanctions are pushing women in Sheffield to sell their bodies on the city’s streets, claims experts. That is the view of staff at the Sheffield Working Women’s Opportunities Project (SWWOP), who report that between June and August this year 51 ‘new’ women became involved with sex work in Sheffield. Manager at […]
Who cares about women’s work? Discussing care, Wages for Housework and valuing feminised labour, Ray is joined by Selma James, coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike and author of Sex, Race and Class, and Cari Mitchell, spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes.
Women at the top of the party are no guarantee of representation at the bottom, six female activists argue. Kate Green MP, former shadow minister for women and equalities, now heading Owen Smith’s campaign for leadership of the Labour Party, accuses Jeremy Corbyn of not “listening” before supporting the decriminalisation of prostitution, which in her […]
Letters: Pros and cons of work in the sex industry I was at our women’s centre reading the Guardian editorial (8 April) when I took a call from a woman charged with brothel-keeping for working with a friend. I asked her how she got into prostitution. “A man came round to cut off the gas and I […]