Sex workers face a lot of violence. Sex workers in London are 12 times more likely to be murdered than other women. It is much safer to work indoors with others but this is illegal.
Criminalisation increases violence. Attacks on sex workers doubled in Scotland after kerb crawling laws were introduced which criminalised clients. A 2014 survey found that where arrests of sex workers and clients were high, only 5% of sex workers who were victims of a crime reported it. This compared to 46% of victims in areas where police adopted a harm reduction approach.
Brothel attacks prompt debate whether police priority should be prosecuting sex workers or catching dangerous criminalsA series of gang attacks on brothels in east London has triggered calls for changes to the prostitution laws after victims who reported knifepoint robberies said they ended up being threatened with prosecution.A police investigation has been launched as senior Labour and […]
Police crackdowns on brothel-keeping mean that sex workers are unwilling to report intimidation and violence.The trial of Sheila Farmer, an escort with a malignant brain tumor and diabetes charged with brothel-keeping, collapsed on 4 January after the prosecution failed to bring a witness to testify against her.Farmer, who worked with friends for safety after she was […]
All Sheila Farmer was trying to do was guarantee the safety of her and fellow consensual sex workers from violence, rape and robbery, that she was prosecuted is a national disgrace…It was January 3rd, 2012. Stepping over the broken-winged corpses of umbrellas on Croydon’s pavements, a rain-drenched, gale-battered group of approximately thirty supporters, myself included, […]
The government claims it needs to make cuts but squanders huge amounts of money prosecuting women like me.This week charges of brothel-keeping against me were dropped. It’s enough for two prostitutes to live or work together for us to be illegal. To be within the law we must work alone. After 18 months of campaigning to […]
Sheila Farmer, a sex worker who worked with other women from premises for safety had charges of brothel-keeping dismissed today in Croydon Crown Court. She worked with other women since being viciously raped and attacked whilst working alone. Ms Farmer left court with over 20 supporters delighted and relieved that she no longer faces a […]
Ms Sheila Farmer is facing a trial on 3 January 2012 at Croydon Crown Court. Please can you urgently write to the addresses below. Ms Sheila Farmer has been a diabetic since childhood and is seriously ill with a malignant brain tumour. Yet she has been charged with managing a brothel and is facing an […]
It is a tragedy that it has taken the murders of countless sex workers, including five young women in Ipswich and three women in Bradford in the last few years, for the police to suggest that the prostitution laws are not ‘fit for purpose’ and that New Zealand type decriminalisation should be considered. New Zealand successfully […]
Ms Morris says “I would like to thank everyone who gave their support, either in body or spirit, for my court case on 4 February. It is gratefully appreciated. This is a harrowing time for my family and I, but we are strengthened by knowing that people’s thoughts are with us. The case has been adjourned till […]
In February 2011, Ms Lorraine Morris was convicted for “keeping/managing a brothel (SOA 2003). Ms Morris was arrested after she dialled 999 to report a serious attack on a woman in a flat used by her escort agency. Two identifiable men, one with a sawn-off shotgun up his sleeve, threw petrol about, threatening to torch […]
A police force has denied a four-year crackdown on kerb-crawlers has made sex workers more vulnerable to attack by forcing them to move on to other areas.Of the 52 men arrested for kerb-crawling in east Bournemouth in 2006, 18 were charged compared with the 17 arrests and a single charge last year.English Collective of Prostitutes […]