By Charlie D.
CN: This post contains discussions of violence against SW, police violence, rape, and CSA.
On 12th November, SWARM members attended Proceed Without Caution, an event organised by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) in the House of Commons. This event was to publicly launch two community reports; Proceed Without Caution, published by ECP, and another, ‘Exposed from all sides: The Role of Policing in Sex Workers’ Access to Justice, in collaboration with the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA). In a building in which legislation about sex work is debated, below ornate chandeliers, sex workers and allies sat, to make public the impact that criminalisation has on our lives.
Laura Watson, spokesperson for ECP, was chairing the event, and presented findings from their new report, which you can find on ECP’s website. ‘We are here’, she told us, ‘so that MPs can hear directly from sex workers, and to galvanise support against Government proposals to increase the criminalisation of sex work’.
The key findings of ECP’s report showed that thousands of women in the UK have received a prostitute caution, or have been convicted for prostitution offences, causing ‘wide-ranging lifelong harm’. These offences include loitering, soliciting, brothel-keeping and/or controlling prostitution. These laws target sex workers who are working together for safety or who are working visibly on the streets. ‘We fight against being treated like criminals’, Laura declared, and revealed how in criminalising sex work, these prostitution offences trap sex workers in a cycle of poverty and further criminalisation.
ECP’s report demonstrates how prostitute cautions are a barrier for sex workers looking to leave sex work and find another job. They can also lead to sex workers losing custody of their children; they can increase the threat of violence and deportation, and mean sex workers can be denied compensation. Proceed Without Caution details how being branded a criminal makes sex workers an easy target for police and other authority figures to discriminate and deny sex workers their rights. It increases the risk of exploitation, rape and other violence. The impact of prostitute offences on sex workers’ lives is made worse for workers who are migrants, trans, women of colour, street workers, and working-class.
Proceed Without Caution shows the cruelty and arbitrary nature of prostitute cautions, and the ways that police use them to discriminate and punish sex workers – many of whom, Laura reminds us, ‘are just mothers trying to do the best for their children’ .
Prostitute cautions differ from police cautions. Police cautions require the person to accept guilt for the offences they are being cautioned about. Unlike other cautions, prostitute cautions do not need the person cautioned to admit guilt – all that’s needed is for the police to claim to have ‘reasonable cause’. Reasonable cause simply means that the police can say that they believe they have found reasonable cause, which is loosely defined. In short, their word alone is enough. According to ECP’s report, the things that have counted as ‘police evidence’ in order to convict women of loitering and/or soliciting include a police officer shouting out a woman from the police car, or of ‘looking in the direction of several men’1. Of course, anyone who finds themselves in Liverpool Street at 6:30 on a Thursday evening will know how difficult it is not to look in the direction of several men.
Laura highlights how ‘police discretion of this kind is an invitation for police to abuse their power’. Unlike other cautions, there is no right of appeal, and it stays on your record for life. While other cautions will be ‘spent’ from your criminal record after two and a half years, a prostitute caution is not. It will show up on an enhanced DBS check2 until the person is 100 years old. As Alice Hardy, one of the event panelists argued, women are often involved in jobs that require enhanced DBS checks – like teaching, working in nurseries or as carers – as well as sex work. Prostitute cautions are therefore a cruel and draconian punishment that traps women in sex work, as their options become further limited by the presence of these cautions on their record.
Hardy, a lawyer who specialises in Public Law and Human Rights, discussed how ‘opaque and confusing’ prostitute cautions were. She explained that women she had worked with were often deterred from even applying for jobs which required DBS checks, for fear of humiliation and stigma that these cautions can bring. While it is possible to expunge them from a criminal record, this is a complicated and expensive process, which further deters women from even attempting to get them expunged. Hardy also explained that victims of trafficking she had worked with had received prostitute cautions, which is a violation of their human rights.
Not only are these cautions often unsupported by evidence, but they are used as tools by police to harass and dehumanise women. One woman in ECP’s network described how the police will ‘wait outside my house to catch me when I leave. It doesn’t matter how I’m dressed, who I’m with, where I’m going, they say I’m loitering. When they stop me, they jeer at me, and make jokes at my expense, often sexually explicit jokes. When they arrest me, I’m strip searched, and they sometimes leave the door open so the male officers can see in. All this is to humiliate me.’3. ECP’s findings sit alongside a large body of evidence that demonstrates how police – both as an institution and as individual police officers – have been proven time and time again to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic and corrupt.
Laura then went on to discuss how an increased push towards criminalisation – including the attempt to redefine prostitution as sexual exploitation – will have serious consequences for sex workers in a myriad ways. She took aim at hypocritical ‘organisations and individuals who are pressing for women’s cautions… to be expunged, yet refuse to support current sex workers in our struggle for decriminalisation’. The mobilisation towards more criminalisation will have devastating effects, as Becky Ryan from Street Workers Collective Ireland4 detailed, sharing sex workers’ first hand experience of violence since the Nordic Model5 was introduced in Ireland.
If all sex work is labelled as sexual exploitation, anyone who is associated with sex workers – this includes people who make our work safer, such as as colleagues, drivers and security – will be classed as ‘exploiters’, and liable for prosecution. This is essentially the same thing as introducing the Nordic model, as sex workers’ clients would be criminalised on the basis that they’d be engaging in sexual exploitation, even if the service exchange was between two consenting adults (there are already laws against non consensual sexual activity and the exploitation of minors). Websites that allow sex workers to advertise would be criminalised on the grounds of ‘facilitating exploitation’, removing sex workers’ ability to screen clients, protect their privacy, give them autonomy over what clients they see, and work independently. We know that sex workers working visibly and on the streets experience much greater levels of violence6789. Criminalising websites would force sex workers into more precarious conditions, and onto the street.
Alongside the target that is so often put on sex workers’ backs, there are other groups of women who are criminalised just for trying to survive. Laura tells us that ‘The numbers of women being convicted for shoplifting and other small value theft are increasing as poverty rises’, backed up by organisations like Women in Prison who argue that ‘the UK has a chronic overuse and misuse of prison’, corroborated with statistics worldwide that ‘offences committed by women are often closely linked to poverty, and frequently a means of survival to support their family and children’10. Black women and women of colour face disproportionate higher levels of arrest and imprisonment1112, and the imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers is still ongoing in the UK13.
ECP also highlighted the hypocrisy of the Labour Government who in recent years have pushed to further criminalise sex work14 while refusing to change policies that keep families and children in destitution, for example the Two Child Limit, in which universal credit and tax credits are restricted to just two children in a family151617. While 46% of households in England with three children or more are now in poverty18 – with the impact being felt the hardest by the Black and Minority ethnic groups – the UK government was still able to find £60 million during 2022 and 2023 to grant licenses of military goods to Israel19, supporting their ongoing genocide of Palestinian people.
We heard testimonies from sex workers who had first-hand experience of convictions. Jay, a panel member, talked about the fear and chilling experiences of raids. We watched a video testimony from a migrant woman. With her face positioned away from the camera, she told us of her aggressive arrest by police officers, how she was under investigation for ‘controlling prostitution’ for two years. Since her arrest she has been left homeless, and lives in constant fear and uncertainty.
Saffron, a sex worker in ECP’s network, shared her story, and spoke about how prostitution cautions she received in the 1980s are still affecting her life today. ‘I’ve been trying to get jobs now, but … because of the convictions for prostitution, I can’t get a job at all’, she told us. She applied to be a cleaner, and got rejected after the DBS check; she is qualified as a carer, and has personal experience because her son is disabled. ‘I did get a job in a [care] home. They did the induction for me… I did the shadowing, and they gave me the job’. But after only one DBS check, the prostitution convictions showed up, and Saffron was fired from the job. These were convictions she received because often, being fined in court meant she had to keep sex working to pay the fines. She told us: ‘literally every time you went out you’d be arrested, put in a cell for hours on end, then you had to go to court and get a fine, and then you had to go back on the streets to pay the fine’. For Saffron, and for so many other sex workers, it has been a vicious cycle: ‘it’s like a double whammy in a way really. I‘ve already been penalised and fined and put in prison cells for prostitution but, you know, you’re trying to get a normal job and be a law abiding person you know, and you can’t. So basically you’re stuck on benefits, on Universal Credit’.
The impact of prostitution cautions extends even further. As a young child, Saffron experienced abuse in a Children’s Home, by the Registered Manager (who, rather than being fired, was simply moved to another Children’s Home). Thirty years later, she claimed compensation. She was offered £12,000 – already an inadequate amount for the violence she had to endure. But because she had been convicted as an adult for loitering and soliciting, they reduced it by 50% to £6,000. ‘But I didn’t have a criminal record between the ages of four and nine years old’, Saffron said, continuing ‘…if [sex work] was decriminalised, if [I] didn’t have [a] record, I’d be able to get a job. I’m a good person… you know, I lead a normal life’.
Luca Stevenson, (International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF], formerly ESWA), presented key findings from the latest report by European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA), the largest community-led research report to date. The report, entitled ‘Exposed from all sides: The Role of Policing in Sex Workers’ Access to Justice’ explored policing and sex workers’ access to justice in 11 European countries, including the UK. 199 sex workers were interviewed about their experience of policing. ESWA’s main finding was that sex workers fear the police, and for good reason. Almost 30% of all participants reported experiencing physical violence from the police, with 27% of participants experiencing sexual violence – ranging from comments of a sexual nature to rape. Over 40% had been subjected to threats, coercion and blackmail from the police, and almost 69% had experienced harassment or emotional abuse. When sex workers did decide to report violence or a crime, the majority did not get support. Luca then went on to highlight IPPF’s clear position that they support sex workers’ rights and the decriminalisation of sex work. He also highlighted the hypocrisy of organisations – and Members of Parliament – who ‘bandy about bodily autonomy’ to support the case of, for example, safe abortions, but still call for the criminalisation of clients. He told us ‘during a global backlash spear-headed by fundamentalist populists, we need to call out women’s rights organisations who call for the criminalisation of clients… There is no liberation without liberation for all’.
Other speakers included Chiara Capraro from Amnesty International who reiterated their organisation’s position that the decriminalisation of sex work is a human rights issue. Capraro stated that ‘MPs should educate themselves’ on the issue at hand, and that ‘tonight is that opportunity’. She further emphasised that the decriminalisation of sex work would not decriminalise trafficking, but by removing the threat of criminalisation, victims can come forward.
We also heard from Becky Ryan, a representative of the Street Workers Collective Ireland, who are a grassroots collective of current and former sex workers20. The collective focuses on the needs of street workers, workers experiencing addiction, homelessness, or those in prison. Becky told the room that after years of lobbying by Catholic Church-based NGOs calling themselves ‘feminists’, the Nordic Model was introduced21. ‘It should concern feminists who are bedfellows of these people’ she told us; that these are the same people who were ran the Magdalene Laundries – institutions in which at least 10,000 women and girls were subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse22.
The effect of the introduction of the Nordic Model is chilling. In Ireland, within two years, violent attacks had increased by 92%, in particular knife attacks. Perpetrators were targeting certain groups, especially Latin American trans women. The Nordic Model strengthened class divides, Becky explained – with white, Irish, indoor workers able to work – as they are thought to be ‘safer’ for clients, because they are less likely to be targeted by police. On top of this, there is less money available from sex work because clients are scared of being targeted by police. Prisons are full of victims – and Becky explained that trafficking victims in their network have been given prison sentences, too. ‘This is what happens’, Becky told us, ‘when policies see all prostitution as gender-based violence… We’re meant to stay hidden and alone’.
We also heard from MP representatives, including Sîan Berry, MP for Brighton Pavilion from the Green Party, who congratulated ECP and the event’s speakers for ‘working with evidence in mind’. Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central and co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, told us she ‘wants to push the envelope of what seems politically possible’.
Cristel Amiss from Women Against Rape (WAR) spoke about how sex workers were being pitted against Muslim women by police, to justify the criminalisation of sex workers. Cristel stressed how important it was to support the safety of sex workers and oppose Islamophobia.
Sam Hanks (of Swansea University and Safety First Wales) presented some research findings about what Freedom of Information (FOI) responses23 tell us about prostitute cautions. Their research used FOI requests to try to get an accurate sense of the prevalence of prostitute cautions, but they found that it was hard to get a clear image of the prevalence and scale of how many sex workers had received prostitute cautions in the UK. This ‘mystification of control’, Sam told us, reveals ‘how sinister cautions are’, and that there is a large ‘disjuncture between the “official truth”, and the truth’. Sam emphasised that cautions were not relics of the past, despite police’s insistence that they were, and they still had ‘dramatic… and disastrous impacts’ on the lives of sex workers. Women still have prostitute offences revealed through DBS checks, and the recent ‘dressing up’ of violent police tactics is insidious; for example, police no longer conduct ‘immigrant raids’ but ‘welfare checks’. As Sam put it, ‘they have a different name, but they’re the same thing’.
Joining us in the audience, were also representatives of Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and Release, who all shared their solidarity in the fight for the decriminalisation of sex work.
After Exploitation shared a statement in which they stressed their concern about the conflation of sex work with trafficking, and highlighted that government policies ‘scare people into coming forward’. They told us how survivors of modern slavery in their network had been detained even after being identified as trafficking victims. Disturbingly, they were found to not be exempt from deportation, or for crimes they were forced to commit when they were being trafficked.
Carrie from ECP couldn’t have put it more succinctly, when she said ‘first they make us poor. Then they criminalise us when we refuse that poverty. Then we’re labelled as unfit mothers.’ ECP are looking to speak to sex working mothers who have had experience with social workers. Please get in touch if you do!
Testimonies from sex workers and victims of trafficking were shared, followed by huge rounds of applause for having the courage to speak about their experience – particularly in a building where the laws that led to their violence were passed. A member of Sexquisite – an award-winning performing arts company platforming sex worker artists – spoke about their experience of a violent and abusive police raid. She was arrested on suspicion of trafficking under five counts, despite being an underage victim herself. She developed PTSD from police treatment she experienced. While the Crown Prosecution Service dropped her case, these charges will always be on her record, making it extremely difficult to get a job outside of sex work. Another trafficking victim, Precious expressed the overwhelming fear of being destitute. When her asylum claim was refused by the Home Office, and she therefore had no recourse to state support, she had to rely on the people who had trafficked her, who took advantage of her lack of social and legal protection to demand sex from her and to threaten her children and family. Criminalisation, and hostile borders, give traffickers and exploiters power over the women the law is claiming to protect them from. She spoke about the openness, non-judgemental support she received from organisations at the Crossroads Women Centre, where ECP, WAR and other grassroots collectives are based.A spokesperson from Decrim Now pleaded with the floor to email your MP opposing the criminalisation of sex work. You can do so via their template here – it takes less than five minutes! We also heard from a spokesperson from Winvisible, a multi-racial grassroots group of women with visible and invisible disabilities, who highlighted the relationship between sex work and disability justice, with sex work often being the most flexible form of employment for women with disabilities. The Labour government’s new budget will hit women the hardest24.
What are sex workers’ demands?
- Sex workers need money!
Laura stressed money can be ‘practically divested from persecution and prosecution into women’s hands’ – to support them, protect them, and to keep children with their mothers. An example of this is the Guaranteed Care Income Pilot initiated by PROStitutes Collective, ECP’s sister organisation in the US. The pilot provided monthly payments of $2000 a month to 10 women who are single mothers at risk of criminalisation and of losing their children to social services. The payments, Laura emphasises, are not charity – ‘they are a recognition of the work it takes to raise children and sustain others’. While the pilot only began a few months ago, the benefits are already emerging. Women reported seeing an improvement in their physical and mental health, being able to have more time with their children, they were less stressed, and their children benefited, also.
Something similar could be implemented in the UK, too. She told us ‘there’s a massive body of research that shows the benefit of putting money in women’s hands’, citing the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit in the US, which gave $3,000 a year to families for every child, reducing child poverty by 46%2526. This Tax Credit also enabled women to escape domestic violence.
- Full decriminalisation of sex work
Only the full decriminalisation of sex work will reduce the levels of violence and harm that sex workers face.
- Expunging records which force and keep women in sex work
Expunging criminal records removes the stigma of being a criminal, and allows sex workers the opportunity to find work outside of sex work.
- Target resources to enable sex workers to leave the industry if they choose
Sex workers deserve the resources and support to help them leave the industry if they want or need to. Sex workers know what they need – nothing about us, without us.
The event closed with a standing ovation for all the speakers and sex workers who continue to fight for destigmatisation and decriminalisation of sex work.
Endnotes
1. English Collective Prostitutes (ECP). 2024. Proceed Without Caution: The Impact of ‘Prostitute Cautions’ and Convictions on Sex Workers’ Lives.
2. A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is a way for employers to check a criminal record of a current or potential employee.
3. English Collective Prostitutes (ECP). 2024. Proceed Without Caution: The Impact of ‘Prostitute Cautions’ and Convictions on Sex Workers’ Lives.
4. To contact Street Workers’ Collective Ireland, contact them via email on swcollectiveireland@gmail.com.
6. Campbell, R., & Kinnell, H. (2000). “We Shouldn’t Have to Put Up with This”: Street Sex Work and Violence.
7. Connelly, L., Kamerāde, D., & Sanders, T. (2021). Violent and nonviolent crimes against sex workers: The influence of the sex market on reporting practices in the United Kingdom. Journal of interpersonal violence, 36(7-8), NP3938-NP3963.
8. Elmes, J., Stuart, R., Grenfell, P., Walker, J., Hill, K., Hernandez, P., … & Platt, L. (2022). Effect of police enforcement and extreme social inequalities on violence and mental health among women who sell sex: findings from a cohort study in London, UK. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 98(5), 323-331.
9. Walker, J.G., Elmes, J., Grenfell, P. et al. The impact of policing and homelessness on violence experienced by women who sell sex in London: a modelling study. Sci Rep 14, 8191 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44663-w
10. Women in the criminal justice system: key facts – Penal Reform International.
11. Prison Reform Trust (London). (2017). Counted out: Black, Asian and minority ethnic women in the criminal justice system. Prison Reform Trust.
12. Long, LJ (2022) “Black women and White Criminal (in)Justice.” In: Tate, SA and Rodríguez, EG, (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Race and Gender. Springer, Switzerland, pp. 307-324. ISBN 303083946X, 978-3030839468 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83947-5_16
13. Pregnancy in Prison – Level Up
15. Things will only get worse: Why the two-child limit must go | CPAG.
16. The two-child limit: a growing hole in the UK’s safety net
17. Chzhen, Y., & Bradshaw, J. (2024). The two‐child limit and child poverty in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Social Welfare.
18. Children in families hit by 2-child limit also lose most from cuts to public services, finds the WBG
19. UK arms exports to Israel – House of Commons Library
20. To get in contact with Street Workers Collective Ireland, you can contact them via email at swcollectiveireland@gmail.com
21. The Nordic Model, otherwise known as the Swedish Model, was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2015, and in Ireland in 2017.
22. For more information, see About the Magdalene Laundries
23. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request can be made by anyone to request access to certain information by a public authority, including the police.
24. Did Rachel Reeves deliver a Budget for women? | British Politics and Policy at LSE
25. Child Poverty Fell to Record Low 5.2% in 2021
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