Sex workers

One way to understand the impact of inequalities is to look at how social exclusion impacts on a specific group.

Overview

Who are they?

The Home Office estimates that there are around 80,000 commercial sex workers in the U.K (Home Office 2004). Approximately 85% of these are women working mainly off-street. There are 730 off-street sites selling sex in London alone with an estimated 2,952 - 5,861 women working in them (Dickson 2004).

The U.K is also a major sex trafficking destination. The most recent wave of women trafficked in the U.K coming from Eastern Europe and South East Asia since the 1990s (Dibb et al 2006). A law enforcement operation, code named Operation Pentameter 2, the largest national effort of its kind has revealed the extent and seriousness of sex trafficking UK (Siren report 2008).

How are they affected by social inclusion?

Commercial sex workers are a heterogeneous group with diverse, experiences, motivations and needs. Jeal (Jeal 2007) reports that street-based and parlour-based sex workers had very different health experiences, risk-taking behaviour and use of services. Street-based sex workers were more likely to use drugs and abuse alcohol, share needles and have unprotected sex (Jeal 2007). Street-based sex workers tend to experience very low standards of general and sexual health (Jeal and Salisbury 2004) and frequently experience violence at the hands of clients (Church et al 2001).

The cumulated research evidence shows that sex workers face barriers to accessing sexual health services according to the environment and the context of their work. Female and male sex workers experience discrimination because of their work and the continuing criminalisation of prostitution. Stigmatisation, reinforced by the spread of HIV, has created further barriers to sex workers in need of social and health services (Jeal 2007).

What is being done?

To be effective in improving health, different types of service delivered in different settings for different groups are required. However there are concerns about the approach adopted by the UK Home Office (Home Office 2004, Home Office 2006) and the lack of a health and human rights elements to the prostitution strategy (Laite 2006, Boynton and Cusick 2006, Robinson 2007, Phoenix 2007). "Outreach work, provision of condoms, needle exchange schemes, and primary care for a population rarely registered with a general practitioner could be compromised if the strategy is enforced and sex workers become reluctant to seek help" (Boynton and Cusick 2006).

References

The items in this reference list are available online. They were last accessed on 29 January 2013.

Some of them are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

Boynton P, Cusick L (2006) Sex workers to pay the price. UK plans to cut street prostitution will threaten sex workers' health. BMJ 332 (7535) 28 January pp.190-1.

Church S et al (2001) Violence by clients towards female prostitutes in different work settings: questionnaire survey. BMJ 322 (7285) 3 March pp.524-25.

Dibb et al (2006) Substance use and health-related needs of migrant sex workers and women trafficked into sexual exploitation in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the City of London (PDF 777.1KB). London: Salvation Army. 

Dickson S (2004) Sex in the city: mapping commercial sex in London. The Poppy Project (PDF 700.5KB). London: Eaves Housing for Women.

Home Office (2004) Paying the price: a consultation paper on prostitution. The Stationary Office: London.

Jeal N (2007) Health needs and service use of parlour-based prostitutes compared with street-based prostitutes: a cross-sectional survey. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 114(7), pp. 875-881.

Jeal N, Salisbury C (2004). A health needs assessment of street-based prostitutes: cross-sectional survey. Journal of Public Health, 26, pp.147-51.

Laite J (2006) Paying the price again: prostitution policy in historical perspective. London: History & Policy.

Phoenix J (2007) Regulating prostitution: Different problems, different solutions, same old story. Community Safety Journal 6(1) pp.6-10.

Robinson A (2007) From morality to rights. Debating sex work and sexual exploitation. The Symposium on Women, Human Rights and Prostitution (PDF 68.9KB). Sheffield: The Hallam Centre for Community Justice.

Siren Report (2008) Raids, rescues, resolution. Pentameter 2: Attacking exploitation in the UK (PDF 250.1KB). United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking: Strategic Information Response Network.