Do we really need more proof that sex work should be decriminalised?

In the cost of living crisis, women are not being pushed into prostitution by abusers, traffickers or pimps, but by the wilful neglect of the state. The time to act is now

As food banks fail to keep up with demand, and families cannot afford to put money on the meter, more people, particularly women, are turning to sex work. These women are not being pushed into prostitution by abusers, traffickers or pimps, but by the wilful neglect of the state. At the same time, those who were already undertaking sex work are reporting that they feel pressure to take greater risks, or offer services they usually wouldn’t.

One of us is an MP, the other a brothel worker, and we’re united in wanting to address this dire situation with solutions rooted in evidence, not moralism – solutions that sex workers themselves support.

Firstly, to reduce the number of people who feel that sex work is their best economic option, we need to tackle the root cause: poverty. The government could act tomorrow, as the Hookers Against Hardship campaign is asking it to do, to end benefit sanctions – which see £262 on average docked from monthly payments, plunging people into hardship overnight. The government could instead increase benefits, and make them available to migrants who do not have recourse to public funds. It could pause evictions and freeze rents.

While poverty exists, more women will continue to enter and remain in the sex industry for their own survival. So we must also do everything we can to reduce the exploitation and harm they face, and make it easier for them to find alternative work if they want it.

Criminalisation makes sex work even more dangerous. Our laws mean that sex workers cannot legally work together to improve their safety, and are discouraged from reporting violent incidents for fear of being convicted. Sex workers face losing their homes and their children, while being barred from other forms of employment because of their criminal record.

But while sex workers are calling for decriminalisation, some feminists are campaigning for men who buy sex to be criminalised – a system that is often referred to as the Nordic model. The end goal of the Nordic model is that, once the purchase of sex is made illegal, men will stop buying sex altogether and thus the entire sex industry will disappear.

The Nordic model seems feminist at first glance, but it falls apart under scrutiny. It uses prohibition-era politics to try to erase a complex social issue from existence – and the evidence shows that it doesn’t work. For example, since the Nordic model was implemented in Northern Ireland, the number of sex workers has increased. The number of clients has dropped, but only by around 11 per cent, and evidence from France (which has similar laws) suggests that the men who are most likely to act violently towards sex workers are not put off.

Medecins du Monde’s damning report on the impact of the Nordic model in France concluded that it had had “a detrimental effect on sex workers’ safety, health and overall living conditions”. In order to work, sex workers must hide clients from the police, leading many to work in isolated areas such as woodland or industrial estates, where they face an increased risk of violence.

Clients also begin to use fake names and numbers that make them impossible to trace and report if necessary. Amnesty International has said that, internationally, “the criminalisation of buyers has exacerbated violence and stigma against sex workers”.

Under any form of criminalisation, including the Nordic model, brothels and managers still exist, but workers have no recourse against abusive bosses or exploitation. In decriminalised New Zealand, on the other hand, sex workers have successfully sued their bosses, and brothels must meet minimum obligations in relation to safety and working conditions.

It is a fantasy to assume that if we are heavy-handed enough with the police, sex workers will find “better” jobs, suddenly be able to survive on meagre benefit payments, or miraculously stop needing to feed themselves. Sex workers will exist for as long as poverty exists and women have limited options, no matter how harshly the government punishes them or their clients.

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This is why we, alongside Amnesty International, the World Health Organisation, Freedom United, the Royal College of Nursing, and – most importantly – sex workers themselves, support the decriminalisation of sex work: to improve sex workers’ safety, their rights, and their ability to leave the industry.

Decriminalisation repeals laws aimed specifically at sex work. Sex workers could report clients who assault them or bosses who exploit them, thus increasing their power. Trafficking would remain illegal, as it is in other industries. Crucially, we are not calling for the sort of legalisation that exists in Holland and Germany, which creates its own set of problems.

Research shows that decriminalisation has a positive impact on sex workers’ lives. More than 90 per cent of sex workers in New Zealand said it gave them additional employment, as well as more legal, health and safety rights; two-thirds found it easier to refuse clients; and 70 per cent said they were more likely to report violence to the police.

The movement for decriminalisation isn’t about glorifying the industry or erasing the violence that occurs. It is the recognition that the wrongs done to sex workers can only be addressed by increasing their rights. The question is not whether people “should” be selling sex: like it or not, they are.