SEX PAYING for
What does the UK really think about prostitution?
THERE are nearly 73,000 sex workers in the UK - but should it be illegal to pay for sex?
While the act of prostitution is legal in Great Britain, a number of related activities - like kerb crawling, running brothels, and pimping - are not.
According to Sarah Champion, Labourmp for rotherham, criminalising paying for sex is a priority if women and girls are to be better protected.
She recently led a parliamentary debate calling for the UK government to adopt the Nordic model towards sex work.
This model - used by Sweden, Norway, France, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - decriminalises those who are prostitutes, but makes paying for sex an offence.
During the debate, Champion said: “There are a minority of men in this country who are willing to pay to sexually access women’s bodies.
“Currently, the law gives them licence to do this. For too long, parliament has turned a blind eye to the suffering and societal carnage that these men create.”
In an opinion article published on Labourlist the morning of the debate, Champion wrote that “prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls”.
The Nordic model could mean that the 72,800 sex workers in the UK are at risk of losing work.
Margaret Corvid is a Plymouth councillor and former sex worker;
Alex Feis-bryce is a Lewisham councillor and founder of National Ugly Mugs (a charity working to ending violence against sex workers); Aisling Gallagher is a Lewisham councillor. Together they argued that there should be full decriminalisation of sex work, writing on Labourlist that: “One does not have to find sex work appealing or tasteful to understand that sex workers are trying to make a living like anyone else”.
They added: “In any industry it is selfevident that workers should be the ones to determine how best to improve their working conditions. “In every other industry besides sex work, we accept that a job is not something we do for enjoyment, it is something we do in order to survive. The case remains the same for sex workers.”
A 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee report on prostitution found that around 11 per cent of British men aged 16–74 have paid for sex on at least one occasion.
Giving evidence for the report, experts Dr Sarah Kingston and Professor Terry Thomas said: “Structural inequalities, poverty, cuts in welfare payments and the bedroom tax have all been found to influence some men and women’s decision to sell sexual services.
“Placing a criminal sanction on the purchasers of sex does not tackle the reasons why some men and women choose this line of work.”
The report concluded that: “It is wrong that sex workers, who are predominantly women, should be criminalised, and therefore stigmatised and penalised, in this way.”
It’s a view the general public tends to agree with. More than half (54 per cent) of people support the full decriminalisation of consensual sex work, according to Yougov data. Arguments for this include empowering women to be insistent about healthy and appropriate sex, and encouraging them to report crimes to the police. Meanwhile, arguments against full decriminalisation say that it could increase related criminal activities like sex trafficking, drugs and violence.