Sex Worker Solidarity Strike Highlights Continued Fight for Decriminalisation in UK
- slingshotmagazine
- Mar 7, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 11, 2019
by Molly Long
Women across the country struck in solidarity with sex workers on International Women’s Day. The demonstration, co-organised by Decrim Now and Women’s Strike, called attention to the ongoing struggle for the total decriminalisation of sex work in the UK.
As it stands, prostitution is legal here. But within the law is a host of restrictions that actually serve to make sex work more precarious, and put sex workers more at risk. This is something organisers hope to highlight on Friday.
“The measures that are currently in place to legislate sex work actually often put us in more danger,” says Tate Smith, a sex worker and member of Decrim Now. Among these restrictions is the banning of ‘two girls under one roof.’
UK law identifies any number of sex workers working together as illegal, supposedly to prevent pimping. But many say this only makes things more dangerous. Niki Adams from the English Collective of Prostitutes says “Not being able to work together has serious safety implications.
“We have to work so hard to stay safe, but are hugely undermined by the law, which says even a sex worker writing down the car registration of a colleague’s client’s car is illegal,” Niki continues.
Work therefore becomes a compromise between working safely, and working legally. Decriminalisation - the total removal of prostitution from criminal law - would work to remedy this, and is generally prefered by sex workers over legalisation.
“Legalisation would mean more control in the hands of authority, since it requires signing into law an acceptable way to practice prostitution,” explains Lydia Caradonna, one of the founders of Decrim Now. “It would mean any sex worker continuing to work outside of these terms, for whatever reason, would not be afforded the same protection under the law. This is the type of thing we must highlight with #strike4decrim.”
One proposed legalised system requires sex workers to register under local authority, but signing over personal details is understandably not something many sex workers are willing to do. “How would a registered sex worker be treated if they wanted to become a foster parent or teacher? The stigma is still too real to deny it would have no effect,” says Tate.
Decriminalisation, conversely, would remove government interference in the profession, replacing it with labour laws. Sex workers would have the chance to take unsatisfactory employers to court and unionise for better working conditions.
Lydia ends: “We are just women making a living and, under the right conditions, we are no more taken advantage of than any other worker.”
Commentaires