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The View - Autumn / Winter 2007

Woman with car in background

Sex in the city

It may be the oldest profession, but prostitution remains shrouded in myths and images that stigmatise and marginalise sex workers. Are current Government tactics to address the issue working? Can lessons be learnt from other European countries? Loughborough researchers Dr Maggie O’Neill and Professor Phil Hubbard are finding out.

In December 2006 the country watched aghast as news unfolded of the murders of five Ipswich prostitutes, propelling into the media spotlight the issue of sex workers’ safety, and reopening the debate on whether, and how, sex work should be regulated.

The significance of street sex markets in Britain is hard to gauge, although sex work is a fact of life in many of our cities. As there have been no national, multi-site studies of street sex work previously undertaken it’s extremely difficult to estimate with any reliability or accuracy the numbers of women who sell sex on the streets of British cities. Official figures are derived from Home Office statistics, which relate to cautions and convictions for soliciting offences in England and Wales. These show a reduction in convictions from nearly 10,000 in 1985 to less than 1,000 in 2005.

Woman talking to a man through a car windowBut given that these relate only to illegal activities, they’re not a true reflection of the extent of street sex work. Individual project statistics and studies in specific locations suggest that the figure is likely to be much higher. It is generally agreed, however, that the street sex market is diminishing in importance as mobile phones and the internet provide new ways of making contact with clients. Nonetheless, street sex markets are well-established in many UK towns and cities, providing perhaps the most visible manifestation of sex work, and one that continues to attract significant numbers of clients.

In a recent collaborative project, Loughborough researchers Professor Phil Hubbard and Dr Maggie O’Neill – together with co-investigators Jane Pitcher, Jane Scoular from the University of Strathclyde and Rosie Campbell of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects – completed an in-depth study of the lives of street sex workers in British cities. Their research, undertaken for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, examined how six areas of female street sex work are used and shared. In all the instances, prostitution had been a part of the local scene for many years, but was attracting more opposition from local communities concerned about anti-sociality and the effect on the reputation of the area. The project assessed the range of community responses to street sex work, identifying why and how groups in some areas have sought to ‘reclaim’ the streets by excluding prostitutes, while others exhibit greater tolerance.

“Through interviews and focus groups with sex workers, local residents, police and agency workers, our research showed that in cities where lines of communication had been opened up between residents and sex workers, issues of concern could be effectively dealt with so that prostitutes could work safely without causing offence or annoyance to those in the vicinity. In cities where no mediation had occurred, conflict between residents and workers was more pronounced, and often based on misconceptions about the nature of prostitution,” explains Professor Hubbard.

The research also revealed that community patrols, vigilantism and harassment have been commonplace in some communities, adding to the difficulties sex workers have in negotiating with clients and dealing with the police. These factors, combined with the use of ASBOs and community injunctions, appear to have been significant in reducing the numbers of street sex workers in Britain: numbers in all the case study locations were low, with just 5 to 10 women working per night, whereas 10 years ago the numbers were double or triple that. However, given that few believe sex work is declining, the assumption is that many women who might have previously worked the street are now working off-street.

Part of a Joseph Rowntree programme on the social value of public spaces, the research into street sex work coincided with the Home Office’s most thorough review of sex work legislation since the Wolfenden committee’s exploration of prostitution and homosexuality in the 1950s. Contrary to the research team’s findings, the clear message of the emerging Government strategy, issued in January 2006, was that street prostitution is incompatible with residential and business life, and that priority needs to be given to helping street workers ‘exit’.

The tragic events in Ipswich last December appear to vindicate the Home Office’s stance, and though legislation to allow mini-brothels to exist has been mooted, the police are currently following the Home Office line, displaying a less tolerant attitude towards street soliciting and kerb crawling.

However major concerns remain that this might simply result in a spatial shifting of sex work, with more and more prostitution occurring in offstreet spaces that are beyond the gaze of the state and law, and where exploitation by managers, pimps, and clients may be rife. Such concerns would appear to be borne out by the murders last summer of two women who were bludgeoned to death when working in a massage parlour in Shrewsbury, and by Operation Pentameter which uncovered significant numbers of smuggled women working in off-street premises, often in poor working conditions and for little money.

“The assumption that off-street prostitution is safer and provokes less conflict than street sex work is a massive generalisation,” says Dr Maggie O’Neill. “What matters is the way that spaces are regulated by the state and the law through its various agencies. In a context where sex workers remain stigmatised and outside the formal economy, turning a blind eye to prostitution cannot be regarded as a sufficient response to the issues of exploitation and violence that are often associated with it.”

The abolitionist stance currently advocated by the Home Office, and the Scottish Executive, places prostitutes in a legal ‘grey’ zone – it’s not illegal to sell sex, but selling sex on the streets, or off-street where there is more than one worker present, is illegal. This legal ambiguity is not a uniquely British problem, but does make a major case for legal reform. While sex worker unions argue for outright decriminalisation – a stance which has been adopted in New Zealand and parts of Australia – the Home Office has dismissed the idea of partial or full decriminalisation, giving more serious consideration instead to the systems of brothel licensing which exist in the Netherlands and Germany. In Scotland, the Swedish laws that prohibit the purchase of sexual services have also been influential, with the 2007 Prostitution (Public Places) Act introducing new laws to prohibit kerb-crawling.

In a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Professor Hubbard – with co-investigators Jane Scoular from the University of Strathclyde and Roger Matthews from London South Bank – has been exploring the way that prostitution is regulated in different European jurisdictions. His conclusions, based on interviews with over fifty regulators in Amsterdam, Stockholm, London and Edinburgh, are that sex work laws may be profoundly different across Europe, but their enactment often produces similar outcomes.

“For example, the gradual disappearance of street sex work, facilitated by the availability of mobile phones and internet contact sites, is evident across all case study sites, encouraged by police who have targeted street work as a visible and unacceptable manifestation of the sex industry,” he explains. “Off-street work thus represents the most important form of sex work, whether entirely ‘hidden’ as it is in Stockholm, licensed – as in Amsterdam or Edinburgh – or informally tolerated, as it is in London.”

The research also suggests that recent reform of prostitution laws across the EU are strongly connected to beliefs that sex workers are exploited and would not choose to become prostitutes.

“The ‘trafficking’ panic is significant here, with trafficking and prostitution often conflated in policy debates,” says Professor Hubbard. “The idea of the prostitute as victim justifies laws that make the task of selling sex more difficult. Even though the aim of prostitution laws is to punish exploitative and violent clients, pimps and traffickers, the impacts are often felt most acutely by women sex workers.”

It is also remarkable that despite prostitution laws across Europe being gender neutral, they are only enforced when they involve men buying sex from women. In all the research case study locations, the police devoted little time to the surveillance of male sex work. This lack of attention is extraordinary given that it’s a widely-noted phenomena, with studies of male sex work revealing that issues of drug-dependency, exploitation and destitution are not uncommon.

Yet perhaps the most interesting dimension of European prostitution laws is their inability to develop a statutory definition of prostitution that differentiates it from other forms of sex work, such as stripping or exotic dancing. Indeed, the distinction between ‘adult entertainment’ and prostitution is highly problematic given both involve forms of ‘bodywork’ designed to provide sexual gratification. Moreover, the assumption that prostitution is exploitative and damaging, while adult entertainment is not, is not borne out empirically.

“The fact that stripclubs like Spearmint Rhino or For Your Eyes Only are opening in city centres at the same time that street prostitution is disappearing is interesting, as it suggests that the state and law makes distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable forms of sex work which are based on highly stereotyped views of prostitutes and their clientele,” says Professor Hubbard.

All of this indicates that sex work now takes a variety of forms, with policy-makers enacting ways of control which never succeed in eradicating sex work, but transform where – and how -– sex is sold. So as the sex industry remodels itself will legislation have to change too? Professor Hubbard thinks it may well do. But whatever happens, the ‘oldest profession’, and all its related activities, are sure to continue generating debate for many years to come.

Want to know more?

Visit:

  • Safety Soap Box - features a report on a consultation about street sex work in Walsall.

Contact:

Phil Hubbard, Professor of Urban Geography

Maggie O'Neill

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