Standing up for Hackney’s sex workers
Outspoken: Georgina Perry of Open Doors
“If Open Doors doesn’t fight on behalf of sex workers in Hackney, nobody does. If we don’t articulate their needs, nobody does.”
Georgina Perry’s devotion to sex workers’ rights stems from a strong sense of injustice. Sex workers, she explains, are often blamed for problems they didn’t create and vilified when they themselves are the victims of crime. They are increasingly subject to punitive as well as moral policing, diminishing their wellbeing and increasing their vulnerability.
Perry and her team at Open Doors – a clinical case management and outreach service for sex workers in City and Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets, run from Homerton Hospital – aim to meet these challenges head-on by providing an integrated service to support the health and wellbeing of over 2,000 sex workers annually.
With Amnesty International’s recent decision to support the decriminalisation of consensual sex work, it seemed everyone suddenly had an opinion on the matter. The problem, says Perry, is that sex work is often presented in a simplistic way.
While debates are often black and white, the reality is “nuanced, layered lives and worlds”. There’s the deliberately obfuscated law, stigma and discrimination, human sexuality and behaviour… and not least general discomfort with talking about sex. Sex work is usually dismissed as ‘Other’ – part of an ‘undesirable nighttime economy’.
Yet, far from being a distant underworld, sold sex is relatively common. Research shows that around ten per cent of men in the UK, from all walks of life, have paid for sex – a percentage that would surely be much higher if it included people other than heterosexual men, and more ambiguously transactional intimacies.
In a culture that often sidelines open discussion about sexuality, sex workers have become a scapegoat for the subversion of moral codes, if not victims to pity for their ‘powerlessness’.
But having worked with thousands of sex workers and their clients over more than twenty years, Perry knows that “a lot of people do act outside the dominant discourse [of sexuality], they just can’t articulate it,” which was nicely (or, nastily) demonstrated with this year’s Ashley Madison hack.
If we can’t understand “all the shades of grey in life,” then we cannot support sex workers in a meaningful way, argues Perry.
The simplifications and stereotypes “only add to the stigma faced by sex workers,” she says. There are many reasons why people are engaged in sex work, and in Perry’s view we need to approach their work like any other type of occupation, rather than sensationalising it.
Perry has supported sex workers in Hackney for thirteen years, and she has noticed stark changes in the borough’s approach to the phenomenon. “Gentrification has changed the face of Hackney,” she says – and the new demographics have, in turn, altered attitudes towards sex workers.
“People who have just paid a fortune for a flat don’t want to see sex work: socially excluded people make them feel uncomfortable. I find that incredibly distasteful. What people don’t seem to realise is that most of the UK sex workers here are Hackney women, with long connections.”
But Perry does not blame regeneration for the problems sex workers are facing and she is sceptical of a recent report by the police’s that complaints relating to sex work are up by 70 per cent. “Policing sex work is quite an easy thing to do in terms of enforcement – sex workers don’t run very fast, they’re pretty visible.”
Perry sees sex workers becoming easy targets, scapegoats for other nighttime economy undesirables: “drunks, sex in doorways, fighting – nothing happens to them.”
However, with sex work in the borough, the police are increasingly going down an enforcement route – dispersal orders, arrests, fines, even though government regulations recommend against this.
It was not always this way, as Perry is eager to highlight. “This is a borough that has historically worked very well, in a joined-up and cohesive manner, in order to address the needs of people selling sex.” There is “really good public health commissioning, really good local and elected representative support – there is a lot of evidence-based thought behind it.”
Perry credits this partnership working – between the police, Open Doors and other supportive bodies – with saving many lives. “When we first started working here, there were high rates of morbidity and mortality among sex workers; infections, communicable diseases, housing problems.”
However, she laments,“it only takes a small change in local perspective – a certain moral agenda in local authorities – to change everything, completely.”
While selling sex is legal, many of the activities that go along with it are not, and police in Hackney “are returning to enforcement after a decade of collaborative partnership working,” increasing sex workers’ vulnerability, rather than supporting them and safeguarding their wellbeing.
For example, the police hand out ‘dispersal orders’ (a 48 hour ban from a designated area) to women soliciting on the streets. As a result, women might choose not to carry condoms, and enter cars with less discernment, to avoid being caught.
If they are caught, says Perry, this often initiates a downward spiral: “women are given punitive dispersal orders for soliciting and a court order if they breach it; when they don’t go to court, they are arrested, which means they get fined. If they don’t pay the fine, they go to prison; or, to pay it, they go back to the streets – either way, their lives are immeasurably worse.”
This focus on enforcement of the Crime and Policing Act is endangering women through “nonsensical acts of institutional aggression on the poorest and most vulnerable,” says Perry.
“Criminalisation isn’t, under any circumstances,” she argues, “a useful approach in supporting sex workers to make changes in their lives.”
Not only does it paint over the complex issues at hand for the workers themselves, it encourages sex workers to believe that the police will not act when they themselves are victims of crime; that, if they report a theft or a rape, their work, rather than the crime they reported, will become the focus of inquiries.
Though the challenges that sex workers face are obvious, what is also abundantly clear to Perry and her colleagues is the ambition and potential of their clients. They have seen sex workers save up to start their own businesses, volunteer and work in different fields, star in West End shows and speak to politicians about policy.
With her clients’ wellbeing and safety at stake, Perry is deeply concerned by current approaches to sex work in the borough. To secure their futures, she hopes that the borough will return to genuine partnership work, “looking at sex workers who require support as people with complex needs, and working with them in a joined up, case management approach.”
On the 27th January a group of residents will be going to full council to present a petition asking for more action to be taken against prostitutes working in their area. Most people are sympathetic to prostitutes’ situation and support “Open Door”‘s actions to help them leave the profession, safeguard their health and improve their lives. What they do not like is the effect on their neighbourhoods, especially on their children, the shouting and fighting late at night, the spread of soliciting into the day, the propositioning of local women and girls by punters, the expansion of associated crime, drug dealing and theft in areas where prostitution is tolerated. To date neither Hackney Council nor the MPS have taken this problem seriously and it needs to be dealt with.
Dear, oh dear – ‘exit industry’ rhetoric, along with the “WHAT-ABOUT-THE-KIDDIES?!!” excuse? I doubt very much that most sex workers will be impressed with your petition, nor your tone of agency denial.
street sex workers in Hackney at at high risk of assault, rape, violence, even murder and often have shockingly damaged backgrounds: childhood abuse, mental health problems, domestic violence, learning difficulties. They are incredibly vulnerable working on the street and there needs to be a concerted effort starting with engagement with strong support and a pathway from harm reduction to exiting. Prostitution on the street for most means a life of suffering and an early death.
Well, I have a radical idea for assisting sex workers: why not ASK them what they want for themselves and LISTEN to their replies, instead of treating them as passive victims with no voices of their own? The manner in which you describe fellow adult human beings is highly patronising, to say the least.
And do you have any evidence you can cite to support your statement, “Prostitution on the street for most means a life of suffering and an early death.”?
Evidence from agencies set up to protect sex workers shows that ‘street workers’ most certainly are vulnerable, and likely to be abused, and or raped by punters and pimps.
Outdoor workers are also very highly likely to have problems with alcohol and be drug addicts.
Most sex workers actually operate indoors (80%) and come from all walks of life. Indoor workers tend to find the job ‘safer, lucrative, and enjoyable even. Most indoor workers do not have a drug habit and most say they are in control.
Evidence from agencies working to help street sex workers shows ‘outdoor’ street workers do need protection and support and are extremely vulnerable. Most want to get out of the industry but are caught in a vicious circle.
We will never be rid of the sex industry. Maybe the answer is not to prosecute street prostitutes but provide a safe place for them to operate, away from residential areas and only prosecute individuals who pimp, groom, and pander women (and men) for sex.
Incidentally – according to research by Swansea University 1 in 20 students has worked in the sex industry in some form, while studying for a degree . (Men more likely than women). Surprised?!
GirlieGirl, I’m not at all surprised at the figure you’ve quoted re university students working in the sex industry; most students face increasing financial hardship in the face of rising fees and a shortage of vacancies for casual work, and many forms of sex work can often provide both the income and flexibility (not to mention other perks) that other part-time jobs lack. I was also aware that the majority of sex workers operate indoors, although I wasn’t aware of the precise figure until you quoted it here.
Open Doors seems to be a very positive initiative, and the quotes from Georgina Perry give the impression of a commitment to assistant sex workers in realistic and genuinely empowering ways. It’s only a pity that a couple of commentators who seem determined to portray sex workers as either an anti-social nuisance or as helpless victims have latched onto this article; it would be refreshing to see replies from some sex workers themselves.
Meanwhile, the Home Affairs Committee has been discussing sex work, with an apparent emphasis on prohibitionist measures. Article by Frankie Mullin, for Vice magazine:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/parliament-sex-work-enquiry-389
Greatsmellofbrute
I did say… ‘Outdoor’ sex workers are often drug addicts, and/or have alcohol problems, and often mental health problems. They are indeed extremely vulnerable and often are ‘victims in a life often described as ‘out of control’.
It is indoor workers who appear to have a very different experience.
GirlieGirl, I don’t really understand why you’ve chosen to reiterate that point: mass media and prohibitionist / ‘exit industry’ portrayals of sex workers concentrate almost exclusively on outdoor sex work and the very worst aspects of it, and generally either ignore indoor sex work altogether, or try to dismiss indoor sex workers who are reasonably happy in their chosen occupation as a tiny, unrepresentative minority.
I’d be keen to know what effect prostitution has on children. It sounds like what might have an effect on children is drug dealing and theft, which has no necessary relation to sex work as well as the behaviour of presumed punters. You mention shouting and fighting, who is perpetrating this behaviour and what action do you take when you observe it? Please don’t conflate the actions of sex workers with those of abusive people: they are not the same thing.
I’d be keen to know what effect prostitution has on children. It sounds like what might have an effect on children is drug dealing and theft, which has no necessary relation to sex work as well as the behaviour of presumed punters. You mention shouting and fighting, who is perpetrating this behaviour and what action do you take when you observe it? Please don’t conflate the actions of sex workers with those of abusive people: they are not the same thing.
Great Smell: Having worked with Open Doors clients for the past ten years and listened to them talking about abuse in care, in childhood, abuse rape and assault on the street, having seen them come in having been set alight, beaten to a pulp and forced to work by psychopathic pimps who take every penny they earn and repay them with crack and heroin, i can say with all honesty you have not got a clue and sound like some liberal guardianista who thinks the world is as fluffy as you would like it to be, how many street sex workers ( and that is who open doors work with so that is what this article is about) have you talked to, listened to, sat with waiting for the ambulance following yet another overdose, wrist slashing, self strangulation?
Hi Czechplease. What I said was that my observation of people in this neighbourhood is that they become concerned and active about the prostitution when they have children. This is true of me. When I first came here I was rather amused by being asked “Are you here for business?” . Later the number of prostitutes grew. we had four or five on one intersection. The local children went off to school on the same bus that the prostitutes took to go back home. That changes the atmosphere of the neighbourhood. It wasn’t possible to go to the shops without being stopped and children as young as 14 were being stopped and propositioned. On two occasions, while parking, prostitutes opened the car door on the assumption we were a punter. Noone likes to live in a brothel. As for night time incidents they were mostly altercations between prostitutes and their clients and each other.