Speaker 1: 0:02

Right, hi, welcome to Behind the Paddle podcast. I am oh, not in my lingerie. I need to actually take my dress off. Right, hi. I am Paulson Victoria, and I am Emily Son. Yeah, and this is Behind the Paddle Podcast. We have took like a wee break.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Um January has been a month.

Speaker 1: 0:35

It's been wonderful, it's been lovely, it's been so good. Um uh so we are back. We are back, and today we are going to talk about proceed without caution. So this was the main reason why I went to London a good while ago. So Proceed Without Caution is about the impact of prostitute cautions and convictions on sex workers' lives. And uh today we're just gonna probably just read um through it, basically, through a nice lovely book which I got from my lovely London trip.

Speaker 2: 1:21

Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of going over the report and kind of sharing a bit about what's in there and some of your insights on what's been covered and the kind of realities of how that's impacted people that we know and why this is so important.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Absolutely. Um so thousands of women in the UK have received a prostitutes caution, a specific type of caution reserved for the punishment of sex workers and slash or have been convicted for prostitution offences. That is for loitering or soliciting for working on the street and for brothel keeping or controlling prostitution for working together in a premises together. Which we'll get into. We will. Having a prostitute's caution and slash or a criminal record for a prostitution offence brands sex workers as criminals, making us an easy target for the police and others in authority to discriminate and deny us our rights. In practice, this means that sex workers lose custody of our children and are deported or prevented from travelling to other countries, and are denied compensation and insurance among other injustices. Additionally, a criminal record can put sex workers at greater risk of exploitation, rape, and other violence because it is a barrier to getting another job and leaving sex work. The risks of a prostitute's caution and the impacts of them are compounded for sex workers who are migrant, trans, women of colour, street workers, and working class.

Speaker 2: 3:19

So basically the most vulnerable of the people in the profession the most affected by these laws.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Exactly. But yeah, so we're gonna go through a lot of this basically.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Like I think to just kinda summarise what you've said there, a profession that's legal has a lot of legislation attached to the activities surrounding it on the premise that it protects people from exploitation and harm. Yep. The profession is seen as having links to like trafficking and exploitation, and these laws have been put in place and are defended as the kind of fight back to protect women and protect vulnerable groups from facing exploitation, and yet furthers their exploitation and puts them more at risk, puts them more at harm, and affects every single aspect of their life and further traps them to not be able to exit that work if it's no longer suitable for them.

Speaker 1: 4:31

And this is all put in place by people who aren't sex workers and who doesn't they like don't have a love for it and they have never needed to actually do sex work to like survive from things. Because there's loads of reasons why we do sex work. Yeah. And the people who put this in place honestly, in my opinion, have no idea.

Speaker 2: 4:56

It's not about the people. No, no. That's clear because the statistics and everything. The outcome of these laws and legislations are so discriminative of the people actually in those positions that it it just makes their lives harder, it makes their work harder, it makes everything more difficult for them, in no way helps them. No. In no way supports them. No, and that's and that why this reports like these are so important because it just highlights that in a way that is unavoidable.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Exactly. And like as much as I really want to dive in and go on a massive rant because this is very much dead to my heart, we're gonna take this bit by bit. So I've got to like pace myself. Um so shall we start with the what the English Collective of Prostitutes is? Yeah, of course. Um don't need to that point.

Speaker 2: 5:50

Yeah, good one. Cool. So the people that have put this report together is uh an organization who are called the English Collection of Prostitutes or ECP. They are a network of sex workers working both on the streets and indoors, campaigning for decriminalisation and safety. They fight against being treated as criminals. They've helped sex workers win against changing charges of soliciting, brothel keeping and controlling, the last two most often being used against women working together for safety.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:23

They highlight that most sex workers are mothers trying to do the best for their children and campaign against austerity cuts for housing and other survival resources, so that any of us can leave prostitution if and when we want. They have an international network including sister organizations in Thailand, which is called Empower, and the United States, which is called US Prostitutes Collective.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Yeah. And the next part is the importance of the report, which I feel like sex workers understand the very importance of this report, and I know that a good few of our listeners maybe aren't sex workers. So the ECP did this research because they've seen the carnage and the pain, that convictions and cautions can wreck other people's lives and other women's lives that come for them to help. They're horrified that women, many of whom are mothers working to support to support families, and are pillars of the community, are treated with contempt as if their lives are worth nothing once they get a prostitute's caution or a conviction. We see the humiliation, the impoverishment, violence and exploitation heaped on women whose social power has been reduced by being branded a criminal. We are sick of the way that women with convictions are stigmatized and forced to apologize for our efforts to survive in the world where those in power aren't interested in our survival or the survival of loved ones. And it really, really angers me. And where they're talking about how yeah, there's mothers and um other genders trying to support um their families and like pillars of the community. Like we've seen well, I I I've seen as well like police officers, um, and I've seen lawyers and who else? Like big jobs. Um they have become sex workers for many reasons, but once like you're a sex worker, I feel like you're just looked down on in general. And then once you get a prostitute's caution or a conviction, then it just worsens. Then it's legitimized. Exactly. And yeah, you literally are branded as a criminal. So of course, sex workers aren't the only ones who are criminalized for trying to survive. The number of women being convicted for shoplifting and other small value theft are increasing as poverty rises. And again, we we we can't be to blame because of poverty rising. I wonder who, you know, wonder who does that. Most women in prison are there for non-violent crimes of poverty. Yeah. And those of us who are women of colour face dispropor or how do you say that word?

Speaker 2: 10:05

Disproportionately.

Speaker 1: 10:07

Disproportionately. Higher levels of arrest and imprisonment. Prison sentences have been abolished for loitering and soliciting, but women are still going to prison for non-payment of fines and for brothel keeping slash controlling prostitution. Charges that are used against working women where they're working together for safety. Campaigns are growing in visibility and determination to end prison sentences, particularly for pregnant women and mothers. Criminalizing women does not only affect women, it affects their children, their families, and wider society. So with that, oh my god. Again, it comes down to poverty. Everything comes down to poverty. Like if you've listened to our previous podcasts, episodes, it all comes down to poverty at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 11:06

There's very few people that are working not for money. Exactly. Money is a driving force, is a driving factor in people in any employment for why they're there. Yeah. And I feel like from not just this report, but just things we've seen, like there is a higher prevalence of people going into sex work because of poverty, I would say. Um in that it's a way to make like a decent amount of money without necessarily having to like go through like an education system that is designed to not allow like people who are coming from an impoverished background to access. Yeah. Like it is a way into a certain level, like a money without necessarily needing to have like the I don't want to say the family background, that's it sounds bad, but just in terms of like looking at it from a poverty perspective, like somebody who's not born into wealth. It's an opportunity for people that they might not have otherwise.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 12:08

I mean given their circumstances.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Me personally, I don't really know where I would be w if I didn't do sex work. Because I I did sex work from a very young age. Um, so like I did sex work when I was like 15, I know. Shocker. Um and then I started doing it when I was 17, so like I took a wee break, just a wee break to evaluate my life. But I I worked um from like 16 to 19 as a quote unquote normal job, and I would go for like interviews and things like that for like other job opportunities, but it just it didn't pay enough.

Speaker 2: 12:48

No, it's not a way to get yourself out of poverty, mm-hmm. Like working on minimum wage is still living in poverty, exactly, especially when a lot of the time these days you would actually get more on benefits than you would working like full-time in certain jobs.

Speaker 1: 13:07

I I don't blame people at all. Um, because it is it's it's terrible the fact that there is that saying where it's uh what what is it? We work to live. Is that the yeah?

Speaker 2: 13:24

Work to survive, not thrive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:27

Yeah. Um and like to continue living, we need to work. We don't just Oh, it's live to work. Oh, not work to live. That's the it doesn't make any sense to me which way it is.

Speaker 2: 13:41

Seeing both of them, I just that's like the saying, like you're living to work, like your purpose is to work rather than working to live your life.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Yeah, like it's like you're only I I mean to me, I I'm just a slave to my job. So to me it looks like the exact same because that's how it's gonna be for a good while. And sadly that is how it is for a lot of people, where um they're just living paycheck from paycheck, basically.

Speaker 2: 14:08

But as being self-employed, like you do not have a lot of the same benefits, like in especially working in certain industries, because a lot of the things that are put in place for those that are self-employed are not accessible if you work within just the sex industry in general, which is part of what not necessarily this particular fight is for, but just like the decriminalisation of sex work in general is for, just to allow people to have the same rights as other workers.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Yeah, I mean if we want to go back to our previous episodes, we talked about like banking and stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:45

Um but all the insurances that you get as part of like that you can access as part of being a self-employed individual do not work within the sex industry that I have found to yeah. No. Where you do get sick pay, you do get cover if you are in hospital. Do you know? Like a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 15:04

I need to make my own pension at some point. I feel like you could get a pension.

Speaker 2: 15:08

I feel like that's but maybe it will be the same as banking. Do you know? You never know.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Like I've tried to get insurance.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:14

Umsurance is a plus one. Insurance. Yeah. They want a lot of money a month for that. Yeah. So it it's not fair at all. Um, I think previously, maybe we did mention about was it Belgium that recently gave a new law, I think, or a bill that passed recently, where people who do work in brothels get a lot more rights and they do get like maternity pay. Um and I I want to assume sick pay, but like they've made it quite a lot better for sex work there. And it just needs to hurry up, really, in the UK. But I don't know if that will actually happen.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Yeah, so that was the first of December last year. Um, New Law in Belgium, the first of its kind in the world. So they're at the forefront of this, will now be the case. Uh, sorry, sex workers will be entitled to official employment contracts, health insurance, pensions, maternity leave in sick days.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Yeah. Which is massive. It is. I would fucking love that. Especially like all of it. All of it. I absolutely would. Because I remember especially maternity leave. Um, I can't remember exactly how I got it. But it's not much at all. No. But it's it's something, but it's not much. So like I'm really hoping it's not like what you would get if you were working in a 95 office job. Exactly. And I think I got that because um of my previous tax year working at like my normal job.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Um like it kind of covered you from that.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, I'm not looking forward to it. I really am not looking forward to like retirement pensions or any types of insurance because it's it's expensive. Yeah. And it's well, I don't know if I can become attorney now or anything like that. So we'll see. We'll see. Hopefully in a few years it will get better. But I am really, really happy for Belgium that that has happened. That's massive. Oh, so good. Like that, that's uh it took a few years for that to pass as well.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Well, it's interesting because while I was looking there, it was saying Belgium fully decrimmed in 2022. So it's only two years later that they've managed to fight for workers' rights to that extent.

Speaker 1: 17:53

Workers' rights, like you know, like that's the highlight there.

Speaker 2: 17:57

It's not something that you hear about people not I'm not saying that people don't fight for that every day, but like to this level of like basic workers' rights, it's ridiculous. Like, we're known fucking 1800s industrial.

Speaker 1: 18:10

I know in Britain, like it's just it's crazy to be. I mean, in the UK, um women were allow only allowed their own bank account in like the 70s.

Speaker 2: 18:20

Yeah, women could only own their own business. I think it was like the 90s. I'm sure it was only been 30 years, like 36 years when I looked the other day, so it must have been what 98, something like no. My brain's not braining. Doesn't water win, but it wasn't it that long ago. Yeah, it really wasn't. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:38

And it's like we need rights. Um yeah, going back to this, the next paragraph is anyone who speaks out against injustice comes up against new laws that criminalize protest and risks long prison sentences. Women who are central central center central to movements for change are p particularly impacted. The police are responsible for implementing prostitution laws. Thank you, police. Thank you. Sex workers speak of daily humiliation, bullying, threats, and violence at the hands of officers, and have been shown to be one group of vulnerable women targeted by police rapists and abusers. One study in East London found that 42% of street workers had experienced violence from the police.

Speaker 2: 19:38

That's insane.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Oh, it's disgusting. It really is. The growing sex worker-led movement for decriminalisation, the anti-rape movement, and Black Lives Matter movements alongside other movements for justice, have succeeded in getting official confirmation of our experiences at the hands of the police. I love that there's so many movements that have all said, Yeah, we've been screwed by the police so they've all got one thing in common, and yet that's not where people are looking right now. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Report after report has exposed them as misogynistic. Wow. Surprise, racist and homophobic, obviously, and criminally corrupt. As a result, sex workers who complain of police violence and abuse are now more likely to be believed, which is amazing.

Speaker 2: 20:39

Yeah. Um the mountain evidence is getting difficult to ignore.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Yay. Yeah. Because it's happening all the time. We've all seen over and again that the public understands how criminalization puts sex workers at greater risk of rape and other violence. As far back as 2006, after the tragic murders of five young women in Ipswich, there was an outpour of sympat sympathy and empathy from local residents who shared with the ECP their observations as to how heavy policing displaced women to more isolated areas and integrate a danger. I mean that that that makes sense. Yeah. We found the Safety First Coalition to campaign for decriminalization and safety and got support from many quarters. By publishing this report, which spells out the wide-ranging lifelong harm and injustice that prostitute cautions and convictions inflict on women, we hope to galvanize greater support for the international sex worker-led movement for the decriminalization of sex work. We also want to provide clarity in relation to those organizations and individuals who are pressing for women's cautions and convictions to be expunged, yet refuse to support current sex workers in our struggle for decriminalization. We are not only victims, we are survivors and campaigners, part of a women's movement which refuses to accept rape, domestic violence, poverty, and exploitation. Very clear. So yeah. I feel like that speaks for itself in the fact that there's so many other movements and there is a lot of evidence about the police.

Speaker 2: 22:42

Like there's a lot of people all speaking out and all saying the same thing.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Yeah, even if they're not sex workers, they're going, What the fuck?

Speaker 2: 22:48

Like there's a clear issue here.

Speaker 1: 22:50

Exactly. So yeah, if you want to read the next part.

Speaker 2: 22:54

Yeah, so just to put everything in a like context for people that maybe aren't as up on what the current laws currently are surrounding sex work. Um they are so outdated and so from a time before women in general had any rights. Not that that's the only thing this affects me. More than we did like a hundred years ago. But you know, there's still there's still a lot of work to be done, but a lot of these laws are from even further ago than that and have never really changed or been updated. So and I think that's pretty clear in the word in some of them.

Speaker 1: 23:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:31

So at the moment, sex workers are forced to choose between keeping themselves safe and possible arrest or or avoiding a criminal record and putting themselves in danger. The three laws most used to arrest and criminalise sex workers are as follows. So the top one, loiter loitering or soliciting. It is an offence for a person to loiter or solicit in a street or public place persistently for the purpose of offering their services as a prostitute. That is interesting. I have never read this with the word persistently, because that to me means more than once if it was what a one-time thing, it wouldn't be illegal. It's about having like a place that you consistently, persistently go to.

Speaker 1: 24:16

What like a safe safe space? Yeah, exactly. Somewhere where you feel safe that you can actually offer your services.

Speaker 2: 24:24

The repeal of the loitering and soliciting laws was proposed as far back as 1979 by Maureen Colghuan, MP, who worked with the ECP to put forward the Protection of Prostitutes bill. Presenting the bill to Parliament, she said, It is a totally unjust system that a woman can be twice cautioned on the evidence of a single police officer. On a third occasion, still on the evidence of a single and often the same police officer, she can be charged with loitering with intent for the purposes of prostitution. If she pleads not guilty before the court, the same police officer reads out the evidence of his two cautions. Before any offence has been proved, a person innocent in the eyes of the law can be labelled as a common prostitute. So maybe that's what it means by persistently in that it's only going to go to court if the offen like if there's been a caution on multiple occasions that then leads up to it going to court. Yeah, yeah. Um so the label common prostitute was abolished by the Policing and Crime Act 2009, but this law at the time changed the definition of persistent soliciting to twice in a period of three months. That's why I've not heard that. Making it easier for police to arrest sex workers. The ECP spearheaded opposition to this at the time. The penalty for loitering or soliciting is a fine and or an engagement and support order, which are promoted as an alternative to fining, but function as another form of criminalization. In theory, for anyone to be convicted of loitering and soliciting, an observable offence must be established on two occasions. This is a quote, two officers need to witness the activity and administer the non-statutory prostitutes' caution. Of course, in practice it doesn't work that way. Women in the ECP's network have been given a prostitute's caution by police shouting out of the window of their car as they passed. This is more likely where the women are already known to the police as sex workers. Prostitutes' cautions differ from police cautions in that the woman doesn't have to admit guilt, there is no right of appeal, and it stays on your record for life or until you're in a hundred. We see more about the differences between these two cautions below. ECP members have been convicted of loitering and soliciting on the basis of police evidence, evidence such as she was standing on a street corner looking in the direction of several men. One woman described the way the police implemented the loitering and soliciting laws. The police wait outside my house to catch me when I leave. It doesn't matter how I'm dressed, who I'm with, where I'm going, they say I'm loitering. When they stop me, they jeer at me and make jokes at my expense, often sexually explicit jokes. When they arrest me, I'm strip searched, and they sometimes leave the door open so the male officers can see can see in all this to humiliate me. That's disgusting.

Speaker 1: 27:25

That's made me It really is the fact that we have police officers that it's just men in power. Yeah. It's just this age-old like Yeah, like I understand if you listen to our uh episodes, we kind of do hate men. But it's men who do this that we hate, and it's just uh so it's just statistics at this point. Exactly. It's not like it's not like against all men, but statistically all men are can't.

Speaker 2: 28:07

Like reading this, right? This sounds like it could have been a hundred years ago. This sounds like it could have been, you know, this doesn't sound like this is happening in modern day London. Like it's actually like I don't want to say comical, I just mean in how ridiculous it is, like it just doesn't feel like this a modern day could be happening to somebody on the regular and nothing able to be done about it.

Speaker 1: 28:31

So not all of this is from London. Uh is that one is that or not?

Speaker 2: 28:37

It just sounds like London to me, just given like what what we've kind of discussed, and that like the prevalence of like police um oh there's a lot of like violence towards mostly in no not even mostly in London, but it seems like there's more London's massive more happening in London than than elsewhere.

Speaker 1: 28:57

So I know one of the stories um I think is gonna be near Liverpool and stuff like that. Um I don't believe my friend's story uh is in here who's in Scotland and stuff, yeah. But um we'll discuss that a bit more later. But that is absolutely disgusting that they can abuse their power to make just in broad daylight on the street.

Speaker 2: 29:21

This is what I mean. That's that's what makes me think London, like I could be wrong, and I'm not in any way wanting to like put that out there, but that's my take on it.

Speaker 1: 29:28

That like oh no, a lot of this stuff is from London in general, but it does happen all over the UK as well. This is just the brave women who have came forward and said this is what happens, and sadly, a good majority of it does happen in London. Some people can speak up, some people aren't able to. Yeah, and they're putting themselves at risk to actually put their voice out there. Absolutely, absolutely, which is why I wanted to go down to London, yeah, because there was only a handful of sex workers that did um go there and were able to go there and like even when there was um there was a video at one point and they covered her face and like it was a shadow and stuff like that like it was anonymous because again the police know these sex workers yeah and people have families and everything like that everybody's got a different situation and it's just absolutely disgusting that we're still treated like this.

Speaker 2: 30:30

It just goes to show like the power that these people have over them and every aspect of their lives that they don't even feel they're able to speak up without being anonymous. Yeah absolutely when police instigate a crackdown in any area the number of loitering and soliciting convictions and prostitutes cautions issued increase in some cases massively for example a police operation in the West Midlands resulted in 800 prostitutes cautions being given out over a two-year period that ended in 2014. In the London borough of Redbridge 639 women were given prostitutes cautions for soliciting between 2013 and 2015. In 2019 in Stokeon Trent the police Operation Colin resulted in 270 sex workers being charged with loitering and soliciting. An operation to tackle prostitution in Litford in 2013 resulted in 236 prostitutes being cautioned. Specialist funding for a team of police officers in Newham Newham resulted in 94 prostitutes cautions being issued in one year. Further evidence of police racism is demonstrated in figures that found between April 2015 and A and July 2016 92% of women who were issued cautions for loitering slash soliciting in Redbridge in 2015 were Romanian. Statistics from the Metropolitan Police show that between 2016 and 2021 out of 259 people arrested for loitering just 1% were white British. It is women who are disproportionately arrested under loitering and soliciting laws. Figures for London between 2016 and 2021 show that 94% of people arrested for loitering and soliciting were female. In Manchester those who went to court charged with loitering or soliciting between 2012 and 2016 100% were female.

Speaker 1: 32:36

See that is oh disgusting the fact that what was it exactly Stoke on Trent the police operation calling there was a fucking operation yeah there was an actual task force that resulted in 270 sex workers getting a prostitute's caution or being charged with lawyering and soliciting I'm sorry who is that helping the scary thing about this as well is like if you can't appeal it and they need no evidence for it this could happen to anybody. Yeah this could happen to anybody out in the street that is near a group of men or not even need Oh wait wait wait oh this is the hole what was she wearing?

Speaker 2: 33:15

Yeah well there that woman which I'm assuming was a woman had said that it didn't matter what she was wearing. That's a case where she was saying she was known to police but what's to stop someone doing this to literally anybody if there's nowhere for you to fight it and they don't even need to prove it what what grounds is this being based on?

Speaker 1: 33:38

Exactly oh it's disgusting that the there's been so many cautions and it's like to tackle prostitution okay are you gonna give them a safe space to do it in like they need to survive like oh it is ridiculous it really is um and the fact that 94% of people that were arrested were female and then a hundred percent were female that actually got charged.

Speaker 2: 34:14

Yeah um not all sex workers are female yeah like not by any lick of the imagination you know I would I would go as far to say it's probably a majority but not a hundred percent not in the way that it's been reflected in the way that it's been penalised by the law. It's yet again like attacking vulnerable groups.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Well yeah because 92% of women who were issued cautions for lawyer and slash soliciting in Redbridge in 2015 were Romanian.

Speaker 2: 34:49

Yeah. So they're very much going after what in their eyes is like a like a certain demographic of people.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Yeah and oh it's horrible I hate it because it's just it's disgusting the way like I I I'm white British and like the fact that I've got a better chance just a wee better chance of not getting um 1% and whatever that was. Yeah exactly that was one percent out of 259 people arrested for lawyering uh between 2016 and 2021.

Speaker 2: 35:28

Was that in a police or just generally?

Speaker 1: 35:30

Uh statistics from the Metropolitan police. London.

Speaker 2: 35:33

Yeah what the fuck what the fuck so targeted it's unreal. Absolutely so women in the ECP's network have successfully worked to get a prostitute's caution expunged we've also fought lightering and soliciting charges and even won in some cases by showing that the procedure for issuing a prostitute's caution wasn't followed so I I mean I'm just happy that organizations like ECP do exist and go fund them.

Speaker 1: 36:05

We we need to decriminalize this as soon as possible.

Speaker 2: 36:37

And that D crime is the only way forward and there is no like any real infight in and the big issues that need to change and what the um solutions are for those going forward and yet there is still they're still coming up against they're still having to fight it. Like it's ridiculous like every charity even like the World Health Organization Amnesty like all these big names yeah and big advisors to the government are all in agreement with all the charities all the people in the street all these people facing different issues which you would imagine would have different solutions to them are all coming together in one voice and saying the same thing decrim and they're still being met with resistance it it's just laughable. It's it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 37:23

It is right so we are going on to brothel keeping which is one of our favourite fucking laws which makes so much sense a brothel is a place where more than one woman uses the premises for the purpose of prostitution either stimultaneously or one at a time so yeah every hotel in Britain basically yeah so if you want to work with a mate for safety you can't it it just it it's a no go. In 2003 the maximum sentence for keeping managing acting or assisting in the management of a brothel was increased from six months in prison to seven years hundreds of women are arrested raided charged and convicted every year under these brothel keeping laws this is a major obstacle to women's safety sex workers want to work together because it is safer less boring and cheaper if you can share the costs I mean I feel like anybody when they're on a work driven way or just like on a work trip sharing the costs and working with somebody is much much better but we can't do that. A 2016 study found that many sex workers share premises as a safety measure that allows people to screen clients call for help if need be and prevent clients from finding out their personal addresses all of that is freaking true the fact let me go through this one by one. So screaming clients some people are able to do that some people aren't um some people can screen because they have like the privilege to do it I want to say I would argue that yeah yeah whereas other people can't I remember a few years ago where I couldn't screen clients I could in the ways of I needed money.

Speaker 2: 39:37

Like it's a poverty issue again.

Speaker 1: 39:39

Exactly because screening clients reduces the many clients you're gonna get yep which is just obvious you know um calling for help I know uh instances where a session has gone wrong and that sex worker is now bleeding or they've been slapped or hurt or even um raped. And yeah sex worker can be raped absolutely and there needs to be other people there to help and combat this it makes it less likely to happen exact as well just overall and even if it does happen you can deal with it there and then and you've got somebody that supports you and that can fucking comfort you and it's ridiculous that we're not even allowed that like what excuse me and again it's towards women like the law literally is more than one woman it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 40:53

Alright like that wasn't changed so there it's not that that that law is still worded that way but there's been like a what is it when they add like a second part? Not an amendment but like a some bullshit they've added to it basically to include um men as well but they've they've not just changed changed the word done to be non-gendered they've like added an extra part to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:19

And it was added in fact I'm gonna look this up quick like it's also incredibly hard to find these facts and laws as well.

Speaker 2: 41:27

They're all worded so yeah loosely in such a grey area way that like it could apply to so many situations. Exactly it's difficult to avoid that. Yeah. The original law as well actually it was two women having sex in a in a premises it wasn't even prostitution it was just sex at all which is basically every house in the country. Yeah like this is what we mean by very loosely worded it really is it left the decision on how that was going to be applied to a person very much up to the law and the police.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Yeah it is really ridiculous that um we we we still have to deal with this sex workers where we can't work in safety because the law literally says go fuck yourself you're gonna be more vulnerable working by yourself and that's what we want. And it's an absolute joke um so one of my friends um she was working with other people and sorry this was so the law came in in 1967 when private homosexual acts between men aged over 21 were like more illegalised.

Speaker 2: 42:48

So I think that was why it was worded because just being homosexual was was illegal. Yeah yeah full stop which makes me wonder I don't know if men being prostitutes for women has ever been illegal from based on what I'm reading. Specifically if it's between two men.

Speaker 1: 43:06

Yeah disgusting from what I can find but if I find differently we'll do another episode on that at some point but yeah my friend she was working with other people and she had like her own place and stuff and she got charged for having a brothel just because she worked with other people and it's absolutely insane and like she she tried to find a solicitor a lawyer um who actually knew about this and knew about the laws and she found it so difficult to actually find lawyers that actually knew the law yeah on brothel keeping and sex work. And it is such a great area even for lawyers solicitors people literally trained to read these laws struggle with them.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Exactly they are worded so loosely and they are so great. Yeah and in the UK you've got uh Scotland, Ireland, uh Wales and England and they all have their own different fucking laws and so it needed to be someone in Scotland and this is where the problem lies that like is it English law is it Scottish law which is which a lot of the charities that are involved in things like this are in London are are English based and therefore working from the English version of said laws which is quite quite different I think from what's up here. A lot of them have been updated from like the fucking 1800s whereas ours are still not still back in the Stone Age.

Speaker 1: 44:41

So the justification uh for brothel keeping law is that sex workers are being coerced and trafficked no I'm not yet a 2023 report found that most sex workers working in brothels aren't even working for managers. Yeah. Instead the most common third party are other sex workers themselves mainly in the role of colleagues. Also sex workers quote feel forced to choose between working alone and without support or risking prostitution prosecu Prosecution that's the word for themselves or any third parties they work with like again we have to frickin' choose between can we pay our bills and are we gonna get done for this basically are we going to follow the law to a T and risk losing our own money, safety, like other people's experiences and just generally like working by yourself is no fun.

Speaker 2: 45:44

No it can be sometimes but like generally it's nice it's better to be able to work with other people.

Speaker 1: 45:49

Yeah and like it can absolutely if word gets out there's your clientele fucking gone. Yeah it it affects so much and then your family might find out there's just a domino effect attached to exactly what are yeah being exposed. Yeah basically uh research from Ireland shows that the vast majority of these convicted of brothel keeping 85% are female this Ireland study also showed the discriminatory application of these laws as all of the sex workers convicted were non-nationals.

Speaker 2: 46:28

Yeah the ECP has fought against charges of brothel keeping in some cases our campaigning in legal casework has forced the Crown prosecution service and the police to drop the charges for example in the case of two migrant women who went to court in 2019 another woman was found not guilty by a jury which accepted her defense of duress of circumstances as she provided evidence of the high levels of attacks on sex workers showing that she had to work with others in order to protect herself from violence which come on why why would you not want other sex workers to work with each other what frustrates me is that like the people that are up keeping these laws right surely all their guidance and the way that they are taught to manage these situations some of which we've seen and read and we don't have it to hand just now but everything's worded in such a way as it's about keeping the women safe or keeping the people in general safe but the way it's worded women is always very focused on women um about not like overstepping bounds about not like the thing we had read about the brothel keeping it was talking about like trying to approach the women like once they'd left and speak to them and find out what's going on find out if they've been trafficked find out if they've been coerced like everything at least in the guidance is very supportive it it at least it's worded that way and that it's it's about keeping the people safe it's about like finding out exactly what's gone on so that if there is somebody in that position that is actually keeping a brothel and is exploiting people and has trafficked people that the people that work there are used to give evidence to give testimony against that person and that that person is the one that they're supposed to be going after and that everything on the lead up to that is gathering evidence against them and yet it from what this is saying and from the experiences we've heard from people that we know like that is not how that's been carried out in practice. So in a weird way like it is actually the police I'm not saying that the system doesn't need to change I'm not saying in any way that the way that things are set up just now is working but the way that it's worded is worded in a positive way they're being taught in a positive way and choosing to ignore that from what we've seen and that like laws shouldn't be up to individuals and that's what's happening at least in my opinion at the moment is that people are going into the police they're taking the law into their own hands they're behaving the way they want they're bringing their own discriminations their own opinions their own version of how the world is and they are reacting and acting in line with that rather than in line with how they've been taught in the guidance that is put in place as part of this legislation. Yeah and like the legislation does need to change but for me is it's it's a difficult one because it seems like it the way that the government has put the guidance across like as it is is better than how it's been carried out at the moment. I don't know where I was going with that but yeah. Cool. So we're on to control and prostitution for gain a person commits an offence of control and prostitution for gain if they intentionally control any of the activities of another person relating to that person's prostitution in any part of the world and does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third party. Control and prostitution is interpreted widely by the courts as we've said.

Speaker 1: 50:14

So let me just interrupt so controlling for prostitution that can also include if you have a partner and they drive you to a session. Yep like even if like that session is just like down the road then they can be included and get charged and things like that. Also if you say are a partner to a sex worker then you are what's the word living off the means of prostitution.

Speaker 2: 50:46

Yeah. Which you can get done for too this is what we mean by like interpret and interpreted widely and that it it feels very purposeful that things have been left open to such an extent that basically anybody walking through the doors no matter the circumstance can be charged under these laws because they're left in such a way that it depends on the opinion of the people in the court that day. Exactly it depends on the opinion of the police officers that day.

Speaker 1: 51:16

Yeah it's why I feel like even if you say you're a dominatrix and like you're not not you're like non-sexual or anything like that, it is still sexual it is still sex work. Yeah. And you can still get done for it. Yeah. It just depends on who's looking at it.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Totally so in one case police claimed in court that women were controlled because they were required to work certain days of the week between certain times and charged a specified amount of money for each service. So literally self-employed everybody everybody's work works. But it's you being controlled by the see if we brought this to apply to all jobs it'd be class. You just work when you want where you want for how much money you want I know and anybody that says any differently is controlling you and you can take them to court.

Speaker 1: 52:05

Right great so like so like my quote unquote normal job yeah I'm taking you to court because that was minimum wage you've manipulated me exactly controlled me.

Speaker 2: 52:15

You gave me working hours on like a zero hour contract no no no no no so in this case no controller was named or identified and the magistrate agreed saying that the lure of gain and the hope of a better life for women who were desperate to earn some money amounted to control and incitement just like money who doesn't working and no wanting paid for it. Exactly and Nebody who's got money barely anybody who's got money works. Do you know what I mean? Yeah convictions for loitering and soliciting brothel keeping and controlling are not classify the public and employers that they are leading to increased stigma stigma and de discrimination they will always show up on the enhanced DBS check a prostitute's caution stays on a woman's record until she is a hundred years old. So even the caution so you anybody could be cautioned and it no go to court because from or from what we've seen it should be two cautions before it gets that stage but even just getting a caution that you can't appeal and doesn't need to be proved never sets foot in a courtroom can still come up in your employment employer's background check on you.

Speaker 1: 53:29

Ridiculous and will be on there for life yep because I don't know many hundred year olds that work so it's no it's nobody come off until I can set that record prostitution's caution versus police caution a prostitute's caution differs from a police caution one a police caution is issued on the basis that the person accepts guilt for the offence they are being cautioned about guilt are you taking the piss guilt two a prostitute to have reasonable cause to believe has committed an offence of loitering or soliciting there doesn't even need to be evidence of loitering or soliciting just the for the police to say they believe there is because everyone trusts the police. Yeah police uh discretion of this kind is an invitation of abuse of power um so going back to number one guilt accepts guilt like it's a bad thing so what they mean by that is like if you get cautioned just a regular police caution that only goes on your record if you say yeah that that thing.

Speaker 2: 54:53

Yeah I think otherwise it would go to court and need to be proved whereas that's not the case.

Speaker 1: 54:58

But the whole guilt guilty part just rubs me the wrong way because it makes it sound like you're doing something bad. Um so number three there is no right of appeal against a prostitute's caution lovely four a police caution is spent after two and a half years filtered out from someone's record after six years and doesn't need to be disclosed to employers a prostitute's caution will show up on a woman's enhanced DBS check until she is a hundred That is terrifying it is so disclosure and barn service or the DBS check employers in the public private and voluntary sectors can carry out a DBS check on potential and current employees to find out if they have unspent criminal convictions cautions that is criminal cautions and an employment history causing them to be barred from a particular role.

Speaker 2: 55:59

There are three types of DBS checks basic, second, standard, less spent and unspent convictions cautions, final warn ins information on spent and unspent convictions, cautions, final warnons and reprimands plus any information held by local police that's considered relevant to the potential candidate's role. Prostitutes cautions are not mentioned yet prostitutes cautions and convictions for loitering and soliciting brothel keeping and controlling show up on an advanced check forever. When compiling a list of jobs which are likely to require a DBS check we looked at jobs that are more commonly done by women as most sex workers are women. These jobs include carers including home care workers, workers in care homes and anyone caring for adults with disabilities or children, child minders, community centre workers, counsellors, medical professionals including first responders, nurses and even first aiders, social workers, teachers and vets or any job relating to animal care. A campaign by business leaders to ban the box is asking employers to remove the tick box and application forms which asks if someone has a criminal conviction. This may help in some situations. However the criminal conviction is still made known to the employer at a later stage in the recruitment process. In any case the campaign frames the issue as giving people with criminal convictions the opportunity to compete fairly for roles and move on for their past mistakes what women did to receive a caution or conviction wasn't a mistake. To step outside of the law in order to ensure that your children are fed should be acknowledged as an act of bravery, not a moral or criminal flaw. Sex workers and many other people are being convicted under unjust laws convictions and cautions for sex work and other crimes relating to poverty must be expunged and no one should be convin uh convicted in the future.

Speaker 1: 58:07

The impact of criminalization criminalization undermine sex workers safety a recent report by the UN Working group on discrimin the Discriminalization? Yeah against women and girls confirms that by giving police powers to directly or indirectly target sex workers, criminalization models facilitate sister systematic systematic violence and undermines the sex workers, health and safety. Migrant sex workers are partially particularly targeted. The threat of prosecution for loitering or soliciting for women working on the street and of brothel keeping and controlling for women working in premises prevents sex workers reporting rape and other violences. Sex workers forced to run from the police are driven to work in more isolated and unfamiliar areas. Women working together in premises that are cons constantly being closed are pushed from one location to another dismantling any safety measures they are have managed to establish like installing safety gates working close to colleagues in better lit areas or building a pool of regular clients. Now this all comes back to what I've said previously it's like you're taking away our safety moving us on not creating a safe space and just making up making it more unsafe and again for me at least what we're talking about where it comes to the dangers of sex work and it comes to the dangers of police are the majority males. Yeah and it's just so disappointing That still in this day and age, the police are targeting sex workers and the law is, and we just well, they have realized, I want to say, that it is safer if we work together, that we are safer if we're all in one building.

Speaker 2: 1:00:17

We are safer because of the safety measures that we take, but they take time to establish in an area and the constant moving about takes away for that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:28

Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:00:29

Like it feels like every step people take towards working safer, the police are coming in and disrupting. Yeah. And an effort from what is spoken about to dissuade people from this lane work. However, if people do decide to leave, there's one low supporting place and to it's so much more difficult to get jobs because if they have received a caution in their time working and sex work, they are discriminated against trying to rejoin the workforce.

Speaker 1: 1:00:59

Exactly. And like um from previous few episodes ago, I even spoke about how like I was stealthed at one point and I felt like I just couldn't report it to the police because I doubt they would do anything about it or take it seriously. And there are sadly horror stories and true stories where sex workers have told the police and have just laughed at their faces. And it's it's sad and disappointing about the fact that this is the world that we live in and they just don't care. Like I know that um that me personally, like I love like the ring camera, but like some places that operate, like well, some places that you go don't even have like a keyhole. Uh no, not a fucking keyhole, what's it? Lucky lucky a peephole, peephole. And like it's little things like that where like safety needs to be thought about, yeah. And so like when you've established oh, this place is safe to work from, but then you get moved on or it gets closed down. It's like where where are you to go? You're back to square one again.

Speaker 2: 1:02:09

Exactly. So the next section is the implementation of the prostitution laws. So there has been a drop in the number of convictions for loitering and solicitant and brothel keeping, but fewer prostitutes' cautions and convictions doesn't mean that police enforcement has ended. According to 2022 Ministry of Justice statistics, there were 107 people charged with brothel keeping, with four people sentenced. Figures show that 167 people were arrested for aiding, etc., offence by prostitute. This could be a range of offences such as controlling, causing, and inciting prostitution. Again, this doesn't indicate the extent of criminal charging because some people are charged with additional offences such as conspiracy to control or incite prostitution for gain. Raids and arrests still continue, but are now largely done under the guise of anti-trafficking and modern slavery operations, which is why I think the guidance that we've read is so worded in such a way. Yeah. And the excuse being that sex workers are victims that need to be saved. Again, how this was written. Yet information obtained under freedom of information laws show 69% of police raids reported as being linked to modern slavery and sex trafficking are not resulting in any trafficking victims being referred to support services. Around a quarter of such raids discovered no trafficking victims, many migrant sex workers go on to be threatened with deportation. The fear of deportation has increased since the Brexit referendum. So pulling a China shop, charging in to places under the guise of it being trafficking and are still continuing to do the same where people are being charged and are threatened deportation without it actually being what they've originally said it was going on. It just gave them a new thing to pretend to do.

Speaker 1: 1:04:07

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:04:08

And it's not to say that these things aren't going on, not by any means, but this is what frustrates me because these things are important, they are going on in Britain, they are things that need to be dealt with, but that is not where the police res resources are going. Yep. They're even going so far as to alm from what we've seen, use them as an excuse.

Speaker 1: 1:04:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:04:28

To just carry on and do the same things they've always done.

Speaker 1: 1:04:30

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:04:31

And the people that are actually facing these things who are being victimised by these like um bimodern slaving slavery and sex trafficking are still out there.

Speaker 1: 1:04:42

Yep, yep, yep. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 1:04:45

Yeah. So claims about trafficking are useful to police looking to justify raids, and so they continue to make them regardless of the facts. Mass raids in Soho, London, in 2013 are one such example. Hundreds of officers in riot gear with dogs rampage through the area, breaking down doors, handcuffing women on the floor, and taking at least one woman out in her underwear in front of waiting TV cameras. During the raids, Commander Alison Newcomb had the gall to comment to the evening standard that these raids were needed to save victims of rape and trafficking.

Speaker 1: 1:05:21

What to just humiliate them in the streets? Yeah. Ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 1:05:24

Arresting the victims. Good job, police. Right? That makes total sense. Brothel raids are falsely labelled as welfare visits by police who claim that they treat sex workers as victims. Recent research from Wales shows that the safeguarding justification for raids and the rehabilitation approach is a way to embed and expand criminalization and allow for more intervention and monitoring by the state and sex workers' lives.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

Because we love that word rehabilitation. We really have rehabilitated people in the UK.

Speaker 2: 1:05:56

That is a whole other examples of so-called welfare visits within the last couple of months of writing this report includes a migrant woman visited three times in one month. The first time she was working with a friend, police gave them a questionnaire to answer about whether they were trafficked, and when they said no, they came back with immigration officers and deported her front. The third time she called the ECP terrified because police had pushed their way into the premises and told her that what she was doing was illegal. Fuck. We told the police to go and make a complaint. Eh sorry, we told the police to go and made a complaint only to get a duplipitous response asking if we thought the officer had been overzealous.

Speaker 1: 1:06:39

Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:06:40

Another woman had three police and a council officer come to her door who refused to identify themselves and then threatened her with prison. That first example to me, I feel, is getting to the stage where they're almost punishing people for not saying they were trafficked. And like looking at this on a longer-term basis, is it going to be safer for women to say they've been trafficked so that they receive report uh support from the council, from other people who are not sure. Unlikely, but at least then they're not getting deported. Because if that's another option, it's almost like shoehorning people in so that the police can continue and show these statistics in a positive light. While forcing people to lie about their circumstances in order to continue. To survive.

Speaker 1: 1:07:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:28

That's that's how that sounds to me.

Speaker 1: 1:07:30

Yeah, absolutely. Expunging cautions and convictions. A legal challenge in 2018 by the Centre of Women's Justice won a high court ruling that women don't have to disclose their record to potential employers. In 2019, the UK Supreme Court ruled that multiple convictions for any offences being automatically declared on disclosure and barring service DBS checks was unlawful. Before the ruling, singular cautions with specific exceptions for sexual violence or vulnerable people offences and prison sentences were left out of these checks, but multiple cautions slash offences were always included. Now multiple or single cautions with the above exceptions issued to adults who have no longer be disclosed in an enhanced criminal record check after six years. Multiple or single adult convictions leading to a non-prison sentence will no longer be disclosed after eleven years. As most people with convictions for soliciting slash loitering almost always have multiple convictions. This benefits sex workers. This ruling is being appealed to the European court to add additional protection that would prevent the record recording and retention. Retention of loitering and soliciting records until the person is 100 years old, expunging records and decriminalize uh street sex work. However, the campaign which initiated these legal actions specifically states that it does not support the decriminalisation of sex work. This is divisive and flies in the face. Flies in the face of compelling evidence that criminalization undermines sex workers' safety. Divisive, I think, just means like controversial. So yeah, hopefully you have enjoyed this rat-long episode and yeah, we're back. Um what else? What else is there to talk about? We've got to do our endings. Yeah. We haven't done our endings in a while.

Speaker 2: 1:09:56

Um if you want to see us in our lovely lingerie, check out our dark fans.

Speaker 1: 1:10:00

So I'm just jiggling my tits.

Speaker 2: 1:10:03

Um and if you want to support us another way, you can tip us. Yeah. We always like a wee coffee.

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:10:11

Um as always, if you want to use Behind the Paddle as a code at checkout at thesancuryofsin.com, that'll get you a wee discount.

Speaker 1: 1:10:21

Yeah, um, there is the Uncensored Market on in June.

Speaker 2: 1:10:25

Yeah, so the next one is going to be the 7th of June. We shall be putting out information soon about our launch party, which you guys should definitely come along to too.

Speaker 1: 1:10:33

Yeah, you'll be able to find Behind the Paddle and Uncensored both on Instagram. Um and yeah, you will be able to find our links below. And I mean, we're going to Ganaki Gathering next in two weeks. In two weeks. Yeah. Um, I will probably be on a little tour there just for that day, maybe.

Speaker 2: 1:10:57

Down in Bedfordshire.

Speaker 1: 1:10:59

Yeah. Um I think that's where I'm about to say it. I've got no planned tours or anything yet. Um, I will be going to the Femdon Ball in October in London. I'm probably gonna go for about five days, four or five days. Um, but yeah, I think that's where I'm about to say it. Yeah, thanks for listening, guys. Yeah, bye. Bye.