Media Storm - S1E9 Sex Workers: Ignored and under threat - with Niki Adams

Starting point is 00:00:00 Matilda, do you always love your job? Look, Helen, I love you, but no. Sometimes, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you're hard. Thanks, what a great start to our nearly final episode of Series 1. Has there ever been a time where you've been in work, any work, not necessarily media storm, and you've been exploited in your job? I started waitressing and babysitting at the age of 15, and in both jobs I was paid £4.50 an hour.

Starting point is 00:00:38 The waitressing agency would categorise us by looks and roll out underage girls for notoriously pervy parties. My first babysitting job for 15 an hour, I was given a newborn baby with two toddler sisters. Do you know how long it takes to feed a newborn, and you have two kids wrapped around your ankles screaming to play hide and seek? And then I went into journalism, and it was all downhill from there. Wow, to those stories. And you're right. Like, journalism and newsrooms are kind of notoriously bad for long hours. We're not worth very much, yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:16 But look, the reason I ask is that we often hear the phrase, sex workers work. And sometimes that phrase gets misunderstood. And people think that what it means is that sex work is inherently good or always empowering. But really what it means is that with the acknowledgement that all work is by its nature exploitative, that sex workers need the same access to workers' rights as everyone else. So what is stopping sex workers from getting those rights? What is stopping us as a society from viewing sex work as work? Well, laws and unions to protect workers' rights is something that you don't get,

Starting point is 00:01:59 if what you're doing is illegal or under threat. And let's face it, even in the parts of sex work that aren't illegal, there's a hell of a lot of stigma that comes with being a sex worker. So what do you mean when you say under threat? Well, we see sex work in all its forms under threat. We see it online. It was only last year that OnlyFans did a U-turn on its plan to ban sexually explicit content. So-called full-service sex workers,

Starting point is 00:02:27 they're driven further underground due to criminalisation. And this week, I've been looking into closures of sexual entertainment venues like strict clubs. Am I right in thinking this? Local councils have had the power for over a decade to limit the number of sexual entertainment venues in cities. How many use that power? Yeah, that's correct. But actually, only a minority of cities have introduced bands. But recently, Bristol might be next in line.

Starting point is 00:02:55 And if they do go ahead with these closures, they'll become the biggest city in the country to ban these venues. And that's where I've been heading this week, to speak to the people who work in these venues about what a ban might mean for their livelihoods. And I'll see you back in the studio with a very special guest to discuss everything around this media storm. Should we legitimise the sex industry? Here to debate this with us about the political... This is obviously it's prostitution, you're selling sex and parents watching. have an ethical responsibility to young women to show them a different pathway. The objectification of women and the exploitation of their sexual characteristics.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Hey, Sugar, you looking for a day? Welcome to MediaStorm, the podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia and I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's investigation, sex workers, ignored and under threat. Bristol. A city often viewed as... progressive, radical, resistant. Yet for some of its residents, they're starting to doubt that view. I'm talking about the dancers who work in the city centre's two strip clubs, urban

Starting point is 00:04:07 tiger and central chambers. Following a public consultation last year in which the people of Bristol could reply to questions about sexual entertainment venues or SEVs, Bristol City Council are currently making a decision on whether to impose a nil cap on SEVs in Bristol. That means no more strip clubs. The dancers who work in the clubs have been campaigning for them to stay open. But sex workers' rights are under attack. What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!

Starting point is 00:04:39 Councils should not value the comfort of wide middle-class lobbying groups over sex workers' safeties and livelihood. To find out what they really think, I went to meet with Chloe, Amalie and Scarlett. who work as dancers in Bristol strip clubs. This train terminating at Bristol double meat. All change please. All change please.

Starting point is 00:05:03 Hello, hi. I'm Helena. Hi, nice to meet you and Chloe. Chloe. So what would be a typical evening of work for you? Typically, I will get ready at home, put all my laundry, my makeup on, put sweatpants over it.

Starting point is 00:05:17 And then I'll get to work quite early so I have like time to relax and speak to my friend. and speak to my friends for a little bit before the door's actually open. And then most of the job is talking to customers. A very, very minimal amount of it is actually pole dancing. I think what people don't realise is it's mostly a sales job. So what you do is just, yeah, establish report and then try and sell either a dance or like VIPs, which is more like you're selling company and then dances within that company.

Starting point is 00:05:50 A lot of people like to say that were like naked therapists. I don't like promoting that idea either, because I'm like, we're not qualified and people shouldn't come to us for therapy, but yeah, that's why it happens. When customers come in, we always come up and approach them first. They don't come in and wear in a line-up and they point and say, you get naked. We go and approach them and ask how their day was and chat them up a little bit. It's not as straight to the point as some people make it seem like it is. public consultation on Bristol's attitudes to SEVs closed on the 19th of December 2021.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Almost three months later, no decision has been made, leaving the dancers in what they describe as a limbo. We literally all walk up one day and see everyone sharing on Facebook an article from one of the local papers saying that the council is going to have a meeting in a few days to decide on whether there should be another consultation on whether we're going to close down the strip gloves or not and it was honestly horrendous waking up and just seeing that your workplace the one thing for me personally that has literally transformed my life for the better that this might be taken away was just like it just shook me i think it shook everyone it was very horrible yeah this whole experience has just been so like unbelievably stressful and generally just so unpleasant to constantly have your livelihood presented as this moral debate and regardless of what your personal opinions are on strip clubs we still deserve to be safe

Starting point is 00:07:34 if you know it did happen and they did shut down our work spaces the industry is never going to go away regardless of that and it's only ever going to force us into unsafe situations more uncomfortable situations, less regulated situations, that's just so unbelievably stressful all of the time. At work, we have the luxury of not speaking to a customer or leaving a customer alone if they're being rude, if they're being aggressive, if they're making us uncomfortable. If you're going to someone's house and you need money, you're not just going to get up and leave again. You're going to be stuck there. We haven't got the luxury of choice of speaking to who we would like to speak to or who's making us comfortable like we would at a club. People make it into this big

Starting point is 00:08:21 moral issue, but no one goes into like the bigger picture, which no one talks about the material conditions which push people to go into the industry. We've got massive, you know, utility bills rising, inflation is going up, wages are stagnating, rents are going up, it's just the cost of living is just increasing more and more. It's just really hypocritical. for me when then people are surprised like, oh my God, why are these people going into these disgusting jobs? It's like, well, you're not offering any better alternatives. The dancer's concerns come after nilcaps have been introduced in places such as Swansea, Exeter and Chester. I spoke to a sex worker who used to work in a strip club in Swansea

Starting point is 00:09:07 that lost its license under the nilcap back in 2013. She told me how it's affected her since. She wanted to remain anonymous, so this part is voice. voiced by an actor. I care for my mum during the day, because she's disabled. Then in the evenings, I used to strip. It was good, like, it was fine. The good thing about it was that if anyone crossed the line, they'd be kicked out or barred or whatever, and there was a no touching rule. And it was flexible, so I could look after my mum. Then when the club got shut, well, yeah, now I do private stuff, full service too. I didn't think I'd ever do full service. Not that there's anything wrong with it but it's risky and I didn't feel that risk at the strip club and yeah

Starting point is 00:09:50 I need the money has anything ever happened where your safety has been compromised yeah a couple of times nothing awful though I guess it depends what you think is awful but the issue is what I'm doing now is illegal and I'm not safe now and if I did get assaulted I mean I did but I wouldn't call the police ever why not because I know how sex workers get treated and not only that I mean, I'm black. I know how black sex workers get treated. Why would I call the police? And like I said, it's illegal.

Starting point is 00:10:22 I guess I'd be put in prison. I don't know. I would move to another city to work in a strip club, but I can't because of my mum. While Chloe, Amalie and Scarlett wait for the decision in Bristol, they point out that this is not the first consultation on SEVs that has taken place in the city.

Starting point is 00:10:39 A similar consultation was opened in August 2019. The results? 66% of local residents were happy with the operation of SEVs in the area. Two-thirds of people said the strip clubs should remain open and regulated. So it begs the question, why was another consultation opened just two years later? Because I didn't get the answer they wanted. There is a massive political motivation behind it, where obviously in 2021 there was also the local elections.

Starting point is 00:11:11 and our Labour mayor, Marvin Rees, when he got elected in 2016, one of his pledges was to shut down the strip clubs in Bristol. This obviously didn't happen, and obviously he was running for mayor again. So I think it was just a good look for him to look like he was doing something about his election pledges. I contacted Bristol City Council

Starting point is 00:11:36 and the mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees' office. Both told me that while the council's licensing committee, are in the process of analysing the responses to the consultation, it wouldn't be appropriate to put anyone forward for an interview or comment. When I specifically asked about the allegations of political motivation, I did not get a response. If the council do get back to us, we'll update to you on our social media pages. Some groups who have been campaigning for the Nil Cap in Bristol

Starting point is 00:12:04 say that stripping contributes to gender inequality as it normalises the idea of women as sex objects. I put this point forward to Chloe, Amalie and Scarlett. First of what really gets on my nerves is calling it in itself the objectification of women. Like, it's okay. Do you call us objects, do call us commodities, but I've rarely been highly disrespected at work. But we've had literally our local MP calling us pieces of meat several times. And the most people who call us the worst names,

Starting point is 00:12:41 are the people who say they want to save us, people who want to protect us, but they're the ones inflicting the most harm. Also, it's an objectification argument. It doesn't allow for consent at all. Are you saying that someone can't willingly want to be looked at a certain way? Are you saying that that's the same thing as unwanted harassment? There's just no nuance there at all. Just reading things about us by these people who are so opposed to us, I have felt so much more disrespected and objectified and trivialised and dehumanised than I have ever in my worst interactions in a strip club. We're all grown-ups, we all have our reasons of being here, but fundamentally we are all consenting and that's the difference. And I think

Starting point is 00:13:28 it really, really trivialises the actual issues of the objectification of women and the actual instances of harassment and assault and abuse when it doesn't allow for the nuance of consent. It's just a terrible precedent to set as well if you actually look into the reasoning behind it. It's like they're saying men aren't actually responsible for their own actions to say it's your fault because you're wearing too little and dancing too sexy and being too provocative with these men and you're giving them ideas and now they're going to go and do all these horrible things because of you. Scarlett, who is non-binary, also says that the proposed band targets the most vulnerable people,

Starting point is 00:14:11 as the dancers point out whole communities are being missed out of the conversation. Essentially, they're just using a very predominantly vulnerable workforce of largely made up of women or trans people as a scapegoat for violence against women. There's such focus on men and our customers, but I think gradually, we've all seen there's a lot more queer people, a lot more women, et cetera, that do come into the strip club because that's one of the only safe space for queer people to go to. And on several occasions, I've had discussions there and people are coming because they're questioning their sexuality and, yeah, it would be incredibly harmful to the queer community

Starting point is 00:14:57 to remove those spaces. A lot of women also say they come into the club because of the high security presence, because they feel safer being there or just drinking there because they know that because the rules are so strict for us, men will know that they can't just touch them or grab them or speak to them in any kind of way that you could in, say, a normal nightclub. And the clubs that are actually concern for those kind of things, they're just being completely ignored, not even ignored, they're being promoted heavily. and we are completely left out of discussions about the nighttime economy in general in Bristol.

Starting point is 00:15:39 What Chloe's referring to here is a report in 2020 from Avon and Somerset Police about Bristol's City Centre. It documented two years of crimes showing the area and venues in the nighttime economy that had the most police callouts. The top 20 premises that had the most incidents were nightclubs like Prism, which had 325 incidents in two years, and SWX, which had 228. Strip clubs, Urban Tiger and Central Chambers don't even feature on the top 20 premises. Plus, the data shows that in the two years there were only two callouts for incidents concerning sexual assault in Urban Tiger, which is a fifth of the sexual assault incidents reported at the nightclub prison.

Starting point is 00:16:22 While legal sex industry venues face continued threats of being closed down, operating outside of them can land you in prison. criminal law and social stigma conspire to keep sex workers isolated and underground. But this International Women's Day, they are making some noise. No jobs and real jobs suck! No jobs are real jobs and real jobs suck! I am back in London, in Leicester Square, with sex workers from all parts of the industry and all parts of the country. They are calling for the same labour rights as anyone else.

Starting point is 00:16:58 Let's go find out why. We get treated like workers but without workers' rights and that's why we're here to say, fuck that shit! Well, I'm here for sex workers' rights and just with parents who are sex workers as well. The most vulnerable women in society who do sex work are criminalised. Sex workers' work and we deserve workers' rights and we deserve to work safely. We want to live. We want to be safe in our homes. We want to be safe in our workplaces. We want to be safe on the streets. We are sick of police violence. We are sick of laws that criminalise our bodies and the way that we make money.

Starting point is 00:17:29 If they're not going to offer us any better solution than sex work, why are they punishing us for doing it? No, my laws! Just bad laws! You know, the police target migrant women, they target trans people, you know, they just, and they target people who work on the street. But that's not then, they're also going, they're still raiding people working indoors, you know, and it's really outrageous. Get educated on what they're actually going for. They want to close down our strip clubs, to continue raiding our brothels, arrest the names who work. best are known to work together for safety and knows who work on the streets, but we won't let them. Sex workers are shouting at the top of their lungs that decriminalisation is the way

Starting point is 00:18:12 forward. So why hasn't it happened yet? That takes us back to the studio. Thanks for sticking around. Welcome back to the studio and to Media Storm, the podcast that puts lived experience at the centre of reporting. Today we're talking about sex work, common myths and stereotypes, and how our mainstream media report on the topic. With us is a very special guest. She is from the English Collective of Prostitutes,

Starting point is 00:18:41 a network of sex workers campaigning for decriminalisation and safety. It's Nikki Adams. Hi, Nikki. Hello, glad to be here. Can we just discuss the use of the term prostitute? We've had this discussion recently, actually, because it came up in a previous episode. And you work with the English Collective of Prostitutes,

Starting point is 00:18:58 Yet we sometimes hear that that's a term we shouldn't use. So will you just explain your feelings about the word? Yeah, we started in 1975 and we called ourselves the English collective of prostitutes after the French collective of prostitutes. And then we have considered changing it over the years because obviously other sex worker organisations, as they have started, use the term sex worker instead. But our feeling now is that we'll change when this stigma and discrimination goes. It's a bit of a way of reclaiming prostitute. same way as we sometimes reclaim whores. Sex work is a very useful term because it obviously makes the point that we're workers like other workers, but we don't want to hide the fact that

Starting point is 00:19:38 we actually don't have legal status as workers and we are also persecuted and discriminated against. So is it kind of, if it's a word being reclaimed, is it a word that people who are themselves prostitutes can use the term if they wish to, but other people should probably avoid it? I think you might be right about that. You know, we're going to delve into language, but before we kind of delve into all of that, let's just clarify for our listeners what the current laws on sex work are and what the difference is between legalisation, decriminalisation and the Nordic model. I mean, the laws in the UK are replicated in quite a lot of countries in the world and the outrageous absurdity of it is that it's illegal to work on the street and

Starting point is 00:20:22 it's illegal to work with another woman from premises. And you can get prosecuted for brothel keeping. brothel keeping carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. So if you want to share your workspace with another woman rather than doing it on your own, that qualifies as brothel keeping? That qualifies as brothel keeping. So even though it's not illegal to be a sex worker, it's illegal to work with somebody else. And it really means that on a day-to-day basis, women are having to choose between risking arrest and keeping yourself safe and putting yourself in danger.

Starting point is 00:20:54 So what you've just explained about the UK, that doesn't quite fit into the decriminalisation, legalisation or Nordic model. No, it's really just criminalisation, really. Decriminalisation is supported by Amnesty International. I mean, in this country, women against rape. Whenever you get a impartial assessment of the evidence, people come out for decriminalisation. It's only when you're up against vested interests that they decide on another route. The best example of that is what's happened in New Zealand, which is the only country in the world that's decriminalised.

Starting point is 00:21:27 New Zealand decriminalised right back in 2003. So they've had many years to see what the impact is. And sex workers were central to the way that the law was framed and developed. After five years of the legislation, they did a very thorough government review. They found that there had been no increase in prostitution, which was one of the things that people were worried about. A big improvement in sex workers' health and safety. Where women were attacked, the attack.

Starting point is 00:21:54 were cleared up much more quickly and people felt much more able to come forward and demand their rights. But yes, the difference between decriminalisation and legalisation is a very important one. The sex worker movement internationally is campaigning for decriminalisation. That's the model that basically removes all the criminal prostitution laws. So sex workers and sex work businesses are subject to the same laws and regulations as other businesses. Legalisation is really state-run prostitution. Women actually then complain that it makes the state the biggest pimp. Because you can only work in certain brothels or certain areas. If you work outside of those areas, you get prosecuted. I think in Germany at some point, they had a legalized system in

Starting point is 00:22:38 certain places, and only 12% of sex workers worked in the legalized premises because the conditions were so onerous. Also, of course, it sets up a two-tier system. Because who's never going to get into those places, are migrant women, trans women. So that's the model that we would have in the Netherlands at the moment, for example. And then tell us what the Nordic model is and where that's currently in place as well. Well, the Nordic model is a scam, actually. I mean, it's put forward in the name of gender equality and it really plugs into women's sometimes justifiable fury at men. You know, it's like people look at the situation or some people look at the situation and then they kind of go, well, women are getting criminalised, but the men aren't. Let's criminalise the men.

Starting point is 00:23:24 Instead of, why don't we just decriminalise everyone? You know, what kind of equality is that? It's been introduced in a number of Nordic countries, which is why it's called the Nordic model, but also in France and in Ireland. And it's been an absolute disaster because it has this veneer that it's going to improve the situation of sex workers. The line is that sex workers aren't criminalised, but only clients are criminalised. But of course, that's absurd. If you're involved in an interaction with a client and one part of that interaction is criminalised you are forced more underground you know if i'm working in a flat and something happens there's no way i'm going to go to the police to report it because the police then know where i'm working and they can just

Starting point is 00:24:05 sit outside my flat and wait for clients to arrest them and all my business goes down the drain on the street you have less time to check out clients and that is really a matter of life and death sometimes. Those kind of safety mechanisms are employed by sex workers everywhere and we feel infuriated that we're working so hard to keep ourselves safe and we don't get any backing or support, including from feminists, the women that call themselves feminist because I would dispute whether they're feminists. We're characterised as victims who need saving and they behave like they know better than us. What's good for us? If we have all this evidence that the Nordic model doesn't work, that decriminalisation would be best. What do you think is the main reason

Starting point is 00:24:52 that politicians or policy makers are ignoring the evidence? I think there's a few forces at work. One is that police are very attached to the prostitution laws because it gives them an enormous amount of power and control. A lot of police budgets for trafficking get justified on the basis that they're raiding sex worker premises, even though no victims are actually found and what happens to the women that get raided is that they get arrested or deported if they're migrants. Feminist politicians, or the politicians that call themselves feminist, have jumped on the bad wagon of the Nordic model.

Starting point is 00:25:29 And I think the only reason for that I can think of is that on the one hand, it's actually a very law and order, repressive measure, but it has the veneer of gender equality. It's a place where there's been a unlikely union of feminist campaigners and Christian fundamentalists. But I think it's fundamentally an increase in police powers. I'm really interested that you started with saying that you think the police want this. It seems to me like a very cynical reading.

Starting point is 00:26:01 And I wonder, what have you seen? What behaviours of the police have you seen in your time as a sex worker that makes you think that? Well, first of all, I should say it's not all police. But what we see on a day-to-day level is that the police are threatening and abusive. They're often violent themselves. They demand free sex as a condition to not arrest women. They actively refuse to pursue violent attacks.

Starting point is 00:26:29 You know, one woman was recently just saying that when she came forward to report her partner for domestic abuse, the police told her, well, either you are recruited by us to give us information about what's going on in the community. and when she said no, that would put me at risk, they said, well, we're not doing anything about the domestic abuse. You can just go. Speaking of feminism, or so-called feminists and the conflicts between feminists and sex workers, one of the arguments I've heard from women

Starting point is 00:26:58 about why they might be a little bit iffy about sex work is some see it as work that equates women with sexuality and therefore contributes to a culture in which women are seen as, commodities and gender inequality at large. What would you say to them? Well, two things. One is, is that even if that were true, that doesn't justify criminalisation. Because you have to look at the actual harm compared to the perceived harm. And the fact is, is that the prostitution laws and criminalisation are causing actual harm to sex workers. But I think it ignores the way that women themselves have used sex work to get money, to get power.

Starting point is 00:27:41 People speak about how prostitution is inherently violent, which it's not, but they don't see the ways in which women have used the money from prostitution to escape violence. I mean, escaping domestic abuse is a really massive issue for a lot of women in our network. And also to lift that terror of not knowing how you're going to eat and how you're going to feed your kids. I wouldn't describe it as empowering, but there is a way that having a bit of money of your own actually can really change your life. I mean, that was my experience, and it's the experience of many, many sex workers. You mentioned the word empowerment there, and there is this narrative where some people try and defend sex work by saying, oh, but it's empowering, it's a woman in control of her own body. Do you think that narrative is particularly useful or truthful?

Starting point is 00:28:34 We would never say that because I don't think that is. most women's experience. And in any case, we don't have to love our job in order not to be criminalised. I mean, nobody would ask that about a nurse. They wouldn't say, well, do you like your job or not? Or, you know, are somebody working in a supermarket? Do you love your job? And most people would say, no, I don't love my job. The three sex workers that I interviewed in Bristol said to me that they feel like they're unable to say anything negative about their experiences because they fear that it will be used against them by the media or by policymakers to further criminalise sex work or paint them as victims. Whereas in reality, right, everyone bitches about their

Starting point is 00:29:14 job. And if you have a union or you have protection in place, then you can work towards making your job better. But they felt like they couldn't speak out about it for fear that it would be taken in the wrong way. Yes, I think it's very true that it's difficult to spell out how violent and abusive and exploitative sex work is sometimes, but we do it because we absolutely refuse to be categorised as either happy hookers or as poor victims. You know, we're women doing a job to earn the money to support ourselves, mostly to support our kids,

Starting point is 00:29:46 and we're not going to be cornered in that way. You've pointed out that for many, including yourself, sex work was the line between poverty and being able to support yourself. There is a common myth that sex work is always a last resort. Is it also dangerous to lean too far to the assumption that all people in sex work are doing it as a last resort and not because it's something that they choose or they see it as the best of several options?

Starting point is 00:30:16 Yeah. So on the one hand, you know, there really is a massive crisis out there of poverty among women and children. And they did a parliamentary inquiry into the connection between the introduction of universal credit. and the increase in prostitution and they found a causal link. So that on the one hand is true, but on the other hand, realistically, the one thing about prostitution

Starting point is 00:30:39 is that it gives you a higher wage sometimes than other jobs traditionally done by women and it can give you some flexibility. For me, I think at some points it was an escape from poverty, but at some points it was financial independence. I didn't want to be with a man because I needed to be. I wanted to be able to live my own life

Starting point is 00:30:57 and choose who I had a relationship. relationship with. I think what I've learned from doing this episode and speaking to sex workers is just how much their voices have been missed out and continue to be missed out in the conversation. But I do get why some people, women especially women who really consider themselves feminist, would be anti-sex work because that kind of sexism 101 that we've been taught, which is like women who show their bodies are bad and women who use their brains are good. But what I've really learned is that this conversation is not the place for like your personal feelings. Whatever I might personally think or Matilda might personally think or anyone might personally think about sex work doesn't matter.

Starting point is 00:31:40 Whether you like it or not, sex workers deserve to be safe. Okay, so this is something that goes, I feel, goes against the culture of, of a digital era, the culture of a social media generation. Well, we're all told that we all have the right to an opinion and not just an opinion. People have really strong opinions about everything. Why do we all feel entitled, not just to an opinion, but to a strong opinion about things, A, that we're not informed in, and B, that don't affect us.

Starting point is 00:32:08 And sex work is a really good example because I have grown up being surrounded by quite strong opinions about sex work. When I was reading the brief for this discussion, I was just shocked at the evidence that shows the laws we have in place are harmful, and not remotely founded on the opinions of the people with lived experience. We see that a younger generation of feminists are not judgmental

Starting point is 00:32:37 in the way that the kind of older guard have been in the past. That's interesting. And people have really broken with that association with the Christian fundamentalists, and they do stand by their feminist principle, which is that I may not know much about it. I definitely don't want to go into sex work myself, but my feminist principle tells me that I should listen to the people most impacted. That means that we stand a good chance of winning decriminalisation.

Starting point is 00:33:04 We just have to bring the politicians who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with us. I think this is a really good time to talk about how sex workers and sex work is described in the mainstream media. I do think the common myths and stereotypes we spoke about play a big part in the depiction of sex workers in the mainstream, with common terms like troubled, use a lot. What terms do you see in the mainstream media

Starting point is 00:33:30 and what kind of messages do you think they send? Well, the troubled is definitely very common and the implication that the woman is somehow in a state, in a mess. Over the pandemic, we had to protest about some of the coverage of some of the women that were having to still work and they put their pictures in the newspaper and they followed them home and it kind of unleashed a real witch hunt against some women. Even in pieces I've read that have been written by people with lived experience,

Starting point is 00:33:58 I often see that the photo that's been used by the paper is either like nine-inch stiletto or a pair of bright red lips or like a shadowy slinky figure. Like shadowy heels on the street. Yeah. Or your back against a wall, which I've tried that pose and it's extremely hard. I'd like to just say it's not helpful. I mean, we are always trying to break down those stereotypes so that sex workers are seen for who we are, which is, you know, women like other women with all the complexities of others.

Starting point is 00:34:30 Right. And when we have these images like these mini skirts leaning into car windows, it kind of gives off that impression that there is one type of hypersexualized sex worker. When actually sex workers, like you said, broad range. A broad range of people, obviously, not just women. Time now to look at some recent articles making headlines around this topic. Just under a week ago, there were concerns about women in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that they were being picked up by human traffickers and abused. I'll read out the headline from The Daily Mail.

Starting point is 00:35:02 Criminal gangs are targeting Ukrainian women fleeing the war in bid to turn them into sex slaves. Now, this is not to say that the fears of sex trafficking out of Ukraine or anywhere are not of concern. We just wanted to highlight how about two sentences in, this article then says, it is feared some of those escaping will become sex workers involved in criminal activity, domestic slavery or force labour. Nikki, how often do you see this kind of conflation of sex work and sex trafficking in the media? Yes, that's a very good example, and we do see a lot of coverage like that, and it is really outrageous because it's a real deliberate misrepresentation.

Starting point is 00:35:42 And it's not to say that some of those women may end up having to exchange sex for money in order to survive, and if you're in that situation, any of us may have done the same. But the thing that we object to is the implication or the assumption that because it's migrant women, they are victims of trafficking, and we see that all the time. I've just been speaking to a woman who was just recently arrested in a brothel raid. She was abused by the police, given really a hard time, and then she saw the very same police officers go into the newspaper say that they just saved some victims of trafficking. I mean, that is a deliberate misrepresentation campaign about trafficking.

Starting point is 00:36:20 The police get masses of money for anti-trafficking operations, and we strongly believe that that is what is fueling so many of the brothel raids because it's the way that they justify their budget. Since about 2009, there has been a deliberate concerted misrepresentation campaign about trafficking, and it's been aimed at increasing immigration controls and increasing police powers. Yeah. So that's what struck me about this story is it's a setup for the government, and this is exactly how the government responded in the article, to present organized crime traffickers as this ultimate villain

Starting point is 00:36:56 and therefore themselves as the hero. But we are not seeing the culpability of a government that is failing to provide safe routes to refuge for refugees at a time when there is a mass displacement crisis. It's so frustrating to see the media play so naive, or as you describe it so deliberately into these very simplistic narratives that serve such strong political agendas it's true because it's very it is infuriating because if they wanted to do something about trafficking they would address the poverty they would address the hostile

Starting point is 00:37:31 immigration environment you know they would address the reasons that women want to or have to cross international borders in order to survive and that's something else in this article it does it quotes someone saying that these these women are accepting the first offer without thinking it through. And it irritates me so much when I read people who've never been displaced, basically call refugees idiots for taking life-risking decisions. Maybe they have thought it through.

Starting point is 00:37:58 Maybe that is the best offer available to them. I've seen this kind of exploitation of women in Calais, in any environment where you have displacement. And women are making that choice because it is the best choice available to them. Yeah. Tyrate, sorry. So sometimes I just love, like, looking at people when they're, like, speaking so passionately.

Starting point is 00:38:21 Okay, the second article we want to look at was written by the AP Newswire, which for non-journalists means that it will be published as the same article in many subscribing outlets, The Independent, ABC News, The Daily Mail, CBS. I'll read out the headline, ex-chairleader, Guilty in Florida Prostitute Deaths. What struck us about this article was that we know very little of the women this man killed. In fact, all we know about them is that they are prostitutes. The only way they're referred to in the article is as prostitutes or victims, never mother of three, which is interesting because normally that's how victims are described.

Starting point is 00:39:00 But we do know that the man who killed them is a former criminal justice major, a college cheerleader. Does the media fail to portray sex workers as well? well-rounded whole human beings with lives outside of their jobs and you're nodding. Yes, I think the media does portray sex workers in a very narrow and stereotyped way. But I think they often do that with women, victims of violence generally. And it's definitely something that needs to change. But I think the whole movement about Sarah Everard has demanded change. And that's why we are disadvantaged as sex workers.

Starting point is 00:39:34 Because we're criminalised, it's much harder for us to protest. Yeah, like you said, this applies to so much reporting on male people. violence against women in general, and especially to marginalise people like sex workers. But even in this article, like, there's a picture of him. There's a picture of the perpetrator. And it's almost like these women aren't given any time. They aren't given any pictures. They aren't given any tributes because they're just prostitutes.

Starting point is 00:40:00 Yeah. It really does feed into this problem the fact that some feminist labor politicians see us purely as victims rather than as women in our own right and rounded human beings. mothers of three and all the rest of it. The thing that's going to make a difference is when sex workers are able to put our foot down and say no, we refuse to be portrayed like this. This is who we are. And that can't happen really until we can decriminalise. Nikki Adams, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug? So we have our website, prostitutescollective.net. We're also on Twitter at Prostitutes Cole. And we're based at a women's centre.

Starting point is 00:40:41 lovely, lovely women's centre called the Crossroads Women's Centre, and we're always looking for volunteers and for help, so please do get in touch. Thank you for listening. We'll be back with a bonus episode next week featuring the exhibition by sex workers on at the Institute of Contemporary Arts called Decriminalised Futures. And our final episode from this series on Abelism in the Workplace will be out on the 24th of March. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and review.

Starting point is 00:41:15 It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible. Hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal, at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. Get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover and who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm, a new podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACAS creator network. It is produced by Tom Silinski and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Samfair.

Media Storm - S1E9 Sex Workers: Ignored and under threat - with Niki Adams

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