Pathways to Creating Opportunities for Sex Worker Justice

Safety is a significant issue for sex workers.

Violent crimes against sex workers are much higher than the public. For example, in the UK sex workers are 12 times more likely to be murdered than non-sex working women and almost half of all online sex workers have experienced crimes ranging from robbery, rape, sexual assault, physical assault, and attempted abduction. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, offenders deliberately target sex workers because they believe workers will not “report crime or support a prosecution”.

This means that sex workers are more likely to experience violence and abuse but are less likely to report these crimes to the police.

In England and Wales, it is not illegal to sell sex but, related activities like advertising services and owning a brothel are. This criminalisation of some sex work practices combined with stigma and discrimination, and fear and mistrust of the police means that some sex workers do not want to report to the police. Our ‘creating opportunities for sex worker justice’ project set out to address these very low reporting rates by developing a first disclosure reporting system that could bridge relationships between sex workers and the police.

Join us at the National Justice Museum for an evening where we discuss the challenges and issues sex workers face in accessing justice and reporting high levels of victimisation they experience and the impacts of stigma and discrimination. We also discuss pathways to law reform to understand what we can do to support sex workers and improve access to justice for marginalised people.

At the event we will discuss the results of a British Academy Innovation Fellowship, carried out in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and POW Nottingham, a local charity providing services for sex workers.

Join us for light refreshments before the panel and explore art works and creative artefacts created by sex workers to illustrate and illuminate their experiences of accessing justice in Nottingham. This interactive art instillation is created and curated by sex workers in collaboration with Holly Alana Sexton Creative.

The event is free and open to all.

Event details:

Date: Friday 19 July 2024

Time 5:30pm Refreshments | 6:00pm Public discussion panel

Venue: National Justice Museum, High Pavement, Nottingham

Register early to attend this special event.

Panellists include Dr Rosie Campbell, OBE, Nadia Whittome, MP, Gary Godden, Police and Crime Commissioner of East Midlands (TBC), PC Ian Clay from the Sex Worker Action Partnership (Nottinghamshire Police), Alana from the project’s Research Advisory Committee, Dr Larissa Sandy (British Academy Innovation Fellow, University of Nottingham) and Sam Richardson-Martin (POW Nottingham).

Host or Publisher Dr Larissa Sandy