Background

This consultation paper is presented as the first stage 
in the development of new Party policy in relation to 
sex work. It does not represent agreed Party policy. It 
is designed to stimulate debate and discussion within 
the Party and outside; based on the response 
generated and on the deliberations of the working 
group a full nuclear weapons policy paper will be 
drawn up and presented to Conference for debate.

The paper has been drawn up by a working group 
appointed by the Federal Policy Committee and 
chaired by Dr. Belinda Brooks-Gordon. Members of 
the group are prepared to speak on the paper to 
outside bodies and to discussion meetings organised 
within the Party. 

Comments on the paper, and requests for speakers, 
should be addressed to: Rachael Clarke at Policy 
Unit, Liberal Democrats, 8 - 10 Great George Street, 
London, SW1P 3AE or 
policy.consultations@libdems.org.uk. 

Comments should reach us as soon as possible and 
no later than Friday October 28th 2016.
 
Contents
Introduction	5
The current state of sex work	11
2.1	What is sex work	11
2.2	Who are sex workers	15
2.3	Why people enter sex work	19
2.4	How consensual sex work is treated in law	24
2.5	What enforcement looks like	27
Problems with the current system	34
3.1	Legislation	34
3.2	Stigma	37
3.3	Enforcement vs Protection	40
3.4	Health and safety	44
3.5	Historic discourses	49
3.6	Impact on free speech	53
How to improve the current system	57
4.1	Law	59
4.2	Reducing Stigma, Changing Perceptions	64
4.3	State support	68
What would a decriminalised system look like?	73
5.1	New Zealand	73
5.2	What should be decriminalised?	76
5.3	Additional state support	83
5.4	Leaving sex work	86


Introduction
1.1	Liberal Democrats champion the human rights, 
freedom, dignity, safety, and well-being of 
individuals. We acknowledge and respect 
individual choice and uphold the principle of a 
tolerant open society. We work to reduce 
intersecting forms of discrimination and 
structural inequalities domestically and 
internationally.

1.2	In recent decades, great strides have been 
made in our society in the direction of 
tolerance and respect for the life choices of 
others and many people are less constrained 
by harmful gender or sexual stereotypes that 
have historically been imposed on them. 
 
1.3	Despite this progress, stigma, suspicion, 
prejudice is still experienced by people with 
more openly unconventional sex lives. People 
who participate in sex work face judgement 
and blame for being seen to transgress social 
or sexual norms. They are forced to operate on 
the margins of society in hidden and 
dangerous places where they are poorly 
protected by the state. Subsequently they are 
subject to abuse or violence in crimes against 
them that go unreported and under-
investigated allowing perpetrators to offend 
again. The law, as it stands, forms a prominent 
barrier to the realization of sex workers' human 
rights.

1.4	The conference motion that formed the basis 
of this paper, long-standing party policy, and 
the evidence we have taken so far leads us to 
the conclusion that we can only propose a 
regulatory system that is based on full 
realisation of sex workers' human rights and 
underlines the states' obligations to address 
them. This means one that has 
decriminalisation at its heart.

1.5	Decriminalisation is as much about protection 
as it is about freedom. Aside from the liberal 
right to live your life as you choose, it is an 
issue of failed state policy. The murder and 
assault rates on sex workers remain 
persistently high. Criminalisation presents a 
significant barrier to moving on to other work, 
and can present a downward spiral into other 
activities when legitimate work is closed off. 
And the threat of prosecution encourages 
increasingly risky and dangerous behaviour. 
What's more, there is no evidence that such 
criminalisation reduces the prevalence or 
incidence of sex work.

1.6	We believe that people who voluntarily opt for 
paid activity in this way should have the same 
employment and civil rights as any other 
person and be freed from discrimination by 
legal, health, and financial institutions. We also 
believe that those who provide their support 
services, whether as employers, agents, 
owners of premises or in any other capacity 
should be able to do so legally, just as applies 
to any other business.

1.7	This consultation, therefore, focuses on the 
different kinds of sex work, and the problems 
that currently exist in various parts of the 
industry. We also want to take ideas on how 
best to reduce stigma, and how the law should 
work to best protect people in the sex industry. 
Finally, we are keen to hear about how 
decriminalisation should work in practice.

Questions
1.	Do you agree with a policy grounded in the harm 
reduction and gender equality approach? If not, 
what approach do you think we should take?  
The current state of sex work
2.1	What is sex work
2.1.1	Sex work is a term used to describe a wide 
range of activities relating to the exchange of 
money (or its equivalent) for the provision of a 
sexual service between consenting adults 
within the terms agreed by the seller and the 
buyer. These services may be divided into two 
categories by Harcourt and Donovan (2005) 
who refer to direct and indirect sex work. Direct 
sex work refers to services, such as indoor and 
outdoor prostitution and escort services, which 
typically involve the exchange of sexual 
contact for a fee. Indirect sex work refers to 
services, such as lap dancing and stripping, 
where sexual contact is less common but a fee 
is still charged. 

2.1.2	Sex work from a Liberal Democrat perspective 
therefore covers a wide span of activity - from 
phone-line operators and webcam 
broadcasters to dancers in sex entertainment 
venues such as strip clubs and actors in and 
producers of pornography to indoor and 
outdoor prostitution and escort services. 

2.1.3	Recent changes to wider society have also 
changed the scope and operation of sex work. 
For instance, alongside increased use of 
mobile technology and the internet there has 
been a reduction in street-based sex work. 
Related to this, there has also been a degree 
of cultural mainstreaming of the sex industry, 
particularly via increased ease of finding 
people, services, and venues, websites, and 
smartphone apps where sellers of services can 
reach a wider audience than previously. These 
changes have helped to further blur the line 
between personal relationships and sex work.

2.1.4	Public opinion has for nearly a decade pointed 
in the direction of decriminalisation of sex 
work. The Government Equalities Office 
commissioned, in 2008, two polls on public 
opinion on prostitution by Ipsos MORI. There 
was a definite slant to the questions - such as 
asking respondents whether they would feel 
'ashamed' if a family member was working as 
a 'prostitute', and portraying sex work solely as 
cisgendered women 'selling sex' to men. Even 
with such bias, the first poll returned results 
from a representative sample of 1,012 people 
showing that 59% agreed with the statement 
that 'prostitution is a perfectly reasonable 
choice that women should be free to make'. 
The second poll showed that 51% believed 
that the selling of sex 'by women' should be 
legal, 

2.1.5	More recently YouGov presented a improved 
balance of questions to a larger sample of 
1,696 people. Results showed 54% of people 
thought consensual prostitution should be fully 
decriminalised (with 25% don't know, and only 
23% opposed). The most powerful argument 
being that it would: 'empower prostitutes to be 
insistent about healthy sex and sex they are 
comfortable with'. The second most powerful 
argument was that: 'it reduces the stigma of 
prostitution, making it easier to go to the police 
in cases of abuse'. 

2.2	Who are sex workers
2.2.1	Demographics. Figures from the ONS give the 
total number of sex workers in the UK to be 
72,816. The demographics of sex workers 
varies by region, with the biggest differences 
between London and other areas. Gender is 
highly relevant with the majority of sex workers 
are cis gender women, when examined on a 
per capita basis, a larger proportion of the 
transgender community is involved in sex work 
compared to the proportion of the population of 
cisgender women who are workers.

2.2.2	Analysis has shown that at an EU level, 86% 
of sex workers are female, 8% male, and 6% 
trans. There are regional variations but it is 
estimated that as many as 20% of sex workers 
are male. 

2.2.3	Types of sex work. Contemporary research 
shows that, street-based workers account for 
between 5- 8% of sex workers. The most 
prevalent category of workers are female off-
street (middle income) workers, who account 
for 50% of sex workers. There are also a 
significant number of male and trans workers 
(30% of total workers) who work 
independently, often advertising on specialist 
websites and with transgender workers often 
saving up for treatment during transition.

2.2.4	Migration. Sex work in the UK has a significant 
number of migrant workers, though noticeably 
lower than the sex industries of other 
comparable EU countries. In the UK and NI, 
41% of sex workers are estimated to be 
migrants, increasing to 80% in London. This 
compares to countries such as Italy and Spain 
where migrants account for 80% to 90% of sex 
workers.

2.2.5	Regional variation. ONS figures also reveal 
some disparity between the numbers of sex 
workers in London (31,990) and other states 
and regions of the UK. With the exception of 
the North West (with over 9000 sex workers) 
and North Ireland (under 1000), sex workers 
are populated relatively evenly between 
regions.

2.2.6	Earnings. Earnings range widely, depending 
on region, working practices and type of work 
- estimates suggest that while a street worker 
outside London earns an average of £11,000 a 
year, a high income female off street worker 
based in London earns up to £264,000 a year. 
Estimates for the ONS indicate that direct sex 
work generates £3.8 - £5 billion a year for the 
UK economy, a significant portion of which is 
currently likely to go untaxed. 

2.3	Why people enter sex work
2.3.1	Attempts to identify common experiences or 
backgrounds within the sex worker population 
have led to a vast oversimplification, often 
negative, of those in sex work. As with any 
type of work, the people in it have a variety of 
reasons for choosing to work in it. 

2.3.2	Sex workers who gave evidence cited flexibility 
and pay as two of the main influences on their 
choice of work. Several mentioned that there 
are no other occupations where women [and 
men] with low levels of qualifications and/or a 
lack of professional connections can make 
comparable amounts of money. A 2015 study 
by Professor Teela Sanders for the Wellcome 
Trust found that 91% of respondents found 
their work in the sex industry flexible, 66% 
described it as 'fun', and 56% found it 
rewarding. This compares to an ESRC figure 
of 78% job satisfaction ('completely, mostly, or 
somewhat satisfied') among the entire 
population.

2.3.3	Related to the flexibility and income available 
to sex workers, some groups of people are 
generally over-represented in the sex industry. 
The NUS student sex work survey suggested 
over 100,000 students have worked in the sex 
industry, for instance (almost 5%). The English 
Collective of Prostitutes has said that 70% of 
sex workers are mothers, particularly single 
mothers. The 2015 Wellcome Trust report 
stated that 70% of sex workers had previously 
worked in healthcare, education, or charities - 
while more than a third held university 
degrees. 

2.3.4	There is also a varying prevalence of certain 
demographic groups within different areas of 
the sex industry. Amongst lap dancers, for 
instance, nearly a third are currently in some 
form of education - including 14% who were 
using dancing to help fund an undergraduate 
degree. 

2.3.5	This variance is most clear amongst the 
relatively small cohort of street-based sex 
workers, who are disproportionately likely to 
suffer from isolation and vulnerability. 
Research suggests that many of these workers 
are either homeless or at risk of being made 
homeless, and may have other problems such 
as heroin or crack cocaine use. Some of these 
will have been in the care of the state as 
children. Evidence we have received suggests 
that these factors are likely to have been pre-
existing, and then compound the difficulty of 
individuals choosing to move out of sex work. 

2.3.6	Some people enter sex work through a narrow 
set of economic options. Lack of choice is 
particularly common amongst migrant sex 
workers, where work permits or access to 
employment can be particularly hard. It can 
also be true of people from poorer 
backgrounds, who may need additional income 
from low paid work, or whose lack of 
qualifications can mean finding formal work is 
difficult. Work by Amnesty International shows 
that groups most affected by discrimination are 
frequently over-presented in sex work.

2.4	How consensual sex work is treated in law
2.4.1	Neither the sale nor the purchase of sex is 
illegal in England and Wales, and in Scotland. 
In Northern Ireland, a 2015 change in law 
made it illegal to pay for sex. 

2.4.2	There are no laws against indirect sex work 
such as being a web-cam operator. Strip clubs 
and lap dancing venues are licensed by Local 
Authorities under rules for 'sexual 
entertainment venues'. Other services such as 
BDSM and some forms of pornography can 
also be subject to laws on 'extreme porn' 
which includes the provision of pornography 
involves 'an act which results (or is likely to 
result) in serious injury to a person's anus, 
breasts or genitals' - even if performing these 
acts is not illegal. 

2.4.3	Despite the legality of sale and purchase of 
sexual services, there are a number of laws 
designed to target activities surrounding their 
exchange. These include:
*	Loitering and soliciting, which makes it an 
offence for a person to persistently (on 
two or more occasions in a three-month 
period) loiter or solicit in a street or public 
place for the purposes of offering sexual 
services
*	Keeping a brothel, including letting 
premises for use as a brothel, a tenant 
permitting premises to be used as a 
brothel, and a tenant permitting premises 
to be used for prostitution.
*	Causing, inciting and controlling 
prostitution for gain, which outlaws 
pimping
*	Kerb crawling, an offence for a person in a 
street or public place to solicit another for 
the purpose of obtaining a sexual service 
as a prostitute
*	Placing adverts, which is specifically 
illegal in relation to a public telephone box
*	Paying for the sexual services of a 
prostitute subjected to force, which 
applied whether or not the client was 
aware that the prostitute was subject to 
force.

2.5	What enforcement looks like
2.5.1	With a wide variance in the enforcement of 
legislation, and disagreements about the 
objective and effectiveness of policing sex 
work, different police services have 
approached enforcement in different ways. 
However, the Home Office (2011) Review of 
Effective Practice in Responding to 
Prostitution, carried out by Liberal Democrat 
Minister Lynne Featherstone suggested four 
principles for policing practice: safety should 
be mainstreamed; there should be language 
support migrant sex workers; violence 
against sex workers should be treated as a 
hate crime, and that the grooming of young 
women in care homes to be tackled as a 
priority. Some current areas of difference 
concern where, when, and how sex workers 
can work without interference from the police 
('managed zones'), and others are related to 
the way in which crimes against sex workers 
are addressed.

2.5.2	A well-known example of this is the 
Merseyside Model, implemented by the 
Merseyside police service since 2006. It treats 
crimes against sex workers as hate crimes, 
working closely with sex work projects that 
offer services such as harm reduction, 
counselling, and outreach. It also makes use of 
Independent Sexual Violence Advisors to acts 
as intermediaries where sex workers have 
been victims of crime. The focus is on 
prioritising protection over enforcement, and in 
2010 the overall conviction rate in Merseyside 
for crimes against sex workers was 84%, 
including a 67% conviction rate for rape - ten 
times higher than the national average.

2.5.3	Holbeck in Leeds has been operating a 
managed zone since 2014 in which street-
based sex workers can sell sex between 7pm 
and 7am without interference from the police. 
This managed zone has rules - including not 
working outside the allotted hours, not leaving 
litter, respecting businesses and other 
properties, not tolerating crime or public 
disorder, and no drug use. Local police have 
made the decision not to stop prostitutes 
operating in line with the rules, and instead 
focus on checking welfare and working with 
the council and charities to support sex 
workers and try to keep them safe. The 
proportion of crime victims willing to report 
incidents has risen from 26% to 51% since the 
zone was instituted, and attacks (including 
fatal ones) are vastly lower with zones than 
without them.

2.5.4	At the other end of the scale, some areas have 
adopted a punitive approach on sex work. With 
the unification of Police Scotland, the historic 
and understated approach to policing saunas 
has been overturned, with large numbers of 
police and social workers being involved in 
raids from 2013 onwards. Licences granted to 
the saunas by Edinburgh City Council have 
been suspended, and five people in the first 
round of raids were charged with brothel-
keeping and living off 'immoral' earnings. More 
recently, police have been involved in 'welfare 
checks' of off-street sex workers, which are 
largely seen by the industry as a means to 
establish whether workers are breaking laws 
about working together. Similarly, in Suffolk 
police committed in 2006 to eradicating street 
sex work, and in 2009 moved on to 
recognising 'that adults working in off-street 
premises anywhere in Suffolk...needed help'.

2.5.5	Alongside formal enforcement structures, 
which include police and social services, there 
are third sector projects that work with sex 
workers. The most prominent of these is 
National Ugly Mugs, which is a national 
organisation which takes reports of incidents 
from sex workers and produces warnings of 
dangerous clients, shares intelligence with the 
police, supports sex workers in making reports 
to the police, and helping sex workers gain 
access to professional services if they have 
been a victim of crime. Essentially, they act as 
an intermediary and advice service to a group 
of people who are unlikely to turn to the police 
for help. 

Questions
2.	Should sex work be taxed?

 
Problems with the current system
3.1	Legislation
3.1.1	Legislation relating to sex work is complex, 
and aimed at a combination of reducing its 
prevalence and/or reducing its visibility in 
public space. It fails in its aim of reducing 
prevalence as it focuses on a relatively narrow 
group of sex workers - primarily street workers, 
but also those who choose to work together or 
who manage establishments or services. 
Those who work online, alone, or for an escort 
agency largely fall outside legislation, but in a 
legal grey area. Research also suggests that 
while off-street workers are likely to know the 
limits of their legal rights, street workers are 
less likely to and thus are more likely to enter 
the criminal justice system.
 
3.1.2	Much of the legislation is out of date or 
focused on a diminishing sector of the industry. 
For instance, legislation around advertising in 
public phone boxes, and kerb crawling or 
soliciting for sex in public places have been 
circumvented to a great degree by a shift 
online and the availability of mobile 
technology. Much of it is also a blunt tool - for 
instance brothel laws which were originally 
instituted to reduce public disorder being used 
against people who work together for safety. 
Evidence we have taken, as well as repeated 
court cases, have highlighted the importance 
of working in conjunction with other sex 
workers to promote safe working and reduce 
risk. In this way, legislation currently dissuades 
workers from protecting themselves - forcing 
them to take greater risks to avoid prosecution.

3.1.3	Most problematic in our opinion, however, is 
the continued criminalisation of sex workers. In 
addition to drawing often vulnerable people 
into the criminal justice system unnecessarily, 
there is little evidence that is dissuades 
soliciting and actually forms a significant 
barrier to exiting sex work once a person has a 
criminal record.

3.2	Stigma
3.2.1	Stigma is also a problem and our evidence, as 
well as repeated studies, show that stigma is 
felt by workers in all aspects of the sex 
industry, whether or not work is criminalised. 
Stigma can be overlooked largely because it is 
harder to quantify. And while convictions under 
legislation prevent workers from taking certain 
jobs, working in certain areas, or with other 
people, stigma is a pervasive, pernicious set of 
opinions that lead to alienation of sex workers

3.2.2	As with all forms of alienation, stigma 
distances sex workers from mainstream public 
opinion. It ensures that people consider 
workers to be 'others'. It also ensures that sex 
workers often struggle when exiting the 
industry to take jobs that they may be amply 
qualified for, for fear either of being an 
inappropriate hire, or for their potential to be 
seen as an organisational reputational risk.

3.2.3	One piece of evidence that we heard relating 
to the power of stigma was related to the porn 
industry. We were told that financial service 
companies including PayPal or insurance 
brokers have a blanket ban on providing 
financial services or insurance to porn 
producers. This means that producers have to 
pay fees of up to 8 times more than other 
customers; that website fees for sex workers 
are often prohibitively high compared to similar 
services in other industries; that banks 
routinely refuse accounts to people engaged in 
the industry; that business loans and start-up 
funding are impossible to come by; and that 
work in the industry is often raised during the 
course of divorces and family proceedings. In 
these ways, stigma has just as much power as 
legislation.


Questions
3.	Do we have a duty to reduce stigma? Can we?
4.	Should banks and financial institutions be 
allowed to discriminate against sex workers by 
refusing to allow them to open accounts or by 
charging higher fees than for other workers?
5.	Can the state do anything to help sex workers 
who aren't at risk of breaking the law eg chatline 
workers?

3.3	Enforcement vs Protection
3.3.1	Given that sex work per se is not illegal, the 
decision about how (and whether) to enforce 
the law at local level is left to the discretion of 
local police forces. The difference in 
approaches between police forces can be 
extreme. Although these differences are often 
justified as being for benefit of workers 
themselves, this means that some forces are 
enforcing statutes against sex workers, while 
others ignore it and focus on building 
confidence and co-operation. This 
inconsistency is clearly unsatisfactory.

3.3.2	 Sex workers across the country should be 
able to have their rights consistently uphold, 
and to understand their rights under the law, 
and not be required to have a thorough 
understanding of local police tactics to 
determine whether they are likely to obtain a 
criminal record. In some areas, for instance, 
police make consistent use of the Proceeds of 
Crime Act 2002, confiscating assets, a 
proportion of which is retained by the police 
economic unit.

3.3.3	There is strong evidence, we believe, to 
suggest that police forces that operate a more 
protection-based rather than enforcement-
based systems increase safety for sex 
workers. As detailed in the first chapter, 
willingness to report crime increases, 
conviction rates increase, and crime falls. But 
localised operational decisions should not be 
expected to circumvent or excuse poor law-
making. Where people working on the front 
lines, such as police, consider enforcement of 
existing laws to be actively damaging to sex 
workers, we believe that politicians should take 
these concerns into consideration when 
legislating. 

3.3.4	In addition, other areas of the sex industry can 
face issues of local enforcement at a 
democratic level. Strip clubs, for instance, are 
currently licensed by local councils. Where 
some councils are more willing to license 
venues, others have a politicised planning 
process which can be easily held hostage by 
vocal activist groups. These inevitable clashes 
must be taken into consideration in solutions 
that involve licensing of sex work venues - 
such as of brothels in New South Wales. 

Questions
6.	Should crimes against sex workers as sex 
workers be treated as hate crimes?

3.4	Health and safety
3.4.1	The safety of sex workers remains a problem 
within the current system. The law often makes 
it harder for workers to do things that make sex 
work safer. The nature of sex work as it 
currently stands leaves workers open to 
violence and exposed to criminality. Current 
legislation, for example kerb crawling, also 
criminalizes otherwise law-abiding citizens. 


3.4.2	As previously detailed, legislation relating to 
brothels can encourage off-street workers to 
work alone. Enforcement activity, for instance 
such as that undertaken in Redbridge in 2014, 
can also have an impact on behaviour and 
force both on- and off-street workers to take 
risks that they may not otherwise attempt. 
Extending beyond areas of illegality, large 
numbers of workers in the off-street and 
indirect sex work have reported to us and 
others that they do not trust the police to take 
complaints from them seriously - in some 
cases, having police assert that sex workers 
'cannot be raped' or insist that they must have 
encouraged the client involved. Police in 
England and Wales report that 153 sex 
workers have been murdered since 1990, 
more than any other single category of victim.

3.4.3	Many sex workers also have specialised health 
needs which are not always well catered for in 
the existing system, especially where local, 
often familiar or family GPs are the primary 
point of contact. Those involved in direct sex 
work tend to require frequent sexual health 
checks, including in some industries a 
certificate to prove that this has been 
conducted, which is a service for which the 
NHS currently charges. We have also received 
evidence regarding mental health needs of sex 
workers, where some have chosen to receive 
private treatment because of the fears of 
entering information into NHS systems which 
can then be linked to their wider health 
records. There are also fears around how 
medical records are shared in the NHS which 
could then impact on health insurance or life 
insurance in future, which could lead to sex 
workers seeking less help in the NHS.

3.4.4	One persistent issue that is raised is the failing 
of the social security safety net. Particularly for 
sex workers with caring responsibilities, sex 
work can originate from a situation where 
social security has not been available and 
other work is not practical, not available, or not 
flexible for an individual's circumstances. Many 
sex workers we have spoken to have gone 
through a period where other forms of income 
were not available to them - such as recent 
care leavers, being a transgender person 
looking to save for surgery, or being a mother 
where their primary job did not pay enough to 
support their family (particularly an issue in 
areas that have been hard hit by benefit cuts).

Questions
7.	Should sex workers be able to access the same 
employment rights as other workers?
8.	Are there any reasons to not allow sex workers 
to work together?

3.5	Historic discourses
3.5.1	Historically, sex work has been variously 
attacked on the grounds of public health, moral 
order, and public nuisance. Legislation and 
enforcement then moved from a public 
nuisance narrative (eg ASBOs for street-based 
workers) to one of victimhood and 
marginalisation. This led to several countries, 
not uncontroversially, introducing a sex buyer 
law. The argument went that sex workers were 
marginalised and vulnerable, and uniquely in 
need of societal protection from the harm 
clients were doing to them. This was often 
communicated by organisations who argued 
that the purchase of sex is inherently a 
violence and consent can never be freely given 
when money is involved. Workers, however, 
felt ignored by politicians who accepted a 
narrative of their position that lacked voices 
from sex workers themselves. 

3.5.2	It is our opinion that the above approach has a 
number of weaknesses, most recently 
elucidated by the Home Affairs Select 
Committee's Inquiry into Prostitution which 
stated that although they acknowledged that 
the intention of many supporters of the sex 
buyer law was to protect sex workers from 
harm, they noted that: 
*	There is no attempt to discriminate 
between prostitution between two 
consenting adults and that which involves 
exploitation
*	Much of the rhetoric denies sex workers 
the opportunity to speak for themselves
*	They were not convinced that it would be 
effective in reducing demand or improving 
the lives of sex workers
*	Evaluations are based on street workers 
without consideration of large parts of the 
sex industry
*	The law can be used to harass and 
victimise sex workers
*	They were not persuaded that the law 
would reduce, rather than simply displace, 
demand for prostitution

3.5.3	Indeed the law has been criticised because, 
according to Levy and Jakobsson (2014), it 
appears to have resulted in a more dangerous 
and stigmatised working environment for sex 
workers. 

Questions
9.	Do you think sex workers should be consulted 
before laws are drafted that are aimed at sex 
workers?
10.	If so, how can the consultation with sex workers 
be improved?

3.6	Impact on free speech
3.6.1	In addition to public discussions of the 
legalities surrounding prostitution, there has 
also been an increase in concerns related to 
access to pornography, the types of 
pornography available, and the over-
sexualisation of culture as a whole. The 
Conservative government has pushed to 
implement a 'porn filter' which would require 
UK internet users to input a credit card number 
before accessing otherwise free porn hosted 
outside the UK. This is designed to prevent 
children from coming across porn by accident, 
although data supporting this aim is weak. 
Liberal Democrat conference has previously 
voted heavily against implementing a porn filter 
- this group agrees with the position of 
conference on this issue.

3.6.2	Similarly, relatively recent laws on extreme 
porn and video on demand services have led 
to some pornographic websites, particularly 
those featuring consensual BDSM scenes, 
being shut down.

3.6.3	A number of high profile cases prosecuted 
under extreme porn laws have failed to result 
in conviction - for instance, R v Walsh [2012] 
where a man had video and images of acts he 
himself had performed, and R v Holland [2010] 
a man who had been sent a WhatsApp 
pornographic video purporting to be of a tiger 
and a woman engaged in a sex act but which 
turned out to be a man dressed as a tiger - a 
fact that was only uncovered in the courtroom. 
These laws not only cover scenes where no 
damage was caused, but also hentai and 
anime pornography where no real people are 
involved at all.

Questions
11.	What role (if any) do you think the state should 
play in regulating pornography that is made by 
consenting adults?
12.	Should there be limits placed on the sexual 
behaviour of consenting pornography actors 
when this does not result in permanent harm?
13.	Do you support a 'porn filter' - a filter on 
websites accessed from the UK that would 
require users to enter a credit card number to 
prove they are aged over 18 before being able to 
access pornography?
14.	How can the internet be made safer for those for 
whom pornography is not intended?
 
How to improve the current system

4.0.1	From a liberal perspective, the primary 
purpose of law is to prevent harm from being 
done by one member of society to another. 
This is particularly salient when the person 
being harmed is unable to make a free 
decision, under the age of majority, or 
otherwise vulnerable. One agreement on all 
sides of the sex work argument is that the 
current system does not fulfil this purpose.

4.0.2	To improve the system, therefore, legislative 
solutions must focus on how best to protect 
individuals involved in sex work. Additional 
work must be done outside the legislative 
arena to support this aim - including reducing 
stigma, and reducing failure in, for instance, 
the benefit sanctions system, that can have an 
impact on the ability of individuals to make a 
free choice. 

4.0.3	The concept of 'free choice' is particularly 
important when it comes to sex work as we 
believe that consent is central to the 
judgement of whether or not an individual is 
harmed. We do not believe that the need for 
income by itself negates consent - just as it 
does not when an individual enters into any 
other type of contract. We also do not believe 
that management or driving of a sex worker to 
or from an appointment negates a worker's 
consent.

4.1	Law
4.1.1	The evidence that we have received presents 
us with only one option - to advocate for the 
decriminalisation of sex work. 

4.1.2	Decriminalisation of sex work is a term that 
needs to be uncoupled from legalisation. It is 
not a decision left to police to decide whether 
or not to arrest - it is a removal from the 
statute book of references to prostitution. 
Whereas the term 'legalisation' has a different 
meaning and implies a regulated system 
where certain kinds of sex work are specifically 
legalised (and others, therefore, are not). It is 
our opinion that a legalised system such as 
this would result in a two tier system of sex 
work where some people are protected by the 
law if they abide by the rules, and some 
remain in the same position they are now - 
edged into a legal grey area and vulnerable to 
the accompanying abuses. 

4.1.3	As we have demonstrated, enforcement by 
state actors such as the police and social 
services is met by resistance by sex workers, 
leads to reduced willingness to report crimes, 
the propensity to take greater risks to prevent 
prosecution, and reductions in prosecution 
rates for those who attack sex workers. Where 
police choose not to arrest sex workers, these 
effects are ameliorated - but as liberals we 
cannot advocate a system that offers only 
some workers protection, or one which 
requires police officers to neglect enforcing 
problematic laws.

4.1.4	Of primary importance in all legislation and 
enforcement is the right of an individual to 
report a crime and be treated justly. Crimes 
involving sex workers can be violent and may 
also be sexual, and the provision of 
specialised police officers can reduce the 
scepticism that is reported by sex workers - 
and indeed in sexual assault reporting as a 
whole. 

4.1.5	As current party policy states, we are also in 
favour of the extension of the aspect of 
Merseyside Model which treats violence 
against sex workers as hate crime. In 2011, 
the Association of Chief Police Officers 
recommended all forces institute the Model, 
but so far no others have. The model 
combined effective policing of people targeting 
sex workers with additional core services such 
as counselling, outreach, and harm reduction - 
and we see no justification for police forces 
continuing to approach sex work as a purely 
public nuisance issue. 

4.1.6	We welcome the calls of the Home Affairs 
Select Committee for government to 
immediately remove laws that criminalise 
solicitation and off-street workers who work 
together for the purposes of safety who are 
often criminalised under brothel-keeping laws. 
Quite apart from opinions on decriminalisation 
as a whole, these specific laws are designed to 
target women working independently, 
encourage risk-taking, and often result in 
criminalisation that makes gaining employment 
outside sex work incredibly difficult.

Questions
15.	Does the current system do more harm than 
good?
16.	Is it possible to give consent to sexual activity 
when money is involved?
17.	Do you support the decriminalisation of sex 
work?

4.2	Reducing Stigma, Changing Perceptions
4.2.1	As previously highlighted, stigma is a problem 
not just for those who work in aspects of the 
sex industry that are criminalised, but almost 
all areas. It is not limited only to direct sex 
work - but also extends to those who provide 
services that do not involve sexual contact of 
any kind. To some extent, stigma is a societal 
problem without an easy solution. The fact that 
is extends outside areas that are criminalised 
shows that it is not simply an issue around law 
but around sex work in general. 

4.2.2	Stigma can be divided into 'felt' and 'enacted' 
categories. Felt stigma is the reaction people 
have to sex work - so will cover harm to 
personal relationships, an increased fear of 
violence, and a sense of societal alienation.  
Enacted stigma, on the other hand, is the 
response of organisations to the fact that a 
person is a sex worker - so police refusing to 
adequately deal with complaints of sexual 
assault, banks refusing to lend to legal 
businesses, and lack of accessibility to goods 
or services. 

4.2.3	Though stigma can be countered by political 
speech, fairer media coverage, and 
encouraged by decriminalisation of sex work, a 
significant factor in its decline will be time. 
Recent years have seen a large rise in the 
unacceptability of racism and homophobia - in 
part due to the legal situation, but largely 
owing to gradual changes in public opinion. 
Although government and political parties can 
take a lead in reducing the stigma of sex 
workers, they cannot end it entirely.

4.2.4	Discrimination, on the other hand, should be 
set clearly in the sights of lawmakers. The use 
of perceived corporate 'reputational risk' to 
prevent law-abiding individuals from accessing 
basic services is, we believe, indefensible. The 
ability of service providers to discriminate 
against sex workers regardless of their position 
in relation to the law must be curtailed. Formal 
guidelines should be drawn up for 
governmental organisations, including the 
police and court systems, as to what 
constitutes acceptable conduct. We believe 
that a significant part of formal stigma comes 
down to a lack of understanding about the 
complex legal situation many sex workers find 
themselves in - a fact which decriminalisation 
should solve, but which in the meantime may 
require clear guidelines as the legality of sex 
work.

4.3	State support
4.3.1	Deficiencies in state support can be grouped 
into two areas - pre-existing circumstances 
that lead people towards sex work, such as 
benefit sanctions or lack of eligibility, or 
conditions for existing sex workers affect their 
ability to change profession. Both are tied up in 
the aspects of sex work that many workers 
highlight as positives - the level of income, 
and the flexibility of working hours and 
location. 

4.3.2	State support is particularly a matter for on-
street workers, where there can be some form 
of drug or alcohol addiction, family breakdown, 
mental illness, or homelessness. We are also 
particularly concerned about the number of 
care leavers who end up in sex work - the 
Home Office cite a number of studies (mostly 
of on-street workers) which report between 
33% and 70% of sex workers had some 
experience of being in care. Services such as 
Open Doors, which originated in Hackney as a 
one stop shop for vulnerable sex workers, 
often tie in healthcare with wider provision for 
accessing state support and benefits. 

4.3.3	One of the concerns raised with us repeatedly 
is that on-street workers are likely to have had 
negative interactions with the state in the past, 
and are likely only to have experience with the 
police or social services. This raises the 
importance of having a semi-detached 
organisation that workers trust and which is 
focused on providing support specifically for 
sex workers. A fundamental part of this 
support is ensuring that no information about 
service users is shared with wider government.

4.3.4	As with Liberal Democrat drug policy, our aim 
here should be harm reduction. Our arguments 
for the decriminalisation of personal drug use 
centre on the fact that needs of addicts are 
often complex, and criminalisation is not the 
most effective way of reducing individual harm. 
Similarly, sex workers should have the ability 
to access support services without fear of 
being reported to the police, social services, or 
their local council.

Questions
18.	Should we seek to prevent people from entering 
sex work?
19.	What more can the state do to reach out to 
vulnerable people who may not be aware of the 
support available to them?
20.	Should the state do more itself to help vulnerable 
people involved in sex work? Or should it fund 
more arms-length organisations? 
 
What would a decriminalised system look like?
5.1	New Zealand
5.1.1	A number of other countries already operate 
decriminalised framework, most notably New 
Zealand. 

5.1.2	In 2003, New Zealand passed the Prostitution 
Reform Act, the purpose of which was the 
decriminalise prostitution (while not endorsing 
or morally sanctioning prostitution or its use). It 
created a framework to safeguard the human 
rights of sex workers and protect them from 
exploitation; promote the welfare and 
occupational health and safety of sex workers; 
contribute to public health; and prohibit the use 
in prostitution of persons under 18 years of 
age. The PRA also established a certification 
regime for brothel operators. In terms of 
human rights, the law was designed to protect 
the rights of those aged under 18 not to be 
used in sex work, the right of adults not to be 
forced to engage in sex work including the 
right to refuse a particular client or sexual 
practice, and the right not to be subject to 
exploitative or degrading employment 
practices.

5.1.3	A report conducted five years after the law 
change found that:
*	The number of street-based sex workers 
had not increased, and remains steady at 
11%
*	Over 90% of sex workers felt they had 
legal rights under the act and over 60% of 
sex workers felt they were more able to 
refuse to provide services to a client
*	The majority of sex workers commenting 
felt that sex workers were more likely to 
report incidents of violence to the police
*	Only 3.9% of sex workers said they had 
been subject to coercion into entering or 
remaining in the sex industry
*	Brothel certification and inspection should 
continue, with the list maintained at court 
level and not linked to specific businesses
*	The age of 18 for sex work should remain, 
recognising that there is a difference 
between commercial sexual activity and 
other sexual activity
*	Street-based sex work should be 
discouraged in favour either of safer 
indoor work, or leaving the sex industry 
altogether

5.2	What should be decriminalised?
5.2.1	There are three broad areas of sex work that 
are considered when looking at legislation: the 
seller, the buyer, and management (which can 
include everything from running a brothel to 
owning a property in which sex work is taking 
place). Amnesty International has recently 
made the move to advocate decriminalisation 
of all three of these areas. It is also worth 
noting that there is a degree of movement 
between areas, with sex workers buying sex, 
and also progressing to management 
positions.

5.2.2	The Seller. Sex workers themselves are 
classed as sellers - they are paid for engaging 
in sexual conduct. There remain very few 
countries where the act of selling sex itself is 
illegal, but many (including England, Wales, 
and Scotland) where sex workers are 
criminalised for actions surrounding the sale of 
sex, such as advertising services or soliciting 
in public places. 

5.2.3	The Buyer. The client is the person who 
purchases sexual services. This in itself is not 
illegal in England, Wales, or Scotland. 
Decriminalising buyers is seen to empower sex 
workers who can afford to be selective about 
what work they do, when, and where. 
Evidence also shows that decriminalisation 
has the benefit of preventing people being 
duped into working in the industry when 
replying to misleading job advertisements.

5.2.4	Management. 'Controlling' sex work is illegal in 
the UK, as it is in most countries. This, in 
theory, includes pimping, running a brothel, 
making money from prostitution, and 
transporting sex workers to appointments. It 
can also be seen to include laws about forcing 
or intimidating people into engaging in sex 
work and trafficking for the purposes of sex 
work. We believe that in a system founded on 
the principle of consent, 'management' should 
be separated from 'coercion'. We also believe 
that if management is criminalised in a 
decriminalised system, there is a risk that a 
parallel grey economy will emerge of sex 
workers working in brothels etc that are not 
legal, despite selling sex in general being 
legal. This type of confusion has the potential 
to lead to sex workers being in a similar 
position to now - unwilling to report crimes to 
the police for fear of their work being 
criminalised.

5.2.5	Coercion. We regard forced labour and human 
trafficking (within or across any border, 
including for the purpose of sexual activity) to 
be serious human rights abuses. We support 
the criminalisation of those who coerce people 
into any kind of work and human traffickers. 
We believe that human trafficking should be a 
crime regardless of the purpose for which an 
individual is trafficked, as should coercion into 
performing a sexual act, regardless of whether 
a fee is involved. In addition, children involved 
in any kinds of commercial sexual acts are 
victims of sexual exploitation. Options for 
combating these crimes include - retaining the 
current framework, uniting framework and 
taking out references to sex work and 
prostitution, or removing references to sex 
work but allowing for the circumstances to be 
taken into account on sentencing.

5.2.6	Definitions. We believe that the best definition 
of trafficking in human beings comes from the 
2000 UN 'Palermo Protocols', which says that 
trafficking should mean the 'recruitment, 
transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt 
of persons' through the use of the 'three F's': 
fear, force, or fraud. Exploitation of trafficked 
people should include forced sexual activity or 
sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery, or 
the removal or organs. Under this Protocol, 
consent cannot be given to these 
circumstances.

Questions
21.	Should selling sex be legal?
22.	Should buying sex be legal?
23.	Should management of sex work be legal?
24.	Is it important to classify crimes such as human 
trafficking as being for a sexual purpose rather 
than, for instance, forced labour?

5.3	Additional state support
5.3.1	Sex workers have particular needs that may be 
difficult to meet in the usual arrangement or 
delivery of state support. This could be owing 
to a particular set of requirements (eg for porn 
actors, regular GUM check-ups and 
certification of results), a combination of needs 
(for instance, GUM check-ups and mental 
healthcare), an unwillingness to share 
information with people they interact with for 
other purposes (eg wanting a different doctor 
to their usual GP), or - most particularly in 
street sex workers - requiring a 
comprehensive set of state support measures 
for which they may not have a full 
understanding of eligibility or how to apply.

5.3.2	Liberal Democrat commitments to increasing 
the provision and accessibility of mental 
healthcare remain vital. We also believe that 
sexual and other healthcare services, including 
those provided to sex workers, should remain 
entirely distinct from enforcement and other 
state bodies such as councils. Recent moves 
by councils such as Hackney away from 
providing standalone services for sex workers 
to one where these services must share 
information with the police and others are 
liable to do huge damage to the vulnerable 
communities they support. 

5.3.3	We are pleased to see the proposals of the 
Mending the Safety Net policy paper that is 
being debated at autumn conference, which 
calls for the removal of the worst aspects of 
recent benefits policy. The use of benefit 
sanctions can currently act as a large push 
towards short term sex work for some 
vulnerable people. Anecdotal evidence also 
suggests that recent benefit changes have had 
an impact on people whose families may be 
subject to changes, who are either under 
pressure to contribute to the family or who 
cannot rely on them for small amounts of 
additional help.

Questions
25.	Is it important to maintain sexual health services 
separate from General Practitioners?
26.	Is medical confidentiality currently adequate for 
sex workers? Will moves towards centralisation 
of health records have an effect on its adequacy?
27.	Who should fund the provision of sex worker-
focused services?

5.4	Leaving sex work
5.4.1	Past convictions present a sizeable barrier to 
people getting jobs outside sex work. We 
would propose the quashing of all convictions 
under laws specifically concerning sex work - 
so, convictions for soliciting, ASBOs, and 
brothel-keeping would be automatically 
quashed whereas convictions for trafficking or 
sexual assault would not be. Decriminalisation 
without removing past convictions would be a 
hollow promise - something relevant for the 
future but whose effect would not be felt by a 
large number of current and former sex 
workers.

5.4.2	There is also the question of whether and what 
work could be put towards assisting people 
who want to move out of sex work, if and 
when, they choose. The fundamental question 
must be whether additional state support such 
as one-stop shops for health, benefits etc and 
a removal of convictions provide enough of an 
opportunity for people to leave if they want to. 
We are tempted to think that these changes 
would have a fundamental impact on people 
determined to leave and who may have 
qualifications or experience in a particular field 
and thus find it easier to obtain a different job. 
However, given evidence that money is a key 
driver of engagement in sex work, we are not 
convinced that there is anything outside the 
availability of adult education and training that 
would have a meaningful and long-lasting 
impact.

Questions
28.	Should we seek to quash past convictions for sex 
work?
29.	Should the quashing of past convictions extend 
to all areas of sex work law, or just solicitation?
30.	What should be done about assets seized under 
existing laws for those with sex work 
convictions?

Sex Work
Sex Work
2		Consultation Paper 126
Autumn Conference 2016		1