According to a new study, seven in ten UK sex workers previously worked in care jobs. The research, carried out by Leeds University, revealed that 71 percent of those surveyed had left health, social care, education, childcare or charity roles to take up sex work. Financial hardship was the usual reason for the switch. Given that most sex workers aren't in it for life, it seems fair to assume that a proportion might eventually choose to go back to their previous line of work.
The problem is, for many, this will be impossible. Sex workers are subject to a particular type of non-statutory reprimand: the " prostitutes caution ". As the name implies, it's not quite the same as the regular kind of caution you might be landed with for shoplifting or being caught with a bit of weed. In the case of a prostitutes caution, neither of these is required. According to the Crown Prosecution Service:. So sex workers suspected of soliciting it's legal to buy and sell sex in the UK, but illegal to solicit or work together as a group in a flat can be slapped with a caution, even if there's not enough evidence to take the matter to court.
Want to call foul? Tough: there's no right of appeal. Cautions remain on your record. If you want to go into work that requires you to interact with children or vulnerable adults i. And if a potential employer sees you've got cautions, there's a good chance you won't get the job.
In some cases, it's probably not even worth applying. Joanne, in her forties, is the primary carer for her severely disabled daughter. Sex work, she says, is simply a way of putting food on the table when choices are limited. Joanne's been working on the streets for 25 years. In that time, she's been stopped by the police and has ended up with a record.
This record meant that, when Joanne was offered another job, she had to turn it down. I'm used to looking after adults with multiple disabilities. Because my council house has a spare room, I could have done emergency care. The job would have been ideal for me, but I couldn't even say I was interested or I would have lost my own daughter. As she's classed as a vulnerable adult and I have a record for prostitution, they could have said my house wasn't a suitable environment for her.
