Decrim Now

Black background with faded orange patterns, with text overlaid that says: “Help us fight for sex workers' rights and combat poverty. Email your MP using the the template email in our bio. Sign up to our newsletter on our website & keep up to date with the situation for sex workers' rights in the UK. Donate to organisations like SWARM and the English Collective of Prostitutes by visiting their websites

If you believe there should be no more cuts, no more austerity, no more poverty, take action now.

📧 Follow the link in our bio to use our template email to contact your MP.

💻 Sign up to our newsletter on our website & keep up to date with the situation for sex workers' rights in the UK.

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We think the government can and must do more to prevent people from having to go into sex work if they would rather not. The government’s Autumn Budget is coming up, and we want the government to take real action to reduce poverty and financial need across the country.

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our open letter: Dear Secretary of State, We are writing to you as a group of sex workers' rights and wider civil society organisations, to ask you to take urgent action to prevent increasing numbers of women being driven into sex work by poverty and financial need. Women and children disproportionately bear the brunt of the current poverty crisis, faced with a huge rise in living costs, low wages, and over a decade of harsh benefit cuts. Unacceptably, in 2025, 18% of UK children now live in households experiencing food poverty. The Government's upcoming Child Poverty Strategy presents a huge opportunity to tackle this staggeringly high level of child poverty, but the evidence must not be ignored: to lift children out of poverty, we must also lift women out of poverty. At this time, UK sex worker charities and advocacy groups are witnessing increasing numbers of women entering the industry for the first time out of financial necessity. There are a range of different reasons why people go into sex work to support themselves. However, Decrim Now's recent survey of 172 sex workers paints a bleak picture, finding that 76% started sex work due to financial need. 77% of respondents considered themselves to be disabled or to have a long-term health condition, and many sex workers highlighted their health or disability as a key reason why they went into sex work.

Our survey additionally found that 53% of respondents were working multiple jobs outside of sex work, and 27% had caring responsibilities, predominantly for children or a family member. Alarmingly, we are seeing more students enter the industry, as well as older women who are increasingly entering or re-entering the industry later in life due to financial pressures. We know that many migrant women go into sex work to support themselves because they have limited or no access to public funds, even when destitute. Women are also more likely to be trapped in abusive relationships if they cannot afford to leave, and some women use sex work to enable themselves to escape abuse. Social security is the cornerstone of our human rights, such as housing, food and health. Clearly our social security system must be reformed to ensure people have the financial support they need to afford the essentials, without having to rely on sex work if they don't want to. While people of any gender (and no gender) can and do go into sex work, the majority of sex workers are women and many are mothers. Due to current laws, these women, driven by poverty, are then forced to work in unsafe conditions, facing violence, stigma and discrimination. This must end. The laws around sex work can be contentious, and the undersigned may differ in our views about which legislative models lead to the greatest safety for women.

Despite this, we are united in our concern about women's poverty, and the wellbeing of those who feel they have no choice but to enter sex work in order to survive. The Government has promised to reduce child poverty by the end of this parliament. In order to achieve this moral imperative and prevent more women entering sex work due to poverty, we urge you to use your Autumn Budget to implement the following changes: • Increase Universal Credit to a level that meets people's essential needs • Scrap the no recourse to public funds condition • Scrap the two child limit on benefits • Lift the benefit cap • Stop cuts to disability and health benefits. We know that there is enough money in the Uk to fund these changes - the Government simply has to make the political decisions required to find it, such as by exploring the options for better taxing and redistributing wealth. As more women find themselves without the money to pay their rent or to feed their children, we can't afford not to make these changes. As one sex worker responded to our survey's final question, which asked what they would like to tell the Government about their experiences: "People do sex work because they need money. If you want to live in a society where women aren't reliant on selling sex, it's poverty we need to tackle."

signatories: DECRIM NOW ENGLISH COLLECTIVE OF PROSTITUTES SAFETY FIRST WALES SEX WORKERS UNION UCU SEX WORKER ADVOCACY AND RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (SWARM) NATIONAL UGLY MUGS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UK AGENDA ALLIANCE ARTS & HOMELESSNESS INTERNATIONAL ASLEF BFAWU EQUITY DISABILITY RIGHTS UK LEVEL UP THE ADULT SEXUAL EXPLOITATION PARTNERSHIP HALALEH TAHERI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN AND SOCIETY (MEWSO) LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN'S AID MIGRANTS' RIGHTS NETWORK ROSE BERNSTEIN, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JOINT COUNCIL FOR THE WELFARE OF IMMIGRANTS WOMEN AGAINST RAPE RESTORED ONE25 DISABLED PEOPLE AGAINST CUTS DIFFERENCE NORTH EAST SPECTRA BRISTOL SEX WORKERS COLLECTIVE WINVISIBLE (WOMEN WITH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE DISABILITIES)

You can read our open letter and see the rest of signatories, including the trade unions @aslefunion.bsky.social, @bfawu.bsky.social, and organisations like @disrightsuk.bsky.social, and @migrantsrights.bsky.social, in the images below.

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A white background with orange faded patterns, with text overlaid saying, “Our letter has been signed by a coalition of sex worker collectives, charities and trade unions to tell the government they need to take action now. Read our open letter on the next slide. Help us by sharing this post and emailing your MP to ask them to support sex workers.”

We’ve been joined by orgs including @amnestyuk.bsky.social, @agenda-alliance.bsky.social, and @ucu.org.uk. We’re proud to be leading this coalition of organisations working across the sex workers’ rights movement, the women’s sector, the disability sector, the trade union movement, & others.

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A black background with orange faded patterns. The text over the top says: “76% of sex workers who responded to a recent Decrim Now survey said that their main reason for going into sex work was financial need.”

The UK is in an ongoing poverty crisis, and some people are entering sex work in order to support themselves and their families. Women, mothers, migrants, disabled people and trans people are overrepresented in sex work because of the poverty they often face.

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A black and white photo of a person holding a sign that says, “benefit cuts drive women into prostitution,” on a bright red background. There is text overlaid that says, “OPEN LETTER: We've written to the government to tell them they must act urgently to prevent increasing numbers of women being driven into sex work by poverty and financial need.”

We’ve sent an open letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to tell him that the the government must act urgently to prevent increasing numbers of women being driven into sex work by poverty and financial need.

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A protester in a mask holds a sign reading "Benefit cuts drive women into prostitution." Text below urges government action to prevent women being forced into sex work due to poverty.

Red background with white text stating, "76% of sex workers who responded to a recent survey by Decrim Now said that financial need was the main reason they entered sex work."

📢 We have signed an open letter, led by @decrimnow.bsky.social , calling on the UK Government to act on the poverty crisis driving more people, especially women, into s@x work. 

Read more: 

https://spectra-london.org.uk/2025/09/15/women-in-poverty-sx-work-spectra-open-letter/

Thank you Maggie for being such an amazing and consistent ally to sex workers! We hugely appreciated the opportunity to come and speak in Scottish Parliament alongside our friends from Scotland for Decrim, National Ugly Mugs and the Street Workers’ Collective Ireland.

Scotland for Decrim Demand full decriminalisation - write to your MSP now

If you’re based in Scotland, you can follow @Scotland4Decrim on Instagram, and use their email your MSP template tool to let your MSPs know that you want them to support sex workers’ rights: scotlandfordecrim.netlify.app

Scotcast - Sex worker: Listen to me - BBC Sounds How a proposed prostitution law could impact selling sex.

Our amazing colleagues Laura and Victoria in Scotland for Decrim were on the BBC’s Scottish news podcast Scotcast this week, speaking about why sex workers oppose Ash Regan’s dangerous Nordic Model bill. Please listen and share, it’s a powerful episode: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Text reading ‘Ending women's poverty, low benefits, disability discrimination, housing insecurity, lack of recognition for care responsibilities, and pay inequality - this is where the focus needs to be. We, the English Collective of Prostitutes, guarantee that prostitution rates would fall off a cliff if every woman in this country had financial independence and security. But making the work more dangerous while not even attempting to address these causal factors will only get more women hurt.’

Criminalising sex work does not make it go away, it makes it more dangerous for sex workers. The government needs to tackle poverty and the basic failure of our society to support people’s essential needs.

Text reading ‘Austerity cuts and benefits-slashing policies have disproportionately harmed women, especially single mothers. Research shows that policies like the two-child benefit cap are increasing child poverty, but children don't exist in a vacuum. Children are poor because their mothers are poor. In 2018, the UN Rapporteur on poverty called austerity a "political choice" that specifically targets women. In 2019, a Work and Pensions Committee inquiry also acknowledged that benefits sanctions and delays to Universal Credit were pushing women into "survival sex". Since then, hundreds of women have reached out to ECP for support whilst starting or returning to sex work. They said they had little choice - they couldn't survive doing other jobs, and the benefits system was failing them.’

Austerity cuts to welfare and other crucial services since 2010 have led to the poverty crisis we’re now seeing across the country, which has driven more people into sex work to support themselves and their families.

Great article from our colleagues in the English Collective of Prostitutes about how criminalisation and poverty/financial need trap women in sex work. The government could solve this by decriminalising sex work and ensuring that our social security system is fit for purpose.

Trans people are overrepresented in sex work in large part because of the discrimination and abuse they face in other workplaces and wider society. This EHRC guidance will hugely amplify that. Please write to your MP to demand democratic oversight of this harmful guidance. #NoTransSegregation

End the criminalisation of sex work The evidence is clear: criminalisation makes sex workers less safe.

You can also use our email template tool to email your MP to call on them to support sex workers’ rights: decrim-email.netlify.app

We need as many allies as possible to stand with us and show politicians that sex workers’ rights matter. We need full decrim now! 💪

Open Letter: To Home Secretary - Abolish "Prostitute's Cautions" - English Collective of Prostitutes SIGN ONLINE HERE Or email ecp@prostitutescollective.net to be added. Dear Home Secretary, We are writing to ask that you take action to abolish ‘prostitute’s cautions’ which trap women in sex work, pr...

You can read the English Collective of Prostitutes’ powerful letter to the Home Secretary here, calling on her to end the unjust use of prostitutes’ cautions by police: prostitutescollective.net/open-letter-...

Text reading ‘"Sex workers around the country continue to receive prostitute's cautions from the police for working on the street," Megan, one of the coordinators of Decrim Now, told Big Issue. "This hands them a criminal record that makes it incredibly difficult to get another job, essentially trapping them in sex work. At a time when the UK is facing a poverty crisis and the government is considering cutting disability benefits, it's outrageous that sex workers are being punished for doing what they need to in order to survive." In June, Watson and others from the English Collective of Prostitutes delivered a letter signed by 80 others, requesting the government abolish prostitute's cautions, expunge criminal records which trap women in prostitution.’

This is still going on, now in the context of a deepening poverty crisis across the country. The government must listen to sex workers and allies, and end the criminalisation of sex work.

Text reading ‘"I never realised all of that [the cautions and convictions] would be included in my history," she said. But she found out the huge impact her sex work would have on her ability to find other work when she tried to start a career in nursing at the age of 28. Sharon enrolled on a nursing course at college, and had to find a job in the nursing field to accompany her classroom learning. "I applied for jobs and got taken on by a nursing agency," she said. "But when they got my CRB check [a criminal record check now known as a DBS check] back, it was the end of that. It was so embarrassing. I was still young enough to have a career, but the police record stopped me. I would have been good at nursing."’

Sharon’s story is a shocking example of exactly what happens to hundreds of sex workers around the country - criminalised for doing sex work to survive, and prevented from leaving sex work as a result.

We were pleased to speak to Lauren recently for this important article on how the criminalisation of sex workers traps them in sex work, giving them a criminal record which makes it much more difficult to get another job. The government must take urgent action to ban prostitutes’ cautions.

Don’t miss this interview with our colleagues in Scotland on why they oppose Ash Regan’s proposed bill to introduce the Nordic Model (client criminalisation) in Scotland. Thank you Neil for listening to sex workers 🙏

Hi Mike, we’d be very keen to have a call with you to chat to you about this if you have any time in the coming weeks/months - you can email us at contact@decrimnow.org.uk (or send us a DM!) if you’d be happy to speak. Thank you!

It’s also fair to say that we now have two Home Office ministers who are very pro-Nordic Model and a group of MPs who are the same, so we are still at a pretty dangerous time for sex workers’ rights and the possibility of increased criminalisation.

Yes, day two of report stage for the bill was yesterday and these amendments weren’t selected to be voted on. However, the government’s VAWG strategy should come out before the summer recess and there may be some new policies on sex work in that which could be concerning.

You can read our submission to the bill committee explaining the harms of these amendments (which were previously NC1 and NC2 at committee stage) here, if interested: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

criminalisation of sex work in the UK and to introduce the Nordic Model here. We’d be very pleased to have the opportunity to chat to you sometime about this and the dangers that sex workers are facing from current laws and pro-Nordic Model MPs!

Hi Jolyon. It could also criminalise the friends and family of sex workers, and support services which may eg give out condoms or other safer sex materials. Luckily these amendments are not being included in the Crime and Policing Bill now, but many MPs are still determined to try and increase the

It’s absolutely outrageous that @ameliagentleman.bsky.social has written this article and hasn’t included a single word from sex worker-led organisations or outreach charities that work with sex workers who oppose these proposals. Where is the balance? Where are the voices of actual sex workers?

To join Scottish sex workers in opposing further criminalisation under the Nordic Model;

- follow Scotland4Decrim on Instagram

- if you’re based in Scotland, use our email your MSP tool to demand they oppose the proposed Nordic Model: t.co/DOkwW8dQoa

“Sex workers know that only full decriminalisation will protect our safety, health, & human rights, giving us the power to choose when and how we work.”

Read more about our campaign to oppose the Nordic Model in Scotland: t.co/JMgYyBDNsb

Decriminalisation of sex work makes people safer.