women in london

Sunday 19 July 3.30 – 4.30
Gathering 3.15 outside St Anne’s Church

Organised by Soho Working Girls & English Collective of Prostitutes
Supported by the Soho Society – Part of the Soho Festival

Soho sex workers are:
* Thanking the Soho community for helping to keep women’s doors open so they can stay in the safety of their flats. Attempts in February by police and Westminster Council to close down premises in Dean Street were roundly defeated in court after local people turned out to defend working women as an integral part of the diverse community and to reject any moves to gentrify the area. Shortly afterwards, Mayfair sex workers also successfully defeated attempts by Westminster to close their doors.
* Insisting in staying in the safety of our flats. Most working flats are small women-run ventures that offer greater safety, companionship and lower running expenses. Working indoors is 10 times safer than on the streets, and ‘clean-ups’ only push prostitution underground and sex workers into more danger. Have the police & Westminster forgotten that at least 4 women have been murdered after being forced out of safer Soho premises?
* Gathering support to stop the Policing & Crime Bill (PCB) which is currently going through parliament. Fuelled by a moral crusade which claims that all prostitution is rape, and using false trafficking figures to justify it, the PCB would push prostitution further underground and sex workers into more danger. It includes measures to make it easier for the police to arrest sex workers on the street, bring in compulsory “rehabilitation”, close down flats where women are working independently and collectively, criminalise clients engaged in consenting sex, extend powers to seize earnings and assets.
* Exposing false information about sex workers. Research published on 10 July proves that most sex workers are not trafficked. We are mothers, daughters, sisters, grannies, aunties struggling to support ourselves and our families, just like other women. Some sex workers are men. Why target us, especially in times of economic recession?
* Demanding that rape and other violence, including trafficking where there is force and coercion, be prioritised so that all women and children, and all sex workers are safer. While our flats are being raided and our hard won earnings taken, police, immigration authorities and social services are allowing children to be put in the way of traffickers. Help us to stop this outrage.

ALL WELCOME on the Parade
Followed by music, dance & stand up comedy

Contact:
020 7482 2496
ecp@allwomencount.net
http://www.prostitutescollective.net