Soliciting sex should not be crime, according to a former Tolworth sex worker and Kingston MP James Berry.
A group of MPs has called for immediate radical changes in the way prostitution is policed. The Home Affairs Select Committee, on which Mr Berry sits, recommended the changes as a way to minimise the risk for women selling sex. After hearing evidence from sex workers, experts and police, the cross-party group of MPs also said previous convictions for prostitution should be wiped from criminal records.
They advised a change in brothel-keeping laws to promote a safer environment for women working together. While buying or selling sex is legal, advertising in public – soliciting – is not, nor are brothels. Campaigners claim this puts women at risk. Former sex worker Jenny Medcalf, 47, now works as a support and outreach officer for Streatham-based charity Spires. She supports the women who sell sex on the streets of south London by offering them condoms and advice, as well as attending court appearances.
Politicians suggested a move to the Nordic model, which means kerb-crawlers looking for sex would be still charged with a crime, but not prostitutes offering sex. Ms Medcalf was working as a human resources consultant in the City when she fell behind on mortgage payments for her Tolworth home, and got into debt.
In 2004 she followed a suggestion that she sell sex to supplement her income, and became an escort offering a BDSM—bondage and discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism—service. After turning to drugs and alcohol to cope, Ms Medcalf said she finally had to leave the job when a client was whipping her through the bars of a cage and she broke down.
Spires runs three workshops a week for sex workers. Call 020 8696 0943 or visit spires.org.uk.
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