Prostitutes 60-100x more likely to be murdered

[msrisotto]

Yet it's a job like any other....If it really was and women weren't 'other' to the men who run this country this wouldn't fucking happen.
link here

[PoochSmooch]

That's appalling. It's so much higher than I've heard previously. I think it says its from 2008 - have there been any follow ups, do you know?

[msrisotto]

I've no idea. I was shocked too but why? Why isn't this a national crisis? Same as why isn't 2 women a week killed by their partners a national crisis?I despair.

[michelle303]

Heartbreaking... but not surprising sadly :(

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

I have seen figures on mens deaths while in work or industry deaths

Has anyone ever seen the figures for prostitutes

It just that it would be nice to have them as a riposte

[Prawnofthepatriarchy]

Heartrending. Yes, Rufus, I've seen MRA claims that men have the worst of it because of work fatalities. This rather knocks that on the head. Ditto transactivist claims about sky high deaths among transwomen. Trans prostitutes are at very high risk, I'm not disputing that, but I bet that women are at higher risk simply because we're considerably physically weaker. If you want to murder a prostitute it makes sense not to pit yourself against someone who might kill you in self defence.

I wonder what other stats on prostitute homicides are around?

[scaryclown]

Again, I think this is a function of marginalising the industry - men are forced to cross into 'unacceptable to society' category before using prostitutes/sex workers, and prostitutes/sex workers are supposed to hide what they do, and be silent. Secrecy causes risk.

The narrative that paying for sex is a weakness and a failure I suspect feeds into a miasma of resentment and self-disgust that is projected on to prostitutes as ego protection, so I wish we could dissolve that narrative too - it comes with the same masculinist narratives about 'beating up men who look at your girlfriend' etc so it definitely needs eroding.

I would imagine, without looking at the study, is that its distorted in that many highly poverty-led, chaotic and unsafe lifestyles include being paid for sex/having goods exchanged for sex etc, and it is the lifestyle/dangerous environments/highly confrontational and abusive company, rather than the sex work per se that is leading to murders/manslaughter.. so I wonder if they have controlled for that?

its so sad though -

[scaryclown]

THe trouble is that a lot of the daily mail types will see prostitute murder as a bit like exorcising demons from society rather than people who need protection. I wish the murder rate was higher for judgemental problematic dehumaising arseholes (daily mail fans) actually..

[quietcountrylanes]

I suppose risk is inherent in prostitution.

Would legalising it reduce that risk?

I'm not sure.

[HirplesWithHaggis]

It's a shocking headline, indeed. But if (as WA have been claiming for 20+ years) two (presumably non-prostitute) women a week are murdered by their partners/recent exes, that suggests that 6-10 thousand prostitutes are murdered on the streets of the UK every year, and they're rarely reported. Really?

[HmmOkay]

Awful.

There's a real sense of prostitution being something that you ARE, rather than something that you DO, isn't there? I've noticed that in media reports before.

Someone who works in prostitution will likely garner headlines of
"Prostitute murdered" but not "30 year old woman murdered" or even "Mum of 4 murdered".

What she does to get money is the most important thing about her which isn't the case for most other murders. You don't often see "Checkout operator murdered", "Engineer murdered" as headlines.

Same with homeless. "Homeless man murdered" and not "50 year old man murdered".

It is like the prostitution and homelessness renders the rest of your life invisible and worthless. Which is bloody awful also.

[ChocChocPorridge]

suggests that 6-10 thousand prostitutes are murdered on the streets of the UK every year

You may be comparing apples to oranges - 2 women a week are murdered by related men, so 100/year from 21million women in the UK (according to wikipedia) so the chance of a given woman being murdered in a given year is 21M/100 or 1 in 210,000 since they used 'more likely' I'd guess that they mean that the likelihood of a prostituted woman being murdered is 60-100 in 210000 or 1 in 2100 (worst case) - wikipedia suggests that there might be 100,000 prostitutes in the UK, 88% of which are women, we'll round it up to keep the maths easy, but that means that 47 of them would need to be murdered in order to be 100X more likely than a non-prostitute - not unbelievable numbers at all.

[HirplesWithHaggis]

Thank you, ChocChoc, that makes more sense. 47 is still quite high, though, to be pretty much unreported. Here in Scotland (where 4-5 should theoretically have been located, if 47 is the UK number) I can only find two in the last two years - Luciana Maurer in Falkirk, 2015, and Jessica McGraa in Aberdeen, 2016. I suppose there may be more women missing from the streets, and unreported.

[Xenophile]

The number analysed was 46, so only one off.

Prostituted women are also at far higher risk of rape, sexual assault, physical assault and levels of physical injury up to being murdered. None of which is reported either. Iiirc, murders of prostitued women tend only to be reported if they are especially gruesome or are found to be part of a serial/spree.

Sadly, given the high numbers of women trafficked from home and abroad now, we may never have real figures for the numbers of them harmed.

[RufusTheRenegadeReindeer]

Good point xeno

[busyboysmum]

I wonder if the statistics for drug dealers would be similar? Seems a similarly risky profession to me.

[VestalVirgin]

I wonder if the statistics for drug dealers would be similar? Seems a similarly risky profession to me.

I would assume they're killed at a lower rate. While their customers might be desparate for another dose of drugs, they do not see drug dealers as subhuman fucktoilets.

There's also the fact that drug dealing is something that requires a somewhat powerful position to get started at all, so drug dealers are not as likely to be vulnerable.

Male drug dealers also have the same physical strength as their customers, or are much stronger if their customers are long-term addicted women.

If it being criminal was what makes prostitution dangerous, then drug dealers should be at the same risk of being murdered, but I very much doubt that they are.

[scaryclown]

Good point hmmokay and well put. Its like they are talking about another race, its really offensive.

Risk in prostitution would be reduced if, say, it was the norm to register your name and identify yourself, or have to go via a third party. The hidden and stigmatised nature is that people feel wary of giving their name or car reg or whatever, and so they hide it.. and in some ways hide their personality etc.

I can see why things like online escorting and other models like I think the one where your car reg is taken by recognition cameras, should be normalised in the industry - and that in itself is sort of making police records complicit, so it would need a big change - but I think one that should be made - women doing bits of sex work are simply women, daughters, wives etc, and many are also other things in the day, so 'Prostitute murdered' could also be reported as 'Social worker murdered' or 'law student murdered' or 'shop assistant murdered'' .. or 'young mother murdered' .etc etc etc. .

Would love to see more done about respectful reporting on this issue.

[VestalVirgin]

Risk in prostitution would be reduced if, say, it was the norm to register your name and identify yourself, or have to go via a third party.

You mean, if the punters had to register? Yes, possibly. But I don't think it'd be possible to control it.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

No, ScaryClown I really don't want to see this reported in the way you suggest.

That would mean the real dangers and risks facing prostitutes get hidden in crime statistics accessible only to those who have a professional reason to look at the minutiae of crime statistics.

"Law student murdered" is not the same as "prostitute murdered". I expect the number of law students murdered whilst carrying out the activities of being a law student is zero.

You refer to prostitution as an "industry". It is not an industry. Yes I agree it's not nice seeing someone referred to as "a prostitute" but I think it is legitimate to report a victim was attacked or killed whilst working as a prostitute. Likewise "homeless person" - they are far more at risk than almost any other group and that should be reported.

Reporting of a victim's status is arbitrary. Some professions , such as say actor, writer, model, football player, teacher and I think my own, invariably get referred to, regardless of relevance , whereas say bricklayer, gas fitter, waiter won't.

[scaryclown]

ah yes, I do see what you mean

[hamazon]

That link doesn't actually say that at all.

It says "It has been estimated that women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than are nonprostitute females. "

It however does not test or examine that claim in any way.

Further the claim is further specific to STREET prostitutes, not all prostitutes.

The basic statistics are 518 homicides (includes manslaughter) a year in the UK, of which 186 are females (including children).

Of these 46% were killed by partners (so just less than 2 a week)

Anyway, the basic homicide rate is one per 160,000 females.

Some stats on prostitution are here:

www.toynbeehall.org.uk/data/files/Statistics_on_prostitution.pdf

These suggest around 9 deaths per year of prostitutes. However, it is not clear if this includes male prostitutes.

Anyway, out of 70,000 prostitutes, this suggests a murder rate of 1 in 8000. Or roughly 20x higher. It's quite possible that street prostitutes are disproportionately higher, so the 60x is possible.

This is still a fair bit lower than, say, the army, which had a death rate of 1 in 1000 in 2015 (though it can go down to around 1 in 2500), and comparable to mining (1 in 10000). Though there's obviously more sexual violence involved with prostitution beyond just murder (whereas miners might just get crushed to death, they perhaps do not get raped, etc.)

[hamazon]

That link doesn't actually say that at all.

It says "It has been estimated that women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than are nonprostitute females. "

It however does not test or examine that claim in any way.

Further the claim is further specific to STREET prostitutes, not all prostitutes.

The basic statistics are 518 homicides (includes manslaughter) a year in the UK, of which 186 are females (including children).

Of these 46% were killed by partners (so just less than 2 a week)

Anyway, the basic homicide rate is one per 160,000 females.

Some stats on prostitution are here:

www.toynbeehall.org.uk/data/files/Statistics_on_prostitution.pdf

These suggest around 9 deaths per year of prostitutes. However, it is not clear if this includes male prostitutes.

Anyway, out of 70,000 prostitutes, this suggests a murder rate of 1 in 8000. Or roughly 20x higher. It's quite possible that street prostitutes are disproportionately higher, so the 60x is possible.

This is still a fair bit lower than, say, the army, which had a death rate of 1 in 1000 in 2015 (though it can go down to around 1 in 2500), and comparable to mining (1 in 10000). Though there's obviously more sexual violence involved with prostitution beyond just murder (whereas miners might just get crushed to death, they perhaps do not get raped, etc.)