Leeds managed zone 'glowing review'

It's always a limited exercise to ask people if a new system is better than the one that it replaced. It might be, wholly or in some significant way.

But that isn't the same as saying it's actually good.

@seonaseona don't apologise that's a great post

Please don't apologise for post size, it's useful information to hear, thank you.

The welfare system has many flaws which push women into sex work.

The 5 week wait for any payment or take out a government loan to live on which is then taken out of your payments going forward.

Bedroom tax. Have a spare bedroom ie due to someone moving out, and the rent part of your benefits is reduced, but your rent due remains the same.

The rent part of benefits is supposed to reflect the bottom 30% of rents in the area. Often it doesn't and rents have to be topped up on money intended to eat with.

Debt deductions can be taken from benefits for stuff like old gas bills or court fines. Up to 30% of the amount intended to live on is taken.

The two child policy. Only the first two children are supported.

The rates themselves are so low. Pre COVID , a single person under 25 had £251 per month to live on after waiting 5 weeks with nothing , that's if they were lucky and didn't have debts. This has to include food, heating, hot water, water rates, clothing, travel..

The biggie is sanctions. Many people with mental health issues cannot engage with weekly job centre interviews, applications and complex processes, they lead chaotic lives due to addiction or simply mental health, so they end up sanctioned. That's 100% of their benefits gone. So they end up in sex work as it's quick money if nothing else.

Domestic abuse victims are only granted 'easement' to sanctioning if they can prove the abuse and can only get appeasement once in 6 months, and not if they are still living with the abuser.

THESE are the issues which if resolved, really give us a choice!!
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The other issue is lack of exiting services. Exiting sex work is a complex and difficult process. It requires a holistic, whole person approach.

I began to engage with the service slowly, it took a while for me to trust them. Some women never get trust, they just come for condoms or in a crisis.

It's stages, like precontemplation.

I was assigned a worker who helped me navigate the at times hostile benefits system (although benefits are often not enough to live on, if you can get them sorted it can at least reduce dependence on sex work, but you can still be prosecuted for fraud if you don't declare the income from this harmful work, fuck them). I received counselling there (short term due to funding), she helped me access volunteering mainly by chasing it up and trying to instill confidence in myself, which led to a job eventually and I left. I needed my hand held throughout all this process and it took me years to recover. I still fear every day falling through the welfare system cracks again, and having to go back there. Yet I still don't support Nordic model without adequate welfare in place. Because the fact is that it pushes us to have to take more risks with regard the clients, to survive.

The service which helped me quit?? Gone now due to funding cuts!!

You cannot have Nordic until you have proper welfare and exiting services in place , without further harming woman.

Apologies for huge post.

All for Nordic model IF a truly adequate benefits system exists to end survival sex work

I really don't think anyone would disagree with you on that. I have someone close to me who ended up in survival sex work and so I know that it can literally be a choice between sex work or not being able to feed your kids. No woman should ever have to make that choice.

The co-op brothels with nobody profiting idea someone posted, yes I think that would help us. Wouldn't help Street workers though. When I worked in a property sharing with another sex worker, I felt able to throw out anyone I thought was getting potentially dodgy. There was someone else on the premises, someone else who could call for help, someone else making noise which alerted punters to the fact I wasn't alone. I was only ever attacked after I started working alone, because the completely non-exploitative set up sharing with another sex worker, was criminalised under brothel laws.

Yep. I think we need to ban anyone profiting from the sex work of other people, but allow women to work together in a registered co-op. It would be light years safer, surely. The end point should be to end it as a trade, but we need to harm reduce first.

I do know it's not simple. But the women and girls in Holbeck don't deserve this, either: they are at risk from this zone approach, and the sex workers seem no safer either, actually. There have been murders, and attempted murders leaving catastrophic injuries.

What can be done, in your view, that could work better? Clearly a better welfare safety net, but so many sex workers grow up in care, or from homes where they are neglected and abused. What, in your view, could help at an earlier point - what interventions might make a difference, if any?

Interestingly, on the article the poll asking about the scheme currently 56% thinks the approach needs to end immediately and 24% thinks there needs to be significant changes. So not the positive community support implied from their reading of the 120 responses.

So 80% of respondents believe change is needed and that counts as a success, does it? Would it need to be 100% saying "change it" for it to count as unsuccessful?

I've seen reports from people actually living in Holbeck. There was a notable lack of glowing enthusiasm.

Try to put yourselves in our shoes.

Inadequate welfare system = cannot eat. cannot pay the rent this month.

It's not an abstract or intellectual concept for some!!

So we are forced into sex work.

Where it's illegal for the punter (not condoning punters, this isn't about them), ie the Nordic model, it is undoubtedly more dangerous for us. This is what we are trying to tell you. Why do you want to make it more dangerous for us??

The co-op brothels with nobody profiting idea someone posted, yes I think that would help us. Wouldn't help Street workers though. When I worked in a property sharing with another sex worker, I felt able to throw out anyone I thought was getting potentially dodgy. There was someone else on the premises, someone else who could call for help, someone else making noise which alerted punters to the fact I wasn't alone. I was only ever attacked after I started working alone, because the completely non-exploitative set up sharing with another sex worker, was criminalised under brothel laws.

When we don't have any choice but to engage in sex work, we want to be as safe as possible. Nordic model does not keep us safe, in fact the opposite. All for Nordic model IF a truly adequate benefits system exists to end survival sex work That does not exist here in this country. We need to be realistic about that.

In Ipswich, all the welfare and drugs rehabilitation people mobilised and worked hard to get women off the street and punters were stopped. It made a massive difference, but when the new government came in and cuts were made, these agencies lost funding and the people working in this area lost their jobs.

Sorry, I just saw that you were yourself a sex worker. I apologise if the graphic language I used is distressing, and I am so glad, as well as impressed quite frankly, that you exited.

Nobody here is the enemy of women forced into this situation. Really. They aren't. If you have ideas on what can be done to support women in this situation, I for one would genuinely like to hear them.

Two separate issues, albeit entwined in this country.

One is that the welfare state has been dismantled and universal credit is not fit for purpose, with anyone dependent on it (not just women in prostitution) at risk of starvation if (when) it fails them.

How the Nordic model performs relative to decrim in countries with adequate welfare systems - and I think there the comparison of Germany and Sweden (comparable welfare states, complete decrim versus criminalise the punters) shows that the Nordic model wins hands down when other factors are controlled for. (Trafficking has soared in Germany, whereas decrim has not brought the benefits it was supposed to in terms of safety, workplace protections and health insurance - instead, pimps now simply treat prostitutes as "independent contractors" who rent space in mega-brothels.)

So I completely agree that we need to campaign to fix the welfare system, to restore decent benefits which enable people to live while they exit prostitution.

But I can't and never will accept decrim, because that is simply colluding in the status quo and telling men it's okay to buy and sexually abuse women. And creating an environment where all women (whether they have "chosen", i.e. been forced by poverty, to enter prostitution or not) are at risk of rape and sexual assault.

You are all looking at the issue from the wrong angle.

Considering the welfare of every single woman and girl in a working class area of Leeds is, "the wrong angle?"

Have you heard of universal credit?? sanctions??

Seriously? You think we don't know about these things - that many aren't affected, and others involved in advocacy and advice work?

What about campaigning for a proper welfare system, for properly funded services so women can exit??

You think the women here aren't campaigning for those things - and many donating to charities seeking to secure those things? You think it's impossible for women to seek to reduce harm across the board?

Criminalisation may make you think you've 'solved' the problem, all the abstract concepts, but really criminalisation just pushes desperate women to take a higher level of risk.

Mumsnet is a large site, so they may be women who support criminalising desperate women who feel forced to submit to rape to make a living, but I've never seen any express that view. If they did, they would be harshly challenged. It's appalling to criminalise women who have to do this because they've been abysmally failed across the board. Your assumption is mistaken.

As for the comment that a percentage of the respondents were "sex workers ie people with a vested financial interest in the system" - why the hell shouldn't the sex workers themselves have a say?? They are people, you can't on one hand label them as vulnerable and on the other hand discount their views. Why not try .. actually .. listening to them.

Nobody has said the sex workers shouldn't have any say. They are saying that this policy impacts every single woman and girl in that area very badly, and that disproportionately highlighting only the views of the sex workers means the rest, who are the overwhelming majority, are left voiceless. Or is it your view that the only people allowed a voice on a policy which starkly impacts their lives are those actually engaged in sex work?

Most here advocate the Nordic model. I'm aware that this still leaves areas of vulnerability, and I am not sure what my own view is yet. I'm hesitantly of the view that we should also allow co-op brothels, with nobody allowed to profit who isn't also working in one themselves, so there was more protection against violence and abuse, and with a clear line out to the agencies and charities who could try to offer support to exit as part of the package. But I need to learn more about it, because presumably that's been tried and if it were effective, it would be more advocated for.

I do know that throwing an entire area under the bus, so every single one of the women and girls in that area lives with constant harassment and the threat of sexual violence, is not an answer anyone should accept. The attacks and assaults and harassment of even very young girls is completely unacceptable. Nobody should have to cope with that.

vulnerable women engaging in survival sex work, to be forced to take more risks in order to survive.

I agree we need to have the welfare support system massively improved. I also understand your comment about your 12 horrible years in sex work. But sex work is inherently highly risky - I've read the statistics for risk of rape or murder. I also believe it is, in and of itself, traumatising for those who participate in it and traumatising in a distinctive way to other types of labour being exploited (as some on the left, who will never, ever enter in to sex work, like to suggest). Indeed some left wing men are up in arms that women should be employed, often by other women, in cleaning jobs in private homes but very happy that sex work is a valid form of employment.

It just isn't. I'm sorry you had to do it to survive, I do want a better welfare system, I would pay more taxes for that to happen. But I don't believe sex work is 'safer' when it's decriminalised and zoned because I don't believe it can be made safer - interesting that the tide may be turning in the Netherlands. Often the women in legitimised zoned area take more risks in a different way - more women are trafficked in, the price of services is massively reduced (it's completely capitalistic and yet some on the left fall all over it) and they have to take more risks to get more money - so agree to no condoms or to anal sex, for example.

@Angryresister

So how do you expect these women who fall victim to the inadequate welfare system (you are agreeing is inadequate), to survive??

Until the welfare systems are adequate and services are properly funded, desperate women will continue to be forced into sex work. Only with Nordic model, it is more risky for us. That's what we are trying to tell you. The adequate welfare system needs to come first if you don't want to harm the women you purport to want to help.

seonaseona we all are very much aware of how inadequate welfare services and benefits are. However there is no excuse for maintaining a system for continuing abuse and putting money into the pockets of the pimps. We must end demand, not institutionalise it.

I would like to know who was consulted in this review and to whom exactly this is a 'glowing success'. I doubt the women dragged into cars and raped for example think it's the model of progressive utopia.

I know very well what Nordic model is, thanks very much!!

I do 'know what I'm talking about' thanks very much. I am an exited sex worker. I was a sex worker for 12 long hard horrible years.

Your ideology is all very well and good, but there is a big problem with it - the "adequate welfare support" you speak of - it just does not exist in this country!! Anywhere you look can tell you that. The welfare support is NOT adequate. 5 week waits for benefits, sanctions applied to those with mental health difficulties, rent payments not reflecting actual rents, bedroom tax, barriers to work.. I could go on and on.

My point is that until and unless there is an ADEQUATE welfare system in place, then criminalisation only serves to push vulnerable women engaging in survival sex work, to be forced to take more risks in order to survive.

Nordic model could only ever work with adequate welfare system in place. We don't have that. To push one without the other causes more harm to the women involved, which, if you allow them a voice in the debate at all, is what they are trying to tell you.

The methodology is so abysmal they should be ashamed to exhibit it.

There has been a total failure of community engagement. No consideration has been given as to effects on quality of live of the women and men in the community who have no connections with prostitution or the effects it will have on their lives.

They are spending £200,000 per annum to make life easier for punters.

FFS! I’m so cross I can’t even formulate a better response

Ah, yet another poster without a clue about the Nordic model pops up to tell us off.

The Nordic model decriminalises women in prostitution and supports exit strategies Nordic model proponents are often on the left and support adequate welfare support while women use exit strategies.

What it does criminalise (and rightly so) is the pimps and punters.

So before you go off on a rant, it's always a good idea to actually know what you're talking about.

You are all looking at the issue from the wrong angle.

Have you heard of universal credit?? sanctions??

What about campaigning for a proper welfare system, for properly funded services so women can exit??

Criminalisation may make you think you've 'solved' the problem, all the abstract concepts, but really criminalisation just pushes desperate women to take a higher level of risk.

As for the comment that a percentage of the respondents were "sex workers ie people with a vested financial interest in the system" - why the hell shouldn't the sex workers themselves have a say?? They are people, you can't on one hand label them as vulnerable and on the other hand discount their views. Why not try .. actually .. listening to them..

If you google Holbeck sexual assault, or Holbeck dragged into car, or any such combo, there are multiple hits. One lists three sexual assaults in 48 hours. In one suburb. Why the hell is this continuing? Just horrifying, the sheer contempt for women. They've handed over a whole area of a city to prostitution, without a single shiny shit given in terms of what that means for every single woman and girl living and/or working there. It gives men a green light to think sex is a commodity, and women simply the packaging it comes in.

The more I think about it, the more I think social sciences departments are prime examples of "institutional capture." They have been so thoroughly infiltrated by the pimp and punter lobby that no-one would get a research project okay-ed, get into a peer reviewed journal, get taken on as a member of staff, get their dissertation project accepted, if they were in any way critical of "sex positivity."

I used to work in Holbeck. It was not pleasant when I had to walk back to my car from my office late at night, was stopped by men regularly. I really feel for the women and children who live here, it must be horrendous for them and incredibly difficult to get out of.