Effects of the cuts - NUS: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies

[breadandbutterfly]

Horrifying - and totally predictable.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16157522

but those jobs aren't there anymore.
if you do get a job its zero hour contract.
totally agree with the new 'acceptibility' of the sex trade. I can do long rants about why it's not such a good thing

The jobs are there if you're flexible and not fussy .... the girl in the article complained about 'unsociable hours', said she didn't want to work in a shop and seemed to have some very fancy standards for someone with no cash. She doesn't seem to have asked the NUS or anyone else for help. I think she was rather naive, got suckered into the sex trade as 'easy money' and has come to regret it. Everyone makes mistakes.

the ultimate in flexibility is the zero hour contract. Can't commit to it unless it's the number 1 thing in your life, no kids, no lectures, no transport issues.
you re buying into the myth that people are selfish gits with unreasonable demands of reliability to their conditions and pay. country can't afford to hire people properly, no doubt.

"but those jobs aren't there anymore."

Someone needs to tell my DD then, because she has signed up to do conference & banqueting again over Christmas and the New Year.

just xmas and new year? won't keep her in funds for long. hopefully she has you to help out in jan

She worked during 6th form and put money away so she is living off savings. She has also had odd jobs during the term. She is frugal - she can make one shift's wages last a week.

'NUS: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies'

This is a political story. The NUS are saying it and the BBC report it without giving figures for teh numbers involved.

The NUS are against cuts and student fees and say

"Greater numbers of students in England are turning to prostitution to fund their education, the National Union of Students (NUS) claims.

The NUS also says students are turning to gambling and taking part in medical experiments to fund their studies.

It says increased living costs and fees, and cuts to the education maintenance allowance, play a part."

Why don't they give us the numbers and why don't the BBC ask for the numbers before posting stories such as these? Where are their investigative journalists?

that's good. family support is v important though. if only emotional to help prevent her making bad decisions, never mind a roof and a meal if necessary.

Well said, claig. The BBC are guilty sometimes of merely passing on press releases and calling it 'news'. Monday mornings are the worst for mindless reproduction of someone else's agenda.

Can I ask a genuine question please? If 20% of lap dancers are students - the overwhelming majority of whom will be female - and there are countless student prostitutes etc. - again, I imagine that the vast majority would be female - what avenues are available for male students who run out of money, are these legal, are they moral (whatever that might mean) and, if they are legal, why aren't these females doing that instead of walking the streets?

Exactly, aren't the male students just as hard up for money, hasn't their EMA also been cut?

It's spin and because the BBC report it, lots of people fall for it.

they're the ones doing the medical testing, maybe?

who knows or cares? it's just people scrabbling around doing dirty dangerous or disgusting work because - hey -someone has to, and they're nobody I know. Anyway it's their choice because they're too fussy and up themselves to do a few hours behind a till or a bar. Well, not my kids, but other ones from certain backgrounds.

It's not mutually exclusive you know.

It may be the truth and it may ALSO be politically motivated to highlight it.

Stories like these are bread and butter to opponents of the government and breadandbutterfly and the BBC post them and there are no figures given.

well that's a bias-in-media issue really.
not that it's not true, and cuts hve no effect whatsoever, except on the lazy and workshy.

Yes stories like these are trying to shape opinion and have a political subtext which is against cuts and higher fees. That is why the BBC should ask questions about figures before posting in case breadandbutterfly gets the idea

"Horrifying - and totally predictable."

My guess is that that was the reaction that was intended, and that is why it sometimes pays to be cynical, SinicalSanta.

'Effects of the cuts'? Oh come on...the girl cited in the story said she'd been pestered by a friend since she was 16, the story recycles figures from another story from March 2010 (linked to in the story itself & correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the EMA had been cut at that point) and there are no figures at all proving a causal link to 'the cuts'.

Was the EMA around £10-30 a week? A bar job's going to give you that kind of money. It's what I did and it's what my niece does now.

"I had a friend who'd been trying to get me to join his escort agency since I was 16. He was telling me stories about how much I could earn, how the hours would fit around me, that I could control who I saw, when I saw them and how often."

So her "friend" pimped her out. Some friend.

"you re buying into the myth "

I'm not buying into anything. I'm reading the article as I was told to do... The girl had other choices.

I read this and thought like Cogito. The girl they've used as an example is poor.

So she had the opportunity to do jobs but didn't want to because of "unsocialable hours"? Since when did jobs have to be sociable hours? I know mine weren't when I was at uni.

And she decided to escort yet at the same time hadn't looked into all her options with regards to assistance. So how can she say she was so desperate that she had no other choice?

"It just sounded more desirable. I couldn't see any other option."

So the bottom line is that it sounded easier and she didn't really look at alternatives and didn't want a job with unsociable hours.

Well my sympathy is lacking on this one.

OP - i think you misread my post. I was not 'preening' that I was thrifty in 1985. I made no mention of my financial position at all.

What I said was that this type of story was around in the early/mid 80s - even though people had grants. Then the newspaper slant was the high cost of living and the fact that the grant wasn't enough. Oh and the grant was means tested so if your parents had money (mine didn't) you didnt get a grant and were dependent upon them. If they refused to pay then there were no low cost loans available so people did find themselves in financial difficulties.

I wasn't comparing the financial position in the 80s to the current position. I was simply pointing out that students on the game to make ends meet has been a shock/horror story for decades.

Well, in response both to that and to claig's call for figures, how about this:

"The unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds rose to 22% in the three months to October, up from 20.8% three months earlier.

Although this was the highest rate since formal records began in 1992, the ONS said it estimated that the rate had been higher in the mid-80s. "

The fact that youth unemployment is at record highs (excepting possibly the mid-80s which whatdoiknowanyway said was also hard) at the same time as fees have risen means, logically that students are going to need more money just at the time when it is harder to earn it legitimately. I'm sure part-time legitimate work is available - but probably not equally in all parts of the country. The faxt that poster x's dd got a job does not mean every other female students is guaranteed to be so fortunate. hence, the likelihood of larger numbers turning to supposedly 'easy' money in the sex trade.

It's not rocket science. Yes, you can blame the girls for being naive - that doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

That was from this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16175309

Male students are equally impoverished.

What do they do for additional income?

I'm somewhat aghast at further normalisation of the sex trade, but I remember this story from at least a couple of occasions in the past; what it the enduring appeal of prostitution to better educated young women?

The story gets stranger

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073944/Increasing-number-students-turning-sex-industry-pay-way-university-NUS-warns.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The Mail, like the BBC, says that the NUS claims this. It mentions Estelle Hart, the NUS national women's officer.

But at the end of the arrticle it says

"A spokesman for the NUS said although they did not have any quantitative evidence, they backed Ms Hart's comments.

'Anecdotally we are seeing a lot more of this and when you combine this with other reports there does seem to be an increase (in students working in the sex industry),' he said.

'We don't have any quantitative basis to back it up but we are confident to say this is an increasing problem.

'This hasn't originated from us but we are very confident standing by what Estelle said to 5 Live.'"

If the Mail is correct, then this quote seems to be the key

'We don't have any quantitative basis to back it up'

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073944/Increasing-number-students-turning-sex-industry-pay-way-university-NUS-warns.html#ixzz1gY1ty1uf