NUS LGBT+ Student Sex Workers Campaign

[OlennasWimple]

Briefing is here

Beyond depressing.

Rather than working to eliminate the factors that drive women to sex work (71% of respondents to a previous NUS survey identified as women, 17% as non-binary - but I bet most of those were women...), they are campaigning to allow student sex workers to continue working in the sex trade and to do so using university facilities and premises, including halls of residence

I'm intrigued that 70% of the respondents to the survey identified as gay / lesbian / queer, though. This is presumably why it's the LGBT+ bit of NUS that is pushing the "guidance"

Also why does it say it opposes the Nordic model and then link to a trans site about prostitution?

For some reason it reminds me of the Scottish GRA consultation. Lots of anchoring, cherry picking and misleading.

I used to work with prostitutes. Hand on heart 100% of the ones I knew ( so anecdotal I'm afraid ) had been abused as children. This changed my stance on prostitution from being "it's a choice" to being " it's a continuation of abuse".
Any institution, be they universities or city councils, who enable the prostituting of women's bodies for sex are complicit in abuse, imo. I should say I'm my INFORMED opinion.

Ah well that will certainly explain the sex breakdown. So the survey was not publicised to all students but only through LGBT+ and Women's campaign networks and only 55 people completed it. To me that would suggest that very few students are prostituted and so the SU should feel reassured and could move on to other areas in their campaigning. I see that the top point of the briefing is that many students who do go into sex work do so because they are struggling financially. Student finance is usually the thing that SUs campaign about, so I'd expect that the survey results would have fed into those campaigns, but as they are in this case aligned with pro legalisation organisations it would be the wrong narrative to call for better funding for struggling students so they didn't turn to sex work.

I also see that as with the Stonewall survey a huge number of respondents are claiming they are disabled, but this is hardly referenced. Something odd is going on there I think. Although having said that looking at the actual report although 55% said they were disabled when asked for more detail about that disability 27% then said they had ‘no known disability, impairment or long term health condition' which is strange.

There was nothing in the report that would lead to or justify a call to allow student prostitutes working out of residences.

What the actual fuck?

This is dreadful. I can't understand why people still think you can buy consent. (Though also, if that IS what these people think, then they've absolutely no right to get cross about the oxfam stuff though I bet they did).

It has the same very odd ring to it as other trans related campaigns I have come across. Pleasant sounding objectives. Equality related funding. Encouragement to campaign. Nefarious requests and aims.

The National union of Students was always idiotic.

A national survey of students with only 55 respondents. Great NUS. You can focus on other issues.

Unless you want to take a look at the fact that 18% of the respondents said they were coerced into sex work. No?

and to do so using university facilities and premises, including halls of residence

So rather than tackling the rape problem that campuses already have they've decided to expose female students to an even higher level of harassment and potential danger?

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the people proposing this idiocy have had pretty much zero exposure to the sex industry and what it's like being a woman in areas where it's openly operating.

Angry chances are it's even more sinister than that. I'd bet every single male respondent on that survey (regardless of how they "identify") will have bought coerced sex at some point.

Yeah, that too. I'm betting that a random sample of university students living in halls who're male wouldn't show the majority thinking that having the next room potentially used as a mini brothel was a good idea.

Funnily enough uni halls have been used by sex workers traffickers before:

www.ibtimes.co.uk/hungarian-sex-traffickers-jailed-after-using-university-sussex-halls-residence-makeshift-brothel-1460080

Just from a residence point of view, I don't think you can expect other students to put up with punters being invited into your halls of residence? Our student halls were lots of rooms off a corridor with shared bathrooms and a kitchen which I imagine is quite standard and clearly open for abuse once you access the building. It's quite absurd that this safety risk wouldn't be considered.

55 respondents were all sex workers.

So why should we be surprised when those sex workers thought sex work should be allowed / decriminalised in anyway or that it should be ok to carry out on university property?

Half of those claimed they were disabled whilst a third claimed they had mental health problems.

And 2/3rd said they were doing it to pay for food and bill (ie out of poverty).

So the NUS found that those people turning to sex work were disproportionately vulnerable people and disproportionately in poverty.

And from that they concluded that the NUS should support decriminalisation?

Am I reading that right?

For 55 students who obviously need proper support from the NUS for their health and economic position.

Thats an abdication of responsibility by the NUS. Wheres the campaign to help students who feel they need to turn to sex work?

This indeed is from the great school of analysing stats to come out with ideological bollocks to support the opinion you already had rather than tackle any issue whatsoever.

Get pimps off campus, but can we get people who use stats in this way, at great harm to women, off education campuses too as they are also acting as pimps with reports like this.

I get an 'Access Denied' message with that link.

What's really worrying is that men who pay for sex are turning to young female students as a cheap alternative to escorts. These predators try to convince teenage girls that £150 for spending a night with them in a hotel is a good deal (whereas an escort would charge £1000+). Halls of residence have multiple occupants, no fucking way should young women have to put up with punters in their home.

The question is how are 2/3s of respondents in a financial situation where they feel they have to do sex work to survive? (I've experienced both poverty and uni life, I know what it's like to struggle financially).

This happened a while back in a nearby uni. It was never explained how if the girl was not a student she managed to rent the flat. Accommodation on campus is only for first years and highly sought after. I suppose it may have been a summer let.
www.theargus.co.uk/news/8925115.University_of_Sussex_report_prostitution_claims_to_police/

How can the SU think having punters on campus is a good idea??. Most campuses already have problems with rape, sexual assault and issues around consent among the student body. What kind of message does this send? Really worried about the sex work as empowerment lobby.