You need to read this article about the Leeds red light district.

[DJLippy]

I read this blog about the Leeds red light district from someone who lives there. It's so illuminating. This needs a wider audience - please share on social media. This is what decriminalisation looks like.

littlegirlblue.blog/2018/05/25/living-in-the-red-light-district/

Thank you Offred....I'm sorry to rant and I feel embarrassed now. 😌 it's her life, not mine. I feel mad on her behalf and I hope she's ok with that. Stupid fucking men!!!!!!!

A couple of things to add into the debate as someone who lives v near to Holbeck.. the poster who said it’s NEVER about male sex workers is very very wrong. It might not be as prolific but believe me in the nearby “ Gay Quarter” there are male sex workers being just as exploited.
Secondly HS2 will be very interesting..allegedly will bring prosperity to the area but I’m sure not to everyone.
Third, Leeds is no different to any other city..opportunities for the rich at the expense of the poor. We see every social ill. But the blame doesn’t lie in the postcode. There are many decent hardworking people in Holbeck who would want nothing more than a better life for these women.

Oh lastgirl, that’s so awful. I don’t know what I can say. Is she getting help? Is there anything we can do? Are you ok? I have PTSD from a sexual assault. It can creep up on you slowly. I am working with a woman’s charity in town who have specialists. Hit me up if I can do anything, can you message privately here? If not, find me on twitter I’m spelled differently @celinedayjardnz

Thank you so much Celine. My wonderful friend is a single mum to four little girls - all of whom have very severe learning difficulties. Her morning jogs are her time!! They were HER TIME!! To be by hers of, to think, to relax and now some hateful evil man has taken that away. I hate men. I will never change my mind about that after what happened to my beautiful friend. They can all fuck away off

I have been researching some of the stuff and posting on the thread in chat BTW if you want to have a look

Thank you Offred.

Don’t feel embarrassed LastGirl! It’s OK for you to feel overwhelmed when something like this happens to someone close to you. Please remember to take care of yourself as well and don’t feel like you are not allowed to be upset because it happened to her x

MsGrindah - I don’t think anyone is saying it’s the people in the postcode more like the LA/police feel like they can impose it on the people of Holbeck because they have less power. It would never be situated in a naice part of Leeds and in fact the very reason it was created was to move prostitution away from the naice areas because they were complaining.

I've not managed to read the whole thread but an important thing to note about this is that holbeck is full of struggling single parents and refugees with children. That's where they are put when they apply for band A housing as it takes a matter of weeks to get a place there instead of months.
The women do not stay inside the 'zone' and they do not stick to the times either, you see some poor women stood right across from the park at 9.30am clearly still needing some extra money from the night before so why is it the most vulnerable parents and children that have to see/deal with this?
Holbeck also is home to over 70 registered sex offenders as it's a popular place to house them after they leave prison so why would it seem like a good idea to encourage these vulnerable women to look for 'business' here. Desperate women who would do anything for some cash and disgusting evil sex offenders desperate for sex don't seem like a good or sensible combo.
I know a lady who went out of business after over 10 years because of the introduction of this 'safe' (there are assaults almost every night and police do not come. Volunteers and charity workers have to monitor it) zone and it's just not fair. It seems to be a 'get them all in one place that no one cares about and forget about it' kind of solution. There needs to be a change

Thank you Offred!xx

For a bit more background on MA and the BBC program for those who watched it...

basisyorkshire.org.uk/blog/one-year-compassionate-progressive-approach-sex-work/

Soooo a pro decriminalisation of sex work org is pissed that the BBC didn’t present the situation in Holbeck according to their ideology re choosy choice and full decriminalisation....?

Yes, the ‘reduced complaints’ thing comes up a lot because the zone was introduced due to people in the naice areas of Leeds complaining. So they put it in Holbeck where the people are poor and already distrust/don’t really understand how the structures work and stopped bothering to police it...

Anyone watching the BBC program on the Managed Area in Leeds - please have a read:

basisyorkshire.org.uk/blog/one-year-compassionate-progressive-approach-sex-work/

I think Offred responded to you, and you only posted it before half an hour ago. Don't spam.

Re. the response on rules applying to the punters outside of the zone - of course it applies for punters too : women are not allowed to solicit and men are not allowed to curb crawl outside of hours and outside of area: Women are allowed to walk on the streets to go the shops though without being accused of soliciting.

Just so its clear - the area wasn't "put" in Holbeck - sexworkers worked there for years before the Managed Area was set up (the MA was set up amongst others to stop them going into residential areas of Holbeck hence the choice of an industrial area close to and including to where they were already working - just trying to get facts straight. There are loads of different media perspectives out there already - this is not new unfortunately.

From what I have read on the subject;

• yes, there has been prostitution in Holbeck for a while. Not sure why you think I was saying there wasn’t?

• before the managed zone was created residents complaints were coming from the nicer areas because the street based sex workers were going there to work in order to evade the police.

• They decided to put in the managed zone in Holbeck.

• This attracted more street based sex workers to Holbeck from across the North of England particularly and also the rest of England and Europe increasing the numbers of street based sex workers in Holbeck to the point that they could no longer really fit in the zone

• The response to this was to be really vague regarding where the boundaries of the zone actually are. They started calling it a ‘managed approach’ at that point because no-one was really sure where the ‘zone’ was.

• Now they are saying they don’t receive as many complaints and this is indicative of there not being a problem.

• many different sources report that there is no longer any police presence in Holbeck

• some report negative experiences of residents with the police response to reports

• there are conflicting reports re the sex worker’s feelings.

• there does not seem to have been any attempt to engage with the actual residents of Holbeck on this issue. Though it is consistently claimed they are happy with the zone no evidence is cited to support this (unlike re the views of the sex workers) in the executive summary of the evaluation report - which was produced by a sociology/criminology researcher who is heavily involved with a full decriminalisation lobby group (who also gathered the experiences of the sex workers).

• an independents group fielding candidates in the local elections in May which had an anti the managed zone approach came second behind labour but a long way ahead of; the greens, the tories, UKIP, the Lib Dem’s

Oh and the council quietly agreed to put more effort into cleaning up ‘sex litter’, putting in adequate lighting and cutting back overgrowth in 2015, which is a few of the recommendations made by the researcher and also an actual admission that there are some problems.

Poor people often don’t trust the structures, often don’t know how to complain, often don’t feel anyone would care if they did complain and actually seem to be having real problems with complaining and Holbeck residents have set up their own monitoring group which takes reports re problems.

The problems they describe are awful TBH.

Thanks Offred.

Regular direct debit set up to The Joanna Project. Thanks @Celinedayjardnz they look like a very worthwhile charity.

Bump bloody bump this thread. I really want to see us ignite something here. Come on fellow MNers!!!!

Just stumbled on this thread. I remember going to a house party in one of the high rises in holbeck in the early noughties and having to walk back into to the city to get a train home with my friend - late at night.

A man exposed himself to us and we were propositioned by men in a white van. It was frightening.

We shouldn’t have put ourselves in that position but naivety and being young sometimes contributes to poor choices.

I read about the prostitute killed there a few years ago, in this so called managed zone. Thought then it was a fucking horrific policy.

How can I help?

@buttonmoonb4tea see here... joannaproject.co.uk/why

You could think about donating to the Joanna project? They are motivated by Christianity but clearly state the do not impose their faith on service users. I checked out their twitter and there is virtually zero reference to religion (one post about lent). Their ethos is unconditional love, never giving up hope and holistic support. They have linked to the times article re purchasing sex always being an abuse of power so I think it’s safe to say they are not like basis or NUMs (pushing for full decriminalisation). I like that their focus seems to be very much on their service users and they linked up with a homelessness charity around IWD to highlight homeless women.

I’m not really sure what else... on the other thread I’ve done a fair bit of digging into what has been going on. Maybe have a look at some of the stuff I found and see if you have any ideas?

Offred you're good at this research malarky!

Ha ha!

Thank you for the link. You may find pg 26/27 interesting of this cfps.org.uk.surface3.vm.bytemark.co.uk/domains/cfps.org.uk/local/media/library/2535.pdf. Looks like the area was to be regenerated in 06/07 so who's bright idea was it to make this Magee zone as it sure as hell wasnt going to help with regeneration of an area, anybody could see that.

These are some recent articles about it issuu.com/southleedslife/docs/south_leeds_life_34_nov17

whatcanidoaboutit.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/the-policing-of-prostitution-in-west-yorkshire-the-view-from-the-street-part-one-the-joanna-project/