Novara FM: Protect or Punish? The Stakes of Sex Worker Activism w/ Laura Watson

Imagine a person arrested for keeping a brothel. Who are they? An abusive pimp? Such people exist, no doubt, but the law isn’t set up just to catch abusers: it also targets sex workers working together to stay safe. With Labour in power, big changes could be afoot, but legalising sex work could harm sex workers as well. That’s the view of the English Collective of Prostitutes, one of the leading sex worker right organisations in the UK. Their new report ‘Proceed Without Caution’ shows how the law keeps women in sex work, and keeps punishing them for being there. Their spokeswoman Laura Watson joined Eleanor Penny to discuss poverty, power, whether sex work can ever be abolished, and the case for decriminalisation.