Safe Zones for Sex Workers not good enough – Decriminalization is the answer

Britain’s first “red light zone” is here, allowing sex workers to work without fear of police hassle – but do we need to legalise completely?

Dove Cameron

by Sirin Kale

“Stop-gap measures such as managed zones can be a good thing, but ultimately we need to decriminalise. When we decriminalise, sex workers can have trust in the police. They’re able to go to the authorities when they’ve been the victims of crime and know that they will be taken seriously. They’re backed by the legislation and can report violence without fears of being prosecuted themselves.”
Decriminalisation also reduces violence against sex workers, as it allows them to operate collectively in brothels. Evidence shows that you’re ten times safer when working in a brothel than you are out on the street. And as the tragic recent suicide of sex worker Grace Bellavue – whose experience of a violent assault led her to campaign for decriminalisation – shows, we need to focus on the mental well-being of sex workers, as well as reducing the physical threats against them.

No sex worker ever truly feels safe, but Daria Pionko probably thought that by operating within a police-designated “managed area” she stood a better chance of escaping the violence which befalls street-based sex workers – who are twelve times more likely to be murdered than the general public. Instead, Daria was killed in a brutal and sustained attack in December last year, days before Christmas. She was twenty-one years old.
Jessica Alba
Earlier this week, Leeds City Council announced that it would be making the managed area Daria was murdered in permanent, in an attempt to protect sex workers. Sex workers in the managed area, in the Holbeck part of the city, will be able to operate between the hours of 7pm to 7am without fear of arrest. A special police officer has also been appointed to monitor the area. In a statement given to Dazed, Superintendent Sam Millar said the managed area has “significantly improved the relationship between sex workers and the police, giving them the confidence to report offences.”
Although the move to establish a permanent “red light zone” from Leeds City Council is a step in the right direction, many campaigners feel it doesn’t go far enough. After all, a managed area didn’t keep Daria safe, and while a man stands accused of her murder, who’s to say other sex workers in Holbeck aren’t also at risk?
Meanwhile, calls for the decriminalisation of sex work from activists and human rights groups such as Amnesty International grow stronger. They argue that only by totally decriminalising sex work (as opposed to the so-called Swedish model, where only punters are prosecuted), can we keep sex workers safe. We interviewed activists to find out why decriminalisation is the answer.
Laura Watson, from the English Collective of Prostitutes, explains why managed zones don’t go far enough. “The safest option for sex workers isn’t a particular managed area. We campaign for the safety of sex workers, and the only way to achieve this is by a worldwide decriminalised area. We’re very concerned about the fact that sex workers only have to step outside of the managed area and they can be harassed by the police”.
Fears of police harassment often deter many sex workers from reporting crimes. Catherine Healy is an activist who was instrumental in campaigning for the decriminalisation of sex work in New Zealand – the only country to fully decriminalise, in 2003. She explains why decriminalisation is the solution.
“Stop-gap measures such as managed zones can be a good thing, but ultimately we need to decriminalise. When we decriminalise, sex workers can have trust in the police. They’re able to go to the authorities when they’ve been the victims of crime and know that they will be taken seriously. They’re backed by the legislation and can report violence without fears of being prosecuted themselves.”
Decriminalisation also reduces violence against sex workers, as it allows them to operate collectively in brothels. Evidence shows that you’re ten times safer when working in a brothel than you are out on the street. And as the tragic recent suicide of sex worker Grace Bellavue – whose experience of a violent assault led her to campaign for decriminalisation – shows, we need to focus on the mental well-being of sex workers, as well as reducing the physical threats against them.
Dr Nicola Smith is an expert in sex work at the University of Birmingham. She also feels that managed areas don’t go far enough. “Restricting people’s movements to specially designated “safe zones” does little to address what sex worker activists have long been calling for: that we need to fully decriminalise the sex industry and to recognise sex workers’ human, civil and labour rights”.
Ultimately, managed areas won’t keep women safe. By decriminalising sex work, and allowing sex workers to operate safely and collectively within communities, we may be able to prevent future crimes against women. And there does seem to be real momentum behind the idea of decriminalisation amongst policy makers, as seen at a recent symposium on sex work held in November in Parliament. As Watson says, “we’ve been campaigning for decriminalisation since 1975, but we do feel now like we’re making real headway”.
But for women like Daria Pionko, it might be too little, too late.