• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Joint Public Issues Team

Churches working for peace and justice

  • Home Page
  • Who We Are
    • Six hopes for society
  • Issues
    • Economy
      • Tax Justice
      • Reset The Debt
      • Living Wage
    • Environment
      • Net Zero In My Neighbourhood
    • Poverty and Inequality
      • The Cost of Living Crisis
      • Universal Credit
      • Truth and Lies
      • Enough
      • Rethink Sanctions
      • Faith in Foodbanks
      • Housing and Homelessness
    • Asylum and Migration
      • Refugees
      • End Hostility
      • The Asylum System
    • Peacemaking
      • The Arms Trade
      • Nuclear Weapons
      • Drones
      • Peacemaking resources
    • Politics and Elections
      • Elections
      • Meet Your MP
      • Art of the Possible
      • Brexit
    • Other Issues
      • International Development
      • Modern Slavery and Exploitation
        • Forced labour in fashion
  • Get Involved
    • JPIT Conference 2022
    • Newsletter
    • Events
    • Walking with Micah
  • Resources
    • Advent
    • 10 Minutes on… podcast
    • Politics in the Pulpit?
    • Stay and Pray
    • Season of Creation
    • Prayers
    • Public Issues Calendar
    • Poetry
    • Small Group Resources
  • Blog

The effect of Covid-19 on women who sell sex or are sexually exploited

Blog, COVID-19, Poverty and Inequality, Universal Credit · 26 July, 2021

In May 2021, the Joint Public Issues Team published research with the charity Beyond the Streets into the effect of Covid-19 on women who are sexually exploited or sell sex. The issue was brought up at a focus group with local churches and communities which JPIT ran around a year ago, when we were still getting to grips with the impacts of Covid-19. My colleague Paul has written about how we came to undertake this research in more depth here.

When I was asked to help out with researching the project early on in my internship, I was confronted by my own ignorance – this wasn’t a topic where I had prior knowledge or insight. As it turned out, that in itself was telling. What became increasingly clear during our research period was that this was a group of people who have been persistently forgotten – not just by the public, but in policy responses by government as well. Littered throughout our research was one word in particular: trauma.

Not all women who sell sex are dealing with past or persistent trauma. But for the support agencies we talked to, many of whom work primarily with women facing multiple disadvantage, trauma looms large as an ongoing reality. Not only does trauma adversely affect mental health, but it also makes it much more difficult for women to engage with and access support services – including those which were introduced to alleviate the worst effects of the pandemic.

Trauma doesn’t only make it harder for women to access services, and it didn’t simply deepen the effect of problems caused by lockdown and the pandemic. The pandemic in itself had what one respondent called a ‘re-traumatising effect’ – deepening the cycle of difficulty faced by some women who sell sex or are sexually exploited.

One of the Joint Public Issues Team’s Six Hopes for Society is for a just economy that enables the flourishing of all life. Another is for a society where the poorest and most marginalised are at the centre. At the heart of both of these hopes is a belief in the dignity of all human life – a belief that God cares for and loves all people, and that Jesus came so that we could have life in all its fullness (John 10:10).

If people in our society are unable to access the services that they need to live a safe, healthy, and fulfilled life, then they are not experiencing life in all its fullness. If people in our society are homeless or in unstable housing, they are not experiencing life in all its fullness. And if people in our society are experiencing the re-traumatising effects of lockdown, then they are not experiencing life in all its fullness.

We pursued this work because, as churches, we believe that the way our society is run can be better: more compassionate and more Christ-like. It’s not right that the impacts of lockdown fell more squarely onto the shoulders of people who were already struggling, including women who sell sex or are sexually exploited, particularly those who have experienced trauma.

We identified a set of issues which were specifically affecting this group of women. Food insecurity, income loss, isolation and housing problems, as well as decreased access to services, were all issues which were flagged. We noted that many people in society were facing similar problems – but for many of the women supported by the charities we spoke to, the exacerbating factor of trauma amplified and deepened these problems. You can read our full findings and a summary of the report here.

One of the issues which we encountered during this research was that women who sell sex or are sexually exploited often needed more and different support to access benefits, including Universal Credit. Churches have long advocated for a more compassionate benefits system, which offers enough for people to live in dignity and safety. This means more than simply increasing the weekly payment to a liveable amount – although, of course, this is vital – it’s also about ensuring that the benefits system accounts for differences in circumstances. In this case, it might mean that the application process needs to be more accommodating of acting through an intermediary charity like the ones we spoke to as part of our research, and that trauma-informed approaches need to be layered into the ways that the benefits system works. The report shows that the benefits system disproportionately sanctions those with mental health problems: the system fails to cope when presented with claimants who may be experiencing multiple disadvantage or other complications.

Public services, including benefits like Universal Credit, need to be available and truly accessible to all who might need them if they are to be adequate and meaningful. To enable life in all its fullness, we must cater for the most marginalised in our communities in the way that we relate to one another and provide services as a society. If women who sell sex or are sexually exploited are excluded from policy and understanding, we’ve failed to open up our society and support systems to everyone who might need it.

Our report goes into more detail about the experiences which we heard about and the solutions which might begin to redress a historic failure to consider the impact of trauma when accessing services.

Read the report

My colleague Paul has written a blog summarising the research and explaining the process of writing the report. You can read it here:

Read Paul’s blog

Filed Under: Blog, COVID-19, Poverty and Inequality, Universal Credit

Lucy Tiller

Previous Post: « Penalties, Racism and Healing
Next Post: Help forced labour go out of fashion »

Primary Sidebar

Search

Recent Posts

  • JPIT’s Review of 2022
  • What does Government Support for Asylum Seekers really provide?
  • God with Us – the Refugees of Calais and Dunkirk
  • How can we respond to COP27?
  • Statement on the conclusion of the COP27 Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
  • COP27 – what should we be looking for?
  • “He has filled the hungry with good things” – What we need from the Autumn Budget
  • What are the stories we should tell about the humanitarian crisis at Manston Airport Asylum centre?
  • How can we be sure that the products we buy are not the result of modern slavery?
  • Why I hate Warm Banks (and why my church is opening one)
  • How does our theology call us to challenge Poverty?
  • Introducing Alfie
  • Biden says nuclear risk is the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Churches respond to risk to benefit levels
  • Briefing on the ‘Mini Budget’ for the Enough to Live group
  • Introducing Hazel
  • Introducing Hannah
  • An energy cap announcement in three parts: the good, the absent and the ugly
  • Afghanistan and the UK – One Year On from the Fall Of Kabul
  • Inflation, interest rates and the poorest

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter

Footer

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Quick links

Stay and Pray
Politics in the Pulpit
Faith in Politics podcast
Public Issues Calendar
Useful Links

Our work

About Us
Meet the Team
Join the Team 
Internship
Our Newsletter

Contact us

25 Marylebone Road
London NW1 5JR

Tel: 020 7916 8632

enquiries@jpit.uk

Copyright © 2023 · Showcase Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in