Soho sex workers say
claims they are being pimped by organised gangs are part of an underhand
plot to discredit them and clean up the notorious red light district.
In November 2002 the Home
Secretary, David Blunkett, told a London conference Britain was facing a
growing threat from Balkan crime gangs, who make vast profits by smuggling
- whether guns, drugs, or women destined for the sex trade.
The following month two Albanian cousins were given long jail sentences for living off the immoral earnings of a teenager whom they had brought to the UK as a 15-year-old and forced to work as a prostitute.
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With the
approval of the Home Office and Westminster City Council, the police
have raided Soho brothels over the last two years looking for
illegal immigrants. Some have been deported. But what about the sex workers whose voice is seldom, if ever heard? Some are fighting back, accusing the police and the council of cynicism and hypocrisy. Mira is an Albanian who has not seen her family in Albania for six years but whose earnings in the UK are their chief source of support. |
"All this talk of Balkan gangs running
the Soho girls is rubbish. We are freelances, working for ourselves. Apart
from what I need to live on, I send all my money back home. I take nothing
from the state over here. I pay my way by selling my body and I just want
to be left alone."
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BALKANS
AND UK VICE |
Her friend, Lisa, adds: "The last time
the police raided us, they said 'you didn't get a British passport to go
on the game'. But I say that it's my body and I'll do what I want with
it."
The anger among the Soho sex workers, which
many describe as unprecedented, has come to a head over the issuing of a
compulsory purchase order by Westminster council on a property in which a
number of them ply their trade.
The council says prostitution is a
"blight on the local environment" and that it wishes to return
the building to residential use. The women suspect the only benefits will
go to property developers but what is of more urgent concern is the threat
to their own safety if they are forced onto the streets.
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Irene, a Soho
sex worker, was a friend of Elizabeth Valad, one of the prostitutes
whose body parts were found in discarded bin bags in North London
over the New Year.
"Liz was working in Windmill
Street before Christmas until she was forced out when the building
was closed. She left for King's Cross and look at the consequences.
Two other Soho girls have been murdered elsewhere in recent years -
and they're just the ones we know about." |
Carrie, of the English Collective of
Prostitutes, says Soho is the safest area for sex workers in London.
"Women here look out for each other
and we've got CCTV. Put us out on the streets and that's where the Jack
the Rippers are."
Hand-in-glove
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Research
carried out at Glasgow University confirms that. Street prostitutes
in Glasgow were six times more likely to be attacked than those
working indoors in Edinburgh. The question of the compulsory purchase order will be settled by a public inquiry which opened this week. The issue of police and immigration activity in Soho and other "red light" areas is a much thornier one. Scotland Yard says it is concerned
about the safety of the sex workers and the exploitation of children
for sex. The women dismiss that as sheer hypocrisy and believe the
police are working hand-in-glove with the council to try to remove
them. |
Opposing trafficking laws being used to deport women
Defending sex workers right to work from premises