Nearly 20 years after Emma Caldwell’s brutal murder, sex workers still face horrific levels of violence but are reluctant to report it to police, outreach groups have told The Guardian.
Iain Packer was jailed for 36 years on Wednesday for the 2005 murder of Caldwell and a string of sexual violence against 22 other vulnerable women, exposing a longstanding police disdain for women in prostitution attitudes and violence against women. Men pay them.
However, while some consider these attitudes “historic”, violence against sex workers is a daily reality in 2024 and doubts about how they will be treated by police remain, The Guardian understands .
“Most of the women I see have experienced violence,” says Alison Scott, a consultant gynecologist who runs a sexual health clinic for sex workers and other vulnerable women in Edinburgh city center every year Treat up to 400 patients.
“I’ve seen some women come in here with blue faces. Men think that because they paid for it, they can behave in completely inappropriate ways. “
As household budgets tighten, the group of women involved in the sex trade is becoming increasingly diverse, Scott said.
“There are still women on the streets addicted to it, but there are more women working indoors and advertising online, and that number has grown exponentially in the past three years because of the cost of living crisis.”
All groups interviewed by the Guardian agreed that violence was widespread, although their ideas about tackling the issue differed depending on whether they viewed sex work as a legitimate career option and favored decriminalizing the industry. ization, or seeing it as violence against women, and focusing on criminalizing these acts. Men who buy sex.
Linda Thompson is coordinator of the Women’s Support Project, a national program on commercial sexual exploitation, which the Scottish Government describes as violence against women.
“Violence has increased since Emma’s time and women still don’t have the confidence to come forward,” she said. “While attitudes may have changed in terms of strategic thinking in Police Scotland, this has not trickled down to frontline officers.”
Police Scotland apologized to Caldwell’s family and Parker’s other victims, acknowledging they had been “let down” by the force.
Thompson has just released a snapshot survey of women working in sex work, finding that 90% have experienced violence or even attempted murder, one in four have been sexually abused as children, and one in six Sexual exploitation before the age of 18.
The situation is the same across the UK. “Violence against sex workers is a clear and present harm,” said Raven Bowen of National Ugly Mugs, an organization dedicated to ending targeting of sex workers. UK charity for acts of violence.
Of the 585 reports of violence received by the charity in 2023, only 11% felt safe enough and received support to make a full report to police, and only 45% agreed to provide anonymous intelligence.
“We all know predators target sex workers because they can do so with impunity,” Bowen said. “Few people believe sex workers.”
She added: “On Wednesday, as police apologized for their mishandling of Emma’s case, a sex worker was raided for sharing her workplace with others to stop women turning up on the deadly streets at night. On premises Working together is a life-saving strategy, but we’re criminalizing it as running a brothel. That’s part of the reason we support full decriminalization.”
Denise Mina, a Glasgow-based crime writer and former academic who has extensively researched violence against sex workers and recently published her novel The Less Dead, recalls The murder of mother Nkechi McGraa, 37, who was killed in Aberdeen in 2016. While working as an escort.
“The trial heard she phoned a friend in the UK and said ‘I think this man is going to kill me’ because she did not want to call the police or potentially judge her outreach services.
“Twenty years after Emma’s murder we are still failing these women and our guiding principle must be their safety.”
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