If you're a Brighton and Hove resident, please sign this petition calling on Brighton and Hove City Council to take all possible action to prioritise the safety of sex workers in the city, and to use whatever influence it has to push for decriminalisation nationally.

Prostitution in the UK is increasing because poverty is increasing due to deliberate government policies of austerity cuts and the cost-of-living increase. Most sex workers are mothers working to support families.

UK law makes it illegal for sex workers to work together. This forces sex workers to make a choice: to keep themselves safe and face the possibility of arrest, or avoid a criminal record and put themselves in danger.

Criminalisation of sex work undermines safety by forcing sex workers to work in isolation and deterring them from reporting violence and exploitation for fear of arrest.

Migrant women, disabled women, trans women and women of colour disproportionately experience violence and are overly criminalised.

Prostitution could be reduced by providing viable economic alternatives and affordable housing, free childcare, living wage benefits, a universal guaranteed income, and pay equity.

New Zealand has successfully decriminalised prostitution with verifiable improvements in sex workers’ safety, health and well-being.

Those promoting the criminalisation of sex workers’ clients include homophobic “evangelical Christians” who are opposed to prostitution in the same way as they are opposed to sex outside of marriage and gay marriage.

Decriminalisation is supported by prestigious organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Women Against Rape in the UK and internationally, Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, UNAIDS, International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.

Therefore, we the undersigned demand that Brighton and Hove City Council (and its partner organisations*):

1.     Issue a statement in support of local sex workers and for the decriminalisation of sex work to improve sex workers’ health, safety and welfare.

2.     Provide additional resources to sex workers to enable people to more easily leave sex work if they choose, including priority for council housing and cash payments for destitute sex workers and those with No Recourse to Public Funds.

3.     Explore all possible actions the council could take to support current sex workers, looking into what other local authorities have done, and exploring all legal powers the council has to take steps towards decriminalisation on a local level.

4.     Write to the relevant Secretaries of State calling on them to:

a. Implement the Home Affairs Committee (2016) recommendation that sex workers working on the street and together in premises be decriminalised and criminal records expunged;

b. Implement an amnesty from arrest and deportation for sex workers reporting violence;

c. End current government policies which are proven to increase children and mothers’ poverty, specifically benefit sanctions, the two-child limit and the bedroom tax;

d. Explore how the government can help those who wish to leave sex work by providing viable and stable economic alternatives.

The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) is a national organisation of sex workers fighting for decriminalisation of sex work, for safety, for rights and for economic alternatives so that women can leave prostitution if they choose.

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*Partner organisations: East Sussex Police, a chief officer of police, National Health Services for Brighton & Hove, Kent, Surrey and Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company, South Downs National Health Service Trust.