Women forced into offering ‘survival sex’ for as little as £2, laundry or food, MPs told

Women are being forced into “survival sex” work for basic needs like laundry and food due to a lack of access to universal credit, MPs have been told.

Some were charging as little as £2, the Work and Pensions Committee heard.

“One woman we work with said: ‘I hate sleeping on the street, I tried to find a punter who would let me sleep for free sex. I hate it, but I hate sleeping on the street more’,” Laura Seebohm, of the Changing Lives charity, said.

She added that a rape victim had had her benefits sanctioned by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) because she had failed to attend meetings at a job centre.

“She was in a really bad way having experienced a rape, and it did not matter, she has been indefinitely sanctioned,” Ms Seebohm said.

Other women were turning to “survival sex”, she added,

Changing Lives defined this as women who regularly exchanged sex ”to meet survival needs, monetary or otherwise”. It added that alternative currencies “include somewhere to sleep, alcohol, drugs, food and tobacco”.

Universal credit payment delays were driving women into this, as well as increasing debt and dependency on food banks, a number of charities told the committee.

Ms Seebohm said it had “really exacerbated the problem”.

She added: “We are seeing increasing numbers of women doing it who haven’t before.”

Amber Wilson of Basis Yorkshire, a charity which supports sex workers in Leeds, told the committee: “We’ve definitely seen women that feel they don’t have any other choice but to do this work. For example, one woman who we’d helped, she had experienced childhood abuse, we’d know her for quite a long time, she’d worked in survival sex simply to survive.

“We’d helped her leave that, and recently when the universal credit came up she almost felt forced to go back in, and she eventually chose to shoplift instead. But she felt so embarrassed it took her a month to tell us, and she’s a carer for her elderly mother. She eventually didn’t go back but we’ve seen others who go back and disengage from our services because a sense of shame.”

Sarah McManus, from Stockton-on-Tees-based charity A Way Out, also insisted “there certainly is a link” between access to universal credit and the increase in sex work.

She added: “We have had women that haven’t sex-worked for some time that have come back out because they haven’t had the universal credit coming through as quickly as they’d hoped.”

Dr Raven Bowen of National Ugly Mugs, a national organisation providing greater access to justice and protection for sex workers, said that “low-tech alternatives, stopping the disruption of payments and addressing the stigmatisation around accessing benefits” were key problems to address.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We are working closely with the select committee to respond to their call for evidence.

“With universal credit no one has to wait five weeks to be paid, as your first payment is available as an advance on day one.

“We continue to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable and have made numerous improvements to the welfare system since 2016.”