Many workers are facing an uncertain future, or an immediate financial struggle, due to the coronavirus outbreak. And for one industry, the impact has been unavoidable.
“We are in a lot of trouble,” Cari Mitchell, a spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) tells Euronews. “Because sex work is a contact job.”
The ECP, made up of current and former sex workers, is calling for government support for sex workers, who are currently not recognised as workers, and so are not entitled to the sort of government support available to others during the COVID-19 crisis.
“Nobody wants to go on working, of course,” she says – but without access to financial support, some are forced to continue working outside, meeting clients, and putting themselves at risk of contracting and spreading coronavirus.
Many workers are facing an uncertain future, or an immediate financial struggle, due to the coronavirus outbreak. And for one industry, the impact has been unavoidable.
“We are in a lot of trouble,” Cari Mitchell, a spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) tells Euronews. “Because sex work is a contact job.”
The ECP, made up of current and former sex workers, is calling for government support for sex workers, who are currently not recognised as workers, and so are not entitled to the sort of government support available to others during the COVID-19 crisis.
“Nobody wants to go on working, of course,” she says – but without access to financial support, some are forced to continue working outside, meeting clients, and putting themselves at risk of contracting and spreading coronavirus.
With the lockdown measures in place, many sex workers have lost almost all of their clients, she adds.
‘We demand labour rights’
“We are demanding recognition that sex work is work so we can get the benefits,” says Mitchell. “We are demanding that now so we can get the money everyone is entitled to in this crisis in order to keep going, and not to have to go out and do any more sex work.”
