‘Over one-third of British sex workers have college degree’

A new study reveals that at least 38 percent of sex workers in the United Kingdom have a first degree from a college or university.

The study of 240 sex workers, including 196 women, 28 men and 12 transgender people, focused on those who were not trafficked or forced into selling sex, but had chosen to do so, and most worked from within premises rather than on the streets, the Guardian reported.

The academic research by Leeds University and funded by the Wellcome Trust, also reveals the pressures that lead people to enter the sex industry, with one respondent saying she could not keep up her mortgage repayments while earning £50 a day as an NHS care assistant.

It also showed that more than 70% of UK sex workers have previously worked in healthcare, education or charities.

Of those surveyed, 172 (71%) had previously worked in health, social care, education, childcare or charities. The second most common former area of employment was retail, with 81 people (33.7%) having worked in the industry.

Ninety of those surveyed had an undergraduate degree (38%), while 40 (17%) had a postgraduate degree. More than 97% of those surveyed had either GCSEs, A-levels or their equivalents.

Now London-based social analyst Adam Hurst says, “This study really reflects, purely on the basis of the numbers, the lack of sexual morality in Britain and the dire straits that women increasingly feel themselves pressured into. A lot of these women are single mothers. That is because they already become used to the idea of sleeping around in Britain.”

“The second thing that it reflects is the dire straits that women feel that they are in, because of the economic pressures that they have. We already know that there is an increasing number of people getting second jobs in order to subsidize, in order to complement their main jobs, because of the government’s dreadful austerity measures,” Hurst told Press TV’s UK Desk in a Sunday interview.

He also said the UK governments have a long history in promoting such practices. “The so-called governing group of people that we have in Westminster today, not only has no real concern for the increase in sexual immorality and prostitution in the UK, it actually has no concern.”

Many of the sex workers surveyed earn less than £1,000 per month and some combine sex work with other work.

The research found 113 sex workers (47%) had been victims of crime, including rape and robbery, while 86 (36%) had received threatening texts, calls or emails.

HRK/GHN

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