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say,’ he states. ‘We probably hear more positive than negative stories now, but we
still do hear things that are absolutely shocking.’ While officers investigating
serious sexual offences are specially trained, there can still be issues with ‘first
responders’ to incidents, he explains. ‘But most of the officers who are experienced
in investigating sexual offences have no interest in whether the victim’s a sex
worker – they just want to solve the crime.’
The stigma around problematic drug use can take its toll, and that’s something
that can be massively compounded when sex work is involved. ‘Absolutely,’ he says.
‘Most of the research shows that it’s about 90-95 per cent of female street sex
workers who are dependent on drugs and/or alcohol – it tends to be the major
driving force of why they’re on the streets working, along with issues of
homelessness. Because some of them will already have had run-ins with the police,
the levels of trust are really low, and you do get officers who aren’t very respectful.
With the other sector of sex workers – escorts and things like that – rates of
problematic drug use are incredibly low, but it’s the sex workers working on the
streets who are most targeted by the type of perpetrators we deal with.’
And the least likely to report it? ‘Yes, and that’s not just about trust. We’ve had
incidents where they want to report it but the court process – particularly with
something like sexual assault – is just not set up to deal with people who have
chaotic lifestyles. They might be keen to make a statement but often the courts
and police aren’t very flexible about how the statement is taken, so there are lots
of barriers. I’ve been involved in a serious sex offence trial as a witness, and even
for someone who’s able to get the train and make all the meetings it’s an absolute
nightmare. So that is a real challenge.’
*****
The project has forged excellent links with treatment agencies, he explains, with
around 320 national members including specialist sex work projects. ‘Most
projects working with street sex workers will either have strong partnerships with
October 2014 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 19
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Profile |
Alex Feis-Bryce
An award-winning scheme has been protecting vulnerable
drug-dependent street sex workers from attack. Its director
of services, Alex Feis-Bryce, talks to
David Gilliver
drug treatment agencies or they themselves will provide services like needle
exchange and so on,’ he says. ‘We work really closely with them.’
In areas without a specialist sex work project there will be drug services that
regularly encounter sex workers, which means raising awareness of the scheme is
vital, he stresses. ‘It might only be small numbers of sex workers engaging with
them, but what we do is a resource that’s always available.’
A former political advisor, he was faced with a decision about whether to stay
in politics when the MP he was working for suddenly died. ‘I’d been volunteering
with the Albert Kennedy Trust, which works with young LGBT homeless people,
and a lot of the young people they supported did turn to sex work to survive, so I
was aware that sex workers were a particularly stigmatised group. I realised that I
didn’t want to stay within politics for that much longer, but I had skills from doing
that work that I was able to take to something that had a more direct impact on
people’s lives. With politics it can be a bit abstract, but this was an opportunity to
do something more hands on. The challenge, but also the impact, of working with
a particularly stigmatised group had always appealed to me.’
The scheme has already led to 16 convictions that NUM is aware of, and the
actual figure may well be much higher, he points out. ‘Once someone makes a
formal report to the police they aren’t very good at keeping us informed of the
progress, because we have so many that go through to them.’
One conviction earlier this year, however, saw a man sentenced to ten years for
a knife-point rape, with the way the case was handled recognised as a model of
good practice. ‘She was a Romanian escort who was adamant that she didn’t want
to report it to the police, or even tell anyone, but she went for a routine health
check with a nurse who was aware of the scheme, and it was part of the process to
say, “has anything happened to you that we should report?” A couple of weeks
later the police came to us and said, “we think we may have identified the
perpetrator – can you go back and ask these questions, and she can still maintain
her anonymity?” It was a credit to the police how flexible they were, so she started
to believe that they were taking it seriously, weren’t interested in the fact that she
was a sex worker, and didn’t disrespect her.’
Eventually she made a full report and, supported by specialist advisers and a
translator, went to court. ‘The police use it as an example of why the scheme is
important, because they just wouldn’t have known about it otherwise,’ he says.
Despite positive outcomes like this, however, and having just two full-time and
two part-time staff, plus a volunteer, funding has been a constant headache. ‘It’s
the bane of our existence,’ he says. ‘The Home Office provided funding for the pilot
but said “we won’t ever be able to fund you after that”. They can fund projects to
seed but if they funded us beyond the pilot it would be seen as sort of double-
funding the police, which is against Treasury rules.’
Another problem is that NUM tends not to qualify for a lot of big grants, he
explains. ‘We’re more about sharing intelligence and best practice and
information, and that’s just not popular to fund. At the end of every financial year
we don’t know if we’re still going to be running in a few weeks’ time, and it’s going
to be like that again if we don’t find some kind of sustainable solution.’
And if funding does dry up, the consequences could be grave. ‘An evaluation of
the pilot found that 16 per cent of the 20,000 sex workers engaged with the
scheme said that they’d avoided an individual directly as a result of one of our
warnings, which is almost more powerful than the criminal justice outcomes,’ he
says. ‘That’s a large number of crimes potentially prevented.’
uknswp.org/um
‘An evaluation of the pilot
found that 16 per cent of the
20,000 sex workers
engaged with the scheme
said that they’d avoided an
individual directly as a result
of one of our warnings.’