Do something about the plight of women

14 December 2006

Church Army evangelist tells society to do something about plight of women involved in prostitution

A Church Army evangelist has called for a change in attitude and laws regarding the plight of women sex workers. *Sue, a project worker at Church Army's Chocolate Box, a pilot project which will be fully launched next year, says that the recent Ipswich murders should be a wake up call for society. "It was very tragic to hear about the deaths of these young women," Sue says. "I've thought a lot about their parents and families and the terrible pain they must be experiencing. Someone once said 'no one ever went to their careers advisor and said that they want to be a prostitute when they leave school'. For some of the women they just got caught up with the wrong crowd when they were teenagers, got involved in drugs and their habit became such that they will resort to desperate measures to get money to pay for the drugs. Others have grown up amidst much pain and insecurity and I suppose the drugs provide an escape from the pain and then it becomes a vicious cycle - they go out on the streets to pay for the drugs - which covers the pain, and they need the drugs to help them cope with being on the streets. They are in desperate places.

"Volunteers from a local church were out on Sunday evening and some of the women expressed their fear about being out and were keen to get home as soon as possible. The streets were noticeable quiet. I think these deaths should make us think that actually there are women on the streets in every city being abused every night, and we hear stories of women being attacked not just verbally but physically too. The authority needs to do something about heavier sentences for the people who are abusing/hurting the women, we need to have more protection for the women and more government funding for projects working alongside the women. We need to wake up as a society to the fact that women involved in prostitution are being abused physically on a regular basis. I chatted to one woman recently who had had her fingers broken by one client who tried to snatch his money back. Another woman told me how she often has eggs pelted at her from people driving past."

Young women involved in prostitution appear to be more at risk than before. Last May, the body of 27-year-old Gemma Caldwell was found dumped in the woods near Biggar and this month alone, five sex workers in Ipswich have been murdered. Church Army evangelists up and down the country are working in their various ministries to reach people where they are, to bring a message of hope, love and redemption to those outside the margins of the church.

Home Office figures show that as many as 80,000 women in the UK are involved in prostitution, and up to 5,000 of them are under 18 years of age. These alarming figures concerns Sue and she states that, "The Chocolate Box is eager to make contact with the women on the street, to work towards befriending them and to develop relationships of trust. In that way we hope to encourage those women who are desperate to change and support them in accessing professional help with their drug addictions. From there we can begin to move forward and try and work with them through some of the issues that drove them into a life of drugs in the first place. Many of the women live very chaotic lives and it is hoped that The Chocolate Box will be able to provide 1:1 support to allow them to find some sort of stability and then in time discover routes into a life away from the streets and the drugs. The one thing the women do need is a sense of hope; hope to believe that they can have a future and that there is a life for them beyond the streets."

* Names have been changed to protect identity.