Hester, Radford and Kelly.  (1996)  Researching Male Violence.  Open University Press.  Researching Prostitution and Violence: towards a feminist praxis. Retrieved on July 29, 2007.     http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_soc_sciences/sociology/level3/prost4.htm
 
 
 

This chapter explores the narratives of women who have experienced violence whilst working as prostitutes. These narratives are examined within the context of the 'women centred' research I engage in whilst working with and for this group of marginalised and criminalised women.

My work in progress explores (in part) possibilities for women centred multi-agency approaches to street prostitution which have women prostitutes as key players (see O'Neill 1994). I was commissioned by Safer Cities to undertake a pilot study exploring current responses to prostitution in the East Midlands with a view to developing multi-agency initiatives. From the outset I was committed to women's voices being heard and listened to, that the research should be action oriented, with knowledge arising out of the study being 'knowledge for' as 'feminist praxis'(see Stanley 1989); facilitating empowerment, resistance and social change.

The reflexive inter-relationship between feminist research, women's lived experience and policy oriented practice is a central theme in my work. I use an ethnographic approach documenting women who work as prostitutes' narratives and lifespan biographies. From this reciprocal and reflexive relationship between methodology, experience and policy oriented feminist practice came a need or rather an urgency to address some of the problems and issues that the women have talked about. These include: high profile policing; high fines; imprisonment due to fine de-fault; drugs use; clients offering more money for unprotected sex; girls from local authority care under cutting the market price and often offering sex without the use of condoms. Particular issues emerged in relation to young women from local authority care who are often under the age of consent, their experiences encompassed coercion by pimps through physical and sexual violence, emotional neediness and for some extreme vulnerablity. An additional, central and universal concern amongst women working as prostitutes is sexual violence: by clients; pimps; and sometimes lovers. The forms this violence takes includes: intimidation; harassment; rape; robbery and assault; and murder.

This chapter is divided into four sections. The first outlines the inter-relationship between research methods, methodology and epistemology in this work. The second explores the routes women and girls take into prostitution. The third documents the experiences of sexual violence women working as prostitutes talked about. The final section links feminist theory, women's lived experience and possibilities for feminist action.
 

Methodology as feminist praxis

Doing feminist research can be explained more fully by examining the inter-relationship between research methods, methodology and epistemology. Harding (1987) suggests that for certain types of research with and for women, the researcher should attempt to locate herself in "the same critical plane as the overt subject matter" (:8-9). My engagement with feminist research was fuelled by my interest and commitment to feminist theory and feminist politics and the need to create the intellectual and practical space within the social construction of knowledge for women's voices to be heard and listened to. Feminism and feminist research is about the development and construction of knowledge which writes women into his-story and exploring, challenging, resisting and changing sexual and social inequalities. My involvement is about passionate, feeling involvement in critical tension with, reason and rationality. The social construction of such knowledge is founded upon the relationship between women's everyday experience of prostitution as a cultural practice, academic knowledge, political power and social action (O'Neill 1992a:22).

This methodological approach facilitates the central involvement of the women, who are active participants in the social construction of knowledge, empowerment and social change. There is a continuity in my relationship with some of the women because we are currently working together on a number of projects. The emotional nature of a lot of the work I undertake, particularly on street, meant I became immersed in the range of differing experiences of women working as prostitutes. A major concern is that this work should have some practical outcomes for them.

The lifespan narratives are conducted as guided conversations. I interject as little as possible and usually only to gently encourage where there is a lull or pause. Importance is placed upon the woman's own story, her descriptions, feelings and meanings. Documenting women's experiences through lifespan narratives/biographies becomes political when contextualised within feminist theory/methodology. Feminist research methodologies are ways of envisioning and grounding knowledge and providing ways of locating and contextualising women's experiences. There are, of course, dilemmas and dangers thrown up by doing this sort of close 'ethnographic' research with any group, but particularly with 'marginalised,' 'criminalised' and 'stigmatised' groups. One can become immersed in the intra-community as well as the inter-agency politics and lose the critical perspective which is necessary for the development of effective practice. One risks becoming so emotionally involved that relationships become firmly entrenched, and dependency patterns develop. However, relationships of trust take a long time to build and I often feel like I am walking a tightrope between the two possibilities. Researchers are sometimes seen akin to pimps, coming into the field to take, then returning to the campus or institution, or suburb where they write up the data, publish and build careers - on the backs of those they took data from.

Doing close ethnographic work with women who work on the street has implications for the women themselves as well as for the personal safety of the researcher. Taking time and experiences/information from women working can negatively affect her contact with clients and also produce potential hassle from pimps. 'Taking from women' may be perceived by the women themselves as another form of pimping, particularly given the way the media has portrayed female prostitutes. Most documentaries open with a seedy depiction of the deserted, dark street with the 'hooker' in stilettos, fishnets and mini skirt. The message is clear and the stereotype upheld of the dirty, disease ridden prostitute, irresponsible, immoral and probably feeding a drug habit - the whore stigma in operation (Pheterson 1986). Given this level of stereotyping and the concommitant whore stigma it underpins, it is no wonder female street prostitutes are wary of researchers and research 'on' her. No researcher, feminist or otherwise, can avoid engaging with these complex issues.

I have no answers to these dilemmas and difficulties. I do, however, endeavour to take account of the ethical and political dimensions in the social construction of knowledge as well as recognising and facilitating the shared participation of the women I am working with. The issue of the personal safety of the researcher is illustrated by my own experience whilst accompanying a health outreach worker in the spring months of 1992. We witnessed at very close range a violent assault on a woman prostitute and attended court four times until the case was finally dealt with. This was the last occasion I visited the street as part of my research.

Four of us were standing talking, myself and Kay leaning against her car. Helen and Pat(1) standing in front of us. The conversation was lively and we were laughing. In what seemed like a few seconds, a man strode across the road straight through our group taking Helen with him. He held her by the throat and marched her backwards slamming her against a stone wall (the side of a house). She shouted to him to get off and he began punching her. He had what could have been a knife in his left hand, it glinted in the darkness. Helen maintains he was carrying a gun. He wanted her money. He tore her gold cross and chain off. I shouted "we must help, what can we do to help!" Kay argued that we must wait until it was over and then drive her for help, it was too dangerous to intervene. He left as quickly as he came, and reportedly went into a bar bragging about his theft. We drove Helen a little way before she spotted her boyfriend, she got out of the car and rang the police to give a statement. She knew the assailant. He was known for doing this when he wanted money. We were told that his "woman" was "inside" or had left him. Pat refused to give evidence, she was too scared of the consequences, and she felt it wasn't such an unusual incident.

Kay's statement and my own were not taken for three weeks. Finally we were both contacted by the police and statements taken. The assailant was also wanted on other charges; a court case at the magistrates court would take place as soon as possible. We turned up at the magistrates court and waited for what seemed like hours; Helen did not arrive. Word was that she had been "got at". The assailant elected for `paper trial' and we were to be sent dates for the crown court case. We turned up at the crown court on the day of the hearing anxious that we may meet him face to face. Helen did not arrive. The judge adjourned the case and a new date was set. Again we turned up, again we were sent home. Helen had disappeared . On the final occasion we arrived, Helen again did not - she was serving a sentence for fine default, but it seems the police were unaware of this. We did not have to give evidence. The assailant pleaded guilty and was given a suspended sentence. We left the court as quickly as we could and headed for the nearest cigarette machine and coffee bar. It was over. We felt sick from the nervous tension and sick that the assailant was dealt with in this way, free to assault and rob the next prostitute he met when he needs cash.

An extra dimension to this case is the added fact that I live on the edge of the area known as the red light area. I live in a row of Victorian terraced houses and parking is available only on the street. On the nights preceding the first three court cases my car was vandalised. Descriptions of the individuals who were chased away by various neighbours were all similar. The police took this seriously and the assailant was given a "dressing down" from the judge on the third court appearance for "intimidating a witness" and was put on curfew, banned from entering the area. My car went undamaged the night before the fourth court date.

This harrowing and frightening incident raises a lot of issues to do with the nature of this research, risks taken or not taken by the researcher and health workers who are committed to outreach work; the extent to which one should get involved. The conflict between commitment to the women and to making a stand against this sort of tyranny of violence, and worries about ones safety and the safety of ones younger family members given this level of involvement (given where I live and the fact that I have two small children). Issues about subjectivity and distance are also thrown up. My approach is clearly subjective in scope - it is about care and commitment relating to addressing sexual and social inequalities. This does not mean a poorer quality work, I would argue quite the opposite. Nor does it mean that a critical perspective is lost.

There are also issues thrown up for the women who are subject to this level of 'acceptable' violence. There is an analogy to be drawn here with the repercussions for women experiencing domestic violence and the extent to which agencies of public order and social control such as the police can ensure her safety. Given the ideological problem of the prostitute as victim, why did such a clear case with strong supporting evidence from two 'professional' women, and 'good girls' (ie., myself and Kay), result in a suspended sentence? Why did the police and prison not communicate sufficiently so that Helen was able to attend court? But, what punishment would have been meted out to her for giving evidence against him in court?

Taking an ethnographic approach to documenting the voices of women working as prostitutes has resulted in differing forms of documented material. The form and style of the material has been dictated by: environmental factors (on or off street); timing, whether the interview was early or later in my research (early material is mostly in the form of notes taken on street and later material on tape in the form of lifespan narratives); and my relationship with the woman,the tension between trust and risk in each woman's perceptions of and relationship with me as researcher. Records of street encounters are in the form of short notes written in the car, between stops, or from memory when I returned home. In the initial period of research longer 'off street' interviews were handwritten because the woman preferred this method of note taking; and finally longer lifespan narratives were taped conversations lasting between one and a half, and, three and a half hours. The lifespan interviews were conducted almost two years after I began the initial work, and are evidence of the developing relationships of trust with women in my local area.

Clearly the stigmatisation and marginalisation of prostitute women is central to any understanding of the ways in which women are processed by the criminal justice system, re-presented by the media, and enter the public imagination. In October of 1992 a series of reports on two recent rape cases against prostitute women made local news. Consider the following:

A prostitute broke down in tears as she described how she was allegedly raped at knifepoint by a client...She said: "I asked him for money and he said 'of course'. That's when he went to his pocket. I bent down to get my handbag to put the money in and the next minute he had a knife at my throat... The knife was at my throat. I was frightened."

The man had carried out a similar attack on a fourteen year old living in care some months earlier but that case was dropped because of lack of corroboration. The man's defence council claimed:

Two prostitutes with a grudge against a man over money invented stories that he had raped them at knifepoint.."He should have known he was playing with fire - he should have known that prostitutes can be as hard as nails and as greedy as you like for money"...

The same newspaper periodically publishes a court column in which the names and sometimes addresses of individuals in court on various charges are printed. Local women, in court for soliciting offences have experienced harassment, fear and intimidation due to this publicity. The issue for women's safety is central particularly given the knowledge that women are at greater risk of violence in their own homes in the private sphere than they are in the public sphere (see Stanko 1985; Hanmer and Maynard 1987; Radford and Russell 1992). Of course street prostitutes in particular experience violence in the public as well as in the private sphere, from partners as well as clients.
 

Routes into Prostitution

In the course of my research and my work with and for the East Midlands Multi-Agency Forum, I have met and talked with many women engaged in prostitution. Most of these women are resisting poverty for themselves and for their children. These are not the romantic constructions we see in films such as 'Pretty Women', but ordinary women who have differing access to material resources such as jobs, salaries, education, housing and health services. Additionally some have limited access to emotional resources, such as family, friends and other support networks which provide practical and emotional support, confidence and self esteem. Some, are young women who drift into prostitution on leaving care because of financial problems and their association with the street culture; others are clearly pimped and coerced into prostitution whilst in care through their developing `romantic' relationships with local pimps. All of these young women have profoundly sad backgrounds: child sexual abuse; physical or emotional abuse; family breakdowns; multiple placements in care. These result in extreme vulnerabality and emotional neediness, since their needs have not been met within the organisation of residential care despite the work of some very committed staff working in residential units.

In my conversations with prostitutes from Britain and other European countries and representatives from the various agencies and institutions working with and for women who work as prostitutes, it appears that economic need is the bottom line for women's entry into prostitution. Prostitution is a resistance and/or a response to poverty. Care leavers are also vulnerable to entering prostitution, particularly given the relationship between homelessness, poverty, emotional and/or material need (2).

The prostitutes I have I talked to are mostly white and aged between 14 and about 54. All the women I have spoken to entered prostitution for financial reasons. Many enter prostitution through coercion and/or association with friends working as prostitutes. All of the women I have talked to except one had entered prostitution by association, that is to say all but one knew someone else who was working the streets or engaged in prostitution and eventually explored this option in order to earn enough money to live a 'reasonable' existence.

Association/economic need and coercion are often seen as the differing and separate reasons for women's entry into prostitution. This is of course too simple given the complexity of many women's lives. For some women coercion and association led to their entrance into prostitution but economic need keeps them there as well as a sub culture of similar and significant others. For others economic need led to their involvement but working by coercion and sub cultural entrenchment keeps them there. The sub-cultural aspect is an important consideration; a sense of belonging to the network, friends who understand and do not judge, and feeling wanted and needed are centrally related to understanding women's involvement and maintainance in prostitution. It is both informative and important to a better understanding of routes into prostitution to unravel the primary, secondary and sometimes dual pronged reasons for women's initial entry into prostitution. A better understanding of routes in to prostitution is important to both developing better services of support to women prostitutes and developing or facilitating exit routes (O'Neill 1991).

For some young women, access to prostitution was made through contacts made in certain pubs and clubs frequented by pimps. The women were coerced into prostitution in the course of their developing relationship with a pimp. They were 'chatted up, their drinks bought, a few trips were made to the town centre window shopping to look at expensive items. Sometimes the relationship developed as a 'romantic relationship' and they were subsequently 'persuaded' to 'do' street work in order that their lifestyle could continue to be 'reasonable' because he (the pimp) did not work and had little possibility of paid work given the economic climate and high levels of unemployment in the area. Or, it wasn't worth his while earning because he would have to pay too much of his salary in maintainance (if he had children from past or current relationships). This method is particularly relevant to young women's routes into prostitution from local authority care.

Care has to be taken to try and separate the 'male domestic partner' who supports his partner practically and emotionally (he may not of course, but it is very difficult to draw clear boundaries around the inter-relationships between people - many women not engaged in prostitution may find resonances in their own lives having read this paragraph) and who may be unemployed, from the 'pimp' who manipulates and coerces. Many of the relationships I have discussed (with heterosexual women) include degrees of support both practical and/or emotional in tension with degrees of emotional, sexual or physical coercion (3). Where exploitation is accompanied by emotional and/or practical support, the exploitative element is experienced to a lesser extent and sometimes articulated within an understanding or acceptance of taken for granted male/female relationships. Many women would not define their domestic partner as a pimp, other women (a small group) see the pimp/prostitute relationships at one end of a continuum in heterosexual relationships with lesser exploitation, coercion at the other end (for example marraige), but nevertheless still marked by power, control and ownership. Still other women are quite clear that their relationship with men known as pimps is clearly a coercive relationship based upon their use value as prostitutes and their earning potential.
 

Female Prostitutes Experiences of Sexual Violence

I have talked to many women in the progress of this research which began in 1990 and is ongoing. Some of these are lengthy interviews up to 3 hours, others are relatively short conversations on the street. What is indisputable is that sexual violence against women prostitutes is endemic. Clients, pimps and domestic partners perpetrate most of it, although,sometimes other women are involved or assailants unknown to the women. The violence women have talked about is rape and beatings. The overwhelming majority of violence against prostitute women has been violence from clients and from pimps. Women have recounted various experiences ranging from verbal abuse, threats, to extreme and brutal violence: being punched and kicked and battered with the heel of a man's shoe whilst desperately trying to escape from his flat naked; being kidnapped, raped and imprisoned; being raped, knifed, stoned and left for dead in the middle of a major road; and for one under age girl being kidnapped from local authority care, starved and beaten into working for two people, a man and a woman.

Some women maintain that they have experienced very few physical assaults and attacks due to the fact that they are good at "gentling" the men, at "negotiating" and "counselling" However, when referring to the violence they experience or have experienced then they talk about it in a very matter of fact way. Hoigard and Finstad (1992) also comment on this aspect of the lives of women working in prostitution.

I often felt that the women talked about violence in a strange way. Bluntly, without any special dramatization, they could relate kidnappings, confinements, rapes, and death threats as if these were almost normal occurrences...In our material the majority of the women had experienced a great deal of physical violence earlier in life as well: parents who hit; institutional personnel who abused them....It's possible that the women have been so exposed to violence that they have become socialized to accept violence as part of life (p63).
 

Womens Stories

In this section I will introduce and locate the women's narratives within the context of feminist action research as feminist praxis. The women's own names have been changed to protect their confidentiality as have other minor details which might allow for them to be recognised. All the women are white and heterosexual.
 

Angela

Angela was 21 and a mother of two when I first met her in October of 1990. She had a male partner who looked after the children whilst she was out working, or she paid a babysitter. The babysitter did not know she worked as a prostitute, she thought she worked in a club. Angela had been working intermittantly for about 2 years, always on the street. She got involved with prostitution when drinking with her friend in a pub in the middle of the red light area, they were getting pissed, and wondered if they could 'go' with a bloke for money. They decided that they could. Both of them were in debt and were very worried about their situations. They bought some condoms from a vending machine in the toilet and chatted to two men who were willing to pay for sex. They took ten pounds each. I asked how did you know what to do? Were you scared or worried? Angela answered "it was easy, I was pissed...I had heard that you just play dead until it is over". In the course of my time assisting an outreach worker on street I saw Angela only three or four times more. I recently heard that Angela was severely beaten and had her throat cut by a client in February of 1992. She is alive and recovering. I cannot be certain that it is her, for I am going on descriptions by the other women. This incident did not make the local press.
 

Jane

Jane was about eighteen years old, and a single parent when I first met her in January 1991. She had been anally raped and beaten by a client. The police responded quickly and the man was caught. Jane also had fines of about {Special Char 163 in Font "Times"}1,800 which she could not pay. She was evicted from her council flat, she felt this was because she became known as a prostitute. Her belongings were taken and sold to pay her debts. She and her child moved back to live with her mother. Her relationship with her mother was difficult at times, Jane had been in and out of care as a child. After she moved in with her mother Jane continued to work the streets whilst her mother looked after her child. According to Jane her mother did not know for sure she worked `on street' but, her child had seen her there and had asked her what she was doing there. Jane shrugged this off and continued to work. Jane was being pimped by a male pimp.
 

Karen

Karen was about twenty years old when I first met her in October of 1990. She tried prostitution because she had been given a council flat on leaving care, but did not have the income to heat or furnish it. Karen ran away from four prospective clients until she finally had to go through with it in order to eat. She told me that after about four clients she could "stomach it", and had been working for about eighteen months. Six months prior to my initial conversation with her she had been raped at knifepoint by a client. The police had arrived very quickly and caught the man. He was given two years imprisonment.
 

Ann

When I interviewed Ann she was working in three part time jobs, had been alcohol free for five years, separated from her husband (a heavy drug user) for one year and had given up all drugs. Ann was also paying for adult education classes. Ann's involvement in prostitution lasted for three and a half years beginning in her fifteenth year whilst living at home and ended when she moved away from her home town to a different area altogether. Ann left home when she was 15 and went to live with friends who supported her through a difficult period at home and who were involved in prostitution. She felt she could not tell any of her school friends or teachers about her family problems and turned to two new friends who gave her much time and support. Ann was sexually harassed and assaulted by her sister's husband from the age of 13 to 15. Her sister and her sister's new husband moved into the family home when Ann was 13, not long after her father died. Ann developed avoidance strategies such as not being left alone with him and telling her mum she would be leaving friend's houses much later than she actually was in order that she could avoid the lift home in his car. Ann had jumped out of a moving car and had thrown ornaments breaking a window in her home in order to: escape; and attract attention to her plight.

The central problem for Ann was that her Mum did not listen to her, in fact her Mum thought that Ann was the 'problem' - not her son in law. The family began rationalising Ann's behaviour: she was lying; seeking attention; making trouble. Understandably Ann began to exhibit "extreme" behaviour in response to what she saw as "lack of trust" and was "devastated at her Mum's response". Ann was labelled as a delinquent and as being "out of control". She left home to live with the friends about six months after she first began to work as a prostitute. A woman who lived in the local area acted as a madam and organised women and girls for men who mostly lived in the surrounding areas. Ann received a lot of emotional support from her friends and they "looked out for each other". Taking it in turns to wait outside clients houses in case of problems. However, Ann maintains that she did not "choose" prostitution. Prostitution brought freedom, money, fun and the ability to leave home. For her, "choice" and "control" were exercised by leaving prostitution. She experienced prostitution as a damaging form of work "trading off sex for the spending power of men", she talked about wanting her self worth to be more than it was, she felt "passive" and "done to". Prostitution was about being used and she was vociferous in her insistence that money and spending power cannot buy self esteem. Ann said:

Everyone should have the right to form relationships without having to pay for it. Everyone should have the right to relationships which are about give and take. This is good for self respect and self esteem and confidence" (4)
 

Sarah

The following narrative is from a young girl who works as a prostitute whilst in the care of a local authority. This raises a number of issues around sexual violence for those in the care of the local authority for example: the extent to which 'carers' perceive sexual violence as 'deserved' and 'deserving'; sexual violence as the 'effect' of an 'immoral lifestyle'; and sexual violence as 'outside' their 'control and ability to care'. This narrative also raises issues about the nature and form of local authority care, whether or not the social and emotional needs of young people are being met, particularly around self esteem, sexual identity, sexuality and the relationship of one's self to one's body.

Sarah was 14 years of age when I met her in September of 1992. Between the autumn of 1990 and September 1992 she had been in five different care institutions. She was put into voluntary care by her mother at aged eight because of family problems. The family split up, her father left, her older brother went to live with her gran, she and her younger brother went into foster care. Sarah had three foster care placements each lasting approximately six months between the ages of eight and ten. In the first placement she remembers "crying a lot", "feeling lost", "unable to understand why she was there", but generally it was a "good placement". The second she describes as "horrible" and the third "not nice". Sarah was returned to her mother as was her younger brother for a short time. It was during her time at home that she first started to 'work'. Sarah met some girls who she became friends with, she ran away with them as she was not happy at home. She lived with them near the regular beat and soon met a man and a girl whom she later was forced to "work for". She was picked up by the police and returned to her mum, however this didn't work out and she was put into care again. She was subsequently kidnapped from care by the two people she met, they told her what she must do "work for them" and gave her some "draw"ie., marihuana. The girl accompanied her with every client. Sarah was very scared. She was "slashed and beaten" for trying to run away and she "wasn't fed properly." After one week she was picked up by the police, told them what happened and was put back into care.

Whilst in care she decided she would work for herself. She wanted to buy "draw, cigarettes and clothes". Sometimes she would sleep at the clients' houses, sometimes a man would drive her to another city to work for about one week at a time. Sarah was introduced to crack by a man she met at a blues party. He showed her how to take it using a coke can. She became frightened, ran away and found a police station. She was returned to care. Sarah felt that she was moved around so much from care institution to care institution because she was perceived as encouraging other girls to try prostitution. Unhappy, not attending school, chain smoking, Sarah soon ran away again and lived for five months in a rented flat. At this time she was working in prostitution, drinking, taking crack and 'draw'. Later she began to take heroin and was not eating, "only packets of crisps". She was picked up (because her mum saw her out on the beat) and returned to care. After this she had a trial period at home with her Mum. But, the relationship was difficult, "lots of arguing" and she was put back into care. Of her mother she said, "I love her deep down but disrespect her for all the messing about". Once again she began to work as a prostitute, taking heroin and coke but, the person supplying her stopped. She is currently with the help of a prostitute self help group, and social workers, off heroin and crack and trying to remain so. She is in a community home which is not very comfortable "always cold" and "worn out" furnishings, but she likes it and feels relatively at home.

At first Sarah felt "rotten and disgusted with old men on top of me"; she talked about how she used to physically and emotionally hurt but that she doesn't now because she had "cut off her feelings". She said "it wasn't too bad at first because the first punter just wanted to look at my breasts". At the home "they don't understand why I can't stop, they think I should stop - just like that! {Special Char 163 in Font "Times"}2 per week is not enough I am a smoker, and I am in the circle now". Sarah has had one abortion, and her social worker took her for a Hepatitis B injection. She "couldn't stand school" and describes herself as "a loner". Often, she goes "out to work when I get bored, there is nowhere else to go". Sarah has been "beaten, slapped, punched and forced to have sex without a condom" - raped.
 

Louise

I was twelve when I cut myself up really bad and they put me in touch with social workers..and I got the idea of children's homes and care and I thought I would really push to get in one...I wish now that I had gone back to my dad and that I would not have got put into care because the minute I was put into care everyone was sniffing and my first day in care I went out for a walk with them and I wanted to be like them and I started taking drugs and didn't have no contact with me mum and dad...then I started taking whiz when I ran away from care when I was fifteen..I met a guy called John and I was with him for two years and he got done for murder..The I left care and..I stopped taking drugs for a while but I started sniffing again..and I started injecting...I got in with the wrong crowd and I got introduced..well I was told that prostitution was the in thing and I never could see myself as a prostitute I thought it was dirty and I just started doing it with my friend..it was dead easy money {Special Char 163 in Font "Times"}250 a time or sometimes you got more..at first I felt dirty because a dirty old man is lying on top of me..I have had punters that said to me `you remind me of my daughter' and I said `God don't do this to me' and the punters told me this and its like they wanted to have sex with their daughters..they probably rape their daughters and they scared me sometimes when they do that..then I started taking crack...and then ended up selling my body for rock...just doing it for the rock...that hurt me when I got raped that time.. but some men have abused me but it doesn't bother me..but a few weeks ago I got attacked and I went to a place where he wanted to do it and he got a knife out and it was on the beat and he wanted to go inside and he wanted oral so he pulled out a knife and cut my throat well I moved my chin so he cut my chin, I had six stitches, then he beat me up and made me go down on him and then threw me to the floor and I said don't I'm pregnant..I ended up biting him and that did not do anything and he strangled me twice and I remember lying there when he was strangling me and I was struggling all the time I never gave up...and I remember hard bricks coming down on my head....

The 'violence' recounted above is physical, sexual and psychological. It is: mysoginistic, about the power of men and men exercising control over women; men taking sexual frustrations out on women working as prostitutes and/or playing out fantasies and desires they would not or could not play out with their regular partners. It is also about damaged individuals damaging others; it involves the undermining and marginalising and because of the lack of state action against violence against women and the lack of an outcry and direct action against the way prostitute women are seen as 'deserving victims' (see Bland 1992) reifies the 'throwaway status' of women working as prostitutes. These are the same women who are seeking to earn the best they can for themselves, partners and families and for whom prostitution is work; women who are poor, or whom have been abused, have come out of care institutions not prepared adequately for independent living, who are emotionally needy and vulnerable and/or are seeking a group a sub culture where they feel they "belong".

Developing social action approaches to women's lived experiences of sexual violence is one way of engaging in feminist praxis and can illustrate the liberating, transformative potential of feminist research as feminist praxis.
 

Feminist research as feminist praxis

In my work, women centred practice, as policy oriented action, has arisen out of the inter-relationship between doing feminist research and women's lived experience. The 'practice' consists of engaging in multi-agency work (a grouping of statutory and voluntary agencies including police, social services, city and county council representatives, probation, health authority, solicitors, magistrates, a drug rehabilitation programme, the church and women working as prostitutes and women representing prostitutes), to address three central issues: routes into prostitution; routes out of prostitution; and support for women who want to work as prostitutes, or for whom there is no other choice of employment around central needs and problems (see O'Neill 1992a). Our multi-agency forum has been meeting regularly to discuss matters relating to the three objectives outlined above. Our multi-agency forum aims to facilitate the development of a more co-ordinated network of services to sex workers which serve educative and empowering roles, as well as fostering greater inter-agency co-operation and communication. The underlying philosophy to which members are committed is a gender aware approach. This approach will address the ways in which the women, and young people involved in sex work can be empowered by developing better services to meet material, economic, social and emotional needs. This will involve connecting experience with theory, practice and policy to develop more positive approaches to service provision, and to ensure that the objectives outlined below meet the aims of the project.

The current objectives to which members are committed are as follows: the development of joint work and inter-agency co-operation; the development of education and training packages to increase the awareness and understanding of professionals who encounter sex workers, as well as to challenge attitudes; networking with other projects; policy review; monitoring and evaluation, for example discussing the usefulness and practicality of the project as it develops; and finally engaging and assisting in research.

Violence, health, welfare, legal rights, human rights and civil liberties, iniquitous fining systems, the policing of street prostitution are all subjects and issues we are grappling with at a discursive and practical level with agencies working with and for prostitutes and former prostitutes. This work is multi-agency in scope and revolves around the concept of empowerment. The facililitation of social action approaches to prostitution must have women working as prostitutes centrally involved. The problems and needs of prostitutes are the key concerns women working as prostitutes or representing prostitutes bring to our multi-agency working group.

Taken together these dimensions - methodology, practice and experience are inter related. They are woven into a central focus of concern, which is about 'being' a feminist researcher and, 'doing' feminist research that has practical implications and possibilities for the women involved as 'subjects' of that research. Working with as well as for women is central to such a 'woman centred' approach.
 

Peer Empowerment as feminist practice

In order to expand upon the reflexive inter-relationship between feminist research , women's lived experience and policy oriented practice it is, I believe, important to start with the possibilities for 'women centred' approaches to practice/action. Peer group empowerment supported by a multi-agency working group is central to our work in progress, particularly peer group empowerment as organised and delivered by organisations such as POW!, the Safe project, ScotPep and others. POW! (prostitute outreach workers) are a peer education organisation and registered charity working from the East Midlands and led by Sue Johnson. The Safe Project is a pioneering health education project operating from Birmingham and led by Hilary Kinnell. ScotPep are a peer led education programme based in Edinburgh and led by Ruth Morgan-Thomas. All are health based initiatives and funded largely by Health authority funds and operate referral systems to other agencies where necessary. POW! are key players in the East Midlands Multi-Agency Forum

Judith Green (1992) provides a useful description of empowerment in relation to the youth service : "The role of empowering young people, enabling them to make informed and discriminating choices with regard to their own lives, is seen as a major one for youth workers" (p17). Of course this aim must be understood as one which operates within the constraints of the material, ideological and emotional contexts to the lived experience of young people.

What is peer led education leading to peer empowerment in the context of prostitution? Peer led education is a specific social action approach to the needs of women and children engaged in prostitution which starts at grass roots level, ie., at the level of everyday experience involving peer support, education and sharing of knowledge, information and empowerment. Peer empowerment as well as participatory action research has its roots in the women's movement in the development of feminist thought, feminist research and feminist action. Advantages include: the development of greater knowledge and awareness; the development of self esteem and self protection; the development of greater confidence which in turn enables the creation of better organised and more accountable support networks to function around the issues of violence, welfare rights, civil liberties, self protection, counselling and therapeutic services (POW! in O'Neill 1993).

Focussing upon peer led education and empowerment could create the intellectual and practical spaces for the voices of women involved in sex work (who are usually the 'subjects' of research) to be heard and listened to. Listening to these voices is part of the process of understanding that must accompany social change. Creating this space is also part of the 'democratisation' process involved in peer education as opposed to a hierarchical model based upon professional and non professional, teacher and taught, researcher and subject.

For example, take the work of POW! They give support, counselling and guidance on health, welfare and legal rights; they provide safe houses and ultimately a network of women working and not working in prostitution enabling peer support, peer education and peer empowerment. Work such as this must be supported in financial terms as well as practically and emotionally at local levels via groups such as our multi-agency forum and also at national and international levels.

Education and empowerment is not a process only operating between prostitutes, but is reflexive and can also take place between prostitutes and those working with and for them. Certainly peer led techniques could enable agencies working with and for women to better understand the issues, practicalities and emotions involved in doing prostitution. This has been my experience and the experience of those attending our multi-agency forum. Hopefully, this approach could also lead to policy changes around employment, housing, anti-poverty strategies, (through greater awareness and lobbying of concerned groups) as well as greater awareness regarding health, safety, and greater empowerment and self esteem for marginalised groups.

Our Forum took up the issue (mentioned earlier in the paper) of the local newspaper printing the names and addresses of women prosecuted for soliciting, with the editor of this paper. His answer was that if the women do not want their names and addresses printed they must say so in court and also fill out a form available in the reception of the newspapers offices. Since we contacted him there has been no further evidence of names and addresses appearing in print. This is one small but significant example of the possible outcomes of action research.

Outcomes of a formally organised network (local and national) of feminists and women working as prostitutes, around the issue of peer empowerment, could effect change in women centred ways. Such as: changes in policing violence against prostitutes (see Mavolwane S, Miller S, and Watson J 1989) (4); changes in the way courts deal with these women; changes in the activities of the criminal injuries compensation board (who militate against those with criminal records and particularly against female victims of rape and assault); changes in the street culture away from accepting or tolerating a level of violence; changes in the way the press and media deal with prostitute victims of violence; and `child centred' changes in the form, content and delivery of care to young people in the care of the local authority. These are all changes I look forward to given a co-ordinated feminist resistance and feminist challenge to sexual and social inequalities - as feminist praxis.
 

Conclusion

The reflexive relationship between methodology, experience and practice aimed at policy change has evolved alongside the development of relationship of trust and risk with women working as prostitutes within the context of a research process which is about developing 'knowledge for' as feminist praxis. This work is linked to resistance and empowerment: resistance to sexual and social inequalities; self empowerment, peer empowerment and social knowledge as a form of power. Within this context I have highlighted the terrible levels and experiences of sexual violence against women prostitutes and the dilemmas and ethical concerns for the feminist researcher. This work is part of an emerging model both nationally and internationally using feminist participatory research methods to work with women and children working in the sex industry. The need is to support, struggle and act against male violence against women in order to develop critical praxis via imminant critique.

Acknowldgements Thanks to Jill, Marrianne and Liz for sound editorial support, the chapter is much the better for it. Thanks also to the women who helped in the development of this work. The names of the women who talked to me about routes in to prostitution and experiences of sexual violence have been changed to protect confidentiality. I am indebted to Karen Hughes who enabled this work to happen and to all the members of the multi-agency forum.
 

Notes

(1) All the women's names have been changed. Some women chose their own name others were happy for me to create a new name for them. Not all the women were offered the option of choosing their own name due in part to the realities of researching on street. During most off street interviews women chose for themselves. Confidentiality and respect for their personal space was stressed at the outset of the initial pilot study and maintained throughout the later work.

(2) see O'Neill (1991) `Routes into Prostitution: poverty, homelessness and leaving care', conference paper given to: 'Crime, Justice and the Sex Industry', Nottingham Polytechnic, November 1991.

(3) see Hoigard and Finstad's (1992) section on the pimp, p160-172.

(4) Ann's narrative is reproduced more fully in 'Women at work: prostitution and feminism in the context of late modernity' PHOEBE, State University New York, Oneonta, USA, Vol 4, no 1, Spring 1992.

(4) The policing of street prostitution is currently in focus given: the meeting of the all parliamentary group on prostitution chaired by Diane Abbott; moves by Birmingham City Council to examine the setting up of zones of tolerence on the Utrecht model; calls from the `Soliciting for Change' forum, who hosted a national conference in Nottingham, September 1993, to de-criminalize prostitution; signs of an increasing relationship between prostitution and drugs, notably crack and crack related problems; the lack of national standards in dealing with street prostitution; and a series of murders in the East and West Midlands against prostitutes all bearing significant similarities.

Currently in the East Midlands the Anti-Vice squad operate a three pronged approach to street prostitution. Pimps and kerbcrawlers are prosecuted along with women soliciting on street. In 1993, 21 pimps were convicted for living off immoral earnings; 141 women were prosecuted for soliciting offences, the offences total 479 cases; and 85 kerbcrawlers were prosecuted. Between January and July 1994 10 juveniles were dealt with by the police. An increase in juvenile prostitution, specifically children from local authority care or having left local authority care and an increase in drug related prostitution with this group is encouraging the police anti-vice and drug squad to work more closely with residential units and senior managers in social services.

With the policing of street prostitution multi-agency action research is a valuable way of working out the key areas for policy oriented practice in a more holistic way and how such action might be enabled in partnership with the major agencies working with and for women and young people engaged in prostitution.
 

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