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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Other areas of social welfare law  →  Thread

UNiversal Credit and Survival Sex/Prostitution  

Rehousing Advice.
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Homeless Unit - Southampton City Council

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Joined: 16 June 2010

https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/select-committee-hears-evidence-that-universal-credit-is-causing-more-women

This is a argument that will run.

However, what is being missed is that awkward Grey Zone…

Woman and young men who are not prostitutes, who because of UC delays, LHAs etc (and also being afraid of staying in hostels), ....are staying with inappropriate people and then ending up having survival sex. 

Benny Fitzpatrick
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Welfare Rights Officer, Southway Housing Trust, Manchester

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Personally I don’t see how this argument can be evidenced accurately.  I also think it is merely a part of a bigger issue, namely, the extent to which the black economy as a whole is related to Welfare Reform.

Owen_Stevens
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UC Adviser, CPAG

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I’ve just come across this: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/842920/Prostitution_and_Sex_Work_Report.pdf

“Our sense from the data that we have collected and from reviewing existing research is that a substantial proportion of individuals (mainly women and trans women) are selling sex to get by financially, given different constraints in their lives around caring responsibilities, physical and mental health, lack of access to social security benefits and support
services, workplace discrimination, or other reasons.”

This work was commissioned by the Home Office and the Office of the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner and was the work referenced in DWP’s submission to the WPSC inquiry on survival sex (see the annex to the report): https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201919/cmselect/cmworpen/83/83.pdf