To browse Academia. It adds to pervious research which established a need for countywide services to be available Gummerson, and extends our knowledge by including the views of sex workers as well as professionals who support sex workers.
The aims of the research were to explore, as far as is possible with such a hidden population, the extent of sex working across Norfolk in order to identify where services should be focused. Additionally to examine, with sex workers, their experiences and their perspectives on the support they have received and the support they would like to receive in order to determine what support services need to be provided across the county. Although prevalence in the UK is unclear, sex work and sexual exploitation exists in most towns and cities Home Office, Historically society's view that 'they' are 'unlike us' has determined how sexually exploited children and young people and adult sex workers have been perceived, treated and perceived themselves.
Involvement in sex work is a pathway mainly negotiated through physical and emotional risks and the risk of the stigma of public condemnation. Due to its hidden nature, the numbers of people involved in selling sex in the UK can only be estimated Home Office, Legal and moral responses are often based on contradictory perspectives of those involved as 'sad' or 'bad', 'victim' or 'criminal', not on an understanding of the structural disadvantages affecting many who become involved in selling sex, nor on childhood experiences of adversity and maltreatment which impact on identity and choice Dodsworth, ; Sanders, Sex workers' narratives indicate a complex picture, in which there is a differing balance of agency and victimhood throughout their life pathways, from the impact of childhood experiences to the experiences, relationships and wider structural factors impacting on them as adults.
Taking too polarised a position by, for example, only seeing those involved as victims, risks denying the possibility of self-determination to such a degree that women's voices are ignored or silenced in the debate about effective ways forward.
Members include groups led by sex workers themselves, children's charities, organisations managed by health authorities, HIV and sexual health-services, and agencies with a religious ethos. This paper presents a comprehensive typology of the sex industry based on primary data collected between and for a UK Home Office-funded study.
