General Meeting Motion 26/02/2019

Should the Students' Union adopt the motion to support students sex workers

This motion looks to support students who work in the sex work industry and refers (but is not limited) to escorting, lap dancing, stripping, pole dancing, pornography, web-camming, adult modelling, phone sex, and selling sex (on and off the street). 

This Union notes: 

1. Sex work refers (but is not limited) to escorting, lap dancing, stripping, pole dancing, pornography, web-camming, adult modelling, phone sex, and selling sex (on and off the street). 
2. Currently prostitution (the exchange of sexual services for money) is not illegal, but associated activities (soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, operating a brothel) are. These laws effectively criminalise sex workers, making the sex industry more dangerous for those within it.
3. Financial reasons, and any criminal record gain due to the criminalisation of sex work, are usually cited as the main reason for staying in sex work. 
4. The Student Sex Work project report (2015) showed that significant numbers of students are turning to sex work in order to avoid debt and cover basic living expenses. The increase is exacerbated by increased living costs, tuition fees and the loss of maintenance grants.
5. The NUS National Executive Council passed a policy to support the decriminalisation of sex work and to campaign against any attempt to introduce the Nordic Model (which criminalises the purchase of sex) into the UK. 
6. In August 2015, Amnesty International voted to adopt policy to protect human rights of sex workers. The resolution recommended that they develop a policy that supports the full decriminalisation of all aspects of consensual sex work. The policy will also call on states to ensure that sex workers enjoy full and equal legal protection from exploitation, trafficking and violence. 
7. Regardless of their reasons for entering into sex work, sex workers of all backgrounds deserve to have their rights protected.
8. Currently, sex workers in the UK can face expulsion from their universities under "morality clauses".

This Union believes: 

1. Sex work is work - sex work is the exchange of money for labour. 
2. With the rise in living costs, the increase in tuition fees, the attack on maintenance grants and the slashing of benefits for disabled people, it is highly likely that some students will do sex work alongside their studies. 
3. The criminalisation of sex workers’ clients has been proven to lead to further distrust of the police amongst sex workers, and a willingness of sex workers to engage in more risky behaviour/safety procedures out of desperation. Pushes for this kind of legislation, known as the "Nordic Model" are often spearheaded by anti-choice, anti-LGBT+, right-wing fundamentalist groups.
4. Often this kind of legislation is brought forward in the name of anti-trafficking programmes, when in reality they are laws which aim to limit bodily autonomy and feed into dangerous anti-immigration initiatives.
5. Decriminalisation would ensure that sex workers feel able to report unsafe clients or violence at work without the worry of criminal repercussions, work together for safety, and that those who wish to leave the sex industry are not left with criminal records as a result of their job. 
6. Student sex workers should be protected and supported on campus and at university, and not face discrimination, harassment, or disciplinary action as a result of their jobs.

This Union resolves: 

1. To support and campaign for the full decriminalisation of sex work. 
2. To campaign against any attempt to introduce the Nordic Model into the UK. 
3. To support and be led by sex worker led organisations, such as the English Collective of Prostitutes, the Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM), X:Talk, and Decrim Now, who work to improve the lives of sex workers across the UK.
4. To object to any disciplinary action carried out against student sex workers as a result of their jobs. 
5. To commit to including and listening to student sex workers as part of the student community.

Proposer - Molly Arthurs

Seconders - Marcelina Rejwerska, Tobias Horkan, Niall Murphy