Rising Cost of Living in UK Pushes More Women into Prostitution

Tuesday, 18 October 2022 10:46 AM 

A British woman carries shopping bags as she walks along a pedestrianised street, in Bolton, Britain. (Via Reuters)

A new report shows that more British women have been pushed into prostitution in the United Kingdom, as a cost-of-living crisis deepens in the country.

Charities and prostitutes’ collectives across Britain reported an increase in people starting or returning to prostitution this year as annual consumer price inflation runs at about 10 percent amid soaring food and fuel prices, Reuters says.

The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), a network of current and former prostitutes campaigning for decriminalization, registered a 30-percent rise in the number of callers seeking support for starting prostitution in June.

The Beyond the Streets, a charity working with women to end sexual exploitation and prostitution, said it had seen women returning to prostitution, or doing more of it.

The Manchester Action on Street Health (MASH), a charity that supports prostitutes, recorded over 100 new service users between December 2021 and April 2022. The figure marked the highest number of new clients the charity has seen during a three-month period in four years.

That comes as a recent survey by insurer Royal London revealed that more than five million British workers have rushed to take a second job to ease the cost of living as real pay for workers dropped at the highest rate since 2001 this spring amid soaring prices that continue to outpace pay rises.

A new poll shows that half of Britons said the war on Ukraine and corporate profiteering are major factors in the rising of cost of living. 45% also said that the UK government’s failure to take strong action has been a major factor in the crisis.

British shoppers are stocking up on electric blankets, candles and energy-efficient slow cookers.

Meanwhile, citing new data, The Guardian on Tuesday reported that millions of people in the UK were forced to skip meals or go a whole day without eating in recent months.

The deepening crisis left nearly one in five low-income families experiencing food insecurity in September, according to the Food Foundation charity.

The charity also noted that hunger levels have more than doubled since January.

The rise in prices comes as Europe has been grappling with a severe energy crisis since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine on February 24.