The English Collective of Prostitutes has renewed its call for prostitution to be fully decriminalised, claiming it will make women safer.

Tabitha Morton, spokesperson for the Women’s Equality Party said,

“We agree with the English Collective of Prostitutes that this government’s damaging austerity agenda has disproportionately made women poorer and therefore more vulnerable to being exploited through prostitution.

“The response to this fact is not to decriminalise the purchase of women’s bodies and make it easier for men to buy them.

“The response is to enact the end of austerity promised by the Prime Minister and to actively invest in women by investing in the sectors women are more likely to be employed by; social care, health care, childcare. The Women’s Budget Group has shown that investment in care makes economic sense both for women and for the economy.

“The response is to lift women out of poverty and out of prostitution by decriminalising the selling and soliciting to sell sex and funding the exit services that would support the vast majority of prostituted women who want to exit to do so.

“To respond by decriminalising the buying of sex leaves women with a life no woman would choose. That is not moralising about prostitution, it is recognising that when one woman can be commodified in this way, all women can.”