Home Office launches ‘Sex For Rent’ Consultation
21 April 2023
The Government has today announced that it is considering creating a new law to explicitly outlaw so-called “sex for rent”, in which predatory landlords look to exploit potential tenants – often young women – by offering them a room in exchange for providing sexual services. Ministers have announced a ten-week consultation and have encouraged anyone with evidence about the prevalence and nature of sex for rent to come forward.
Through our work as the UK’s leading sex worker support charity, NUM has particular expertise in relation to this issue. We know that sex workers can experience situations in which, through financial and other constraints, they face pressure to cohabit with a client, or enter into a house share with people in exchange for sexual services. Others are in more strategic working and living arrangements in which they engage in legal sex industry work, while also providing sexual favours to landlords, property owners and lease holders.
Sex workers engage in various forms of living and working arrangements, that can include shacking up with a client or living in house shares among people who they are obligated to provide sex to as an alternative to the street. Others are in more strategic working and living arrangements in which they engage in legal sex industry work, while also providing sexual favours to landlords and lease holders.
Unfortunately, due to the criminalisation of sex workers, and their lack of labour rights and protections, anyone who is aware of their sex working can potentially extort them. This includes landlords, neighbours and others.
Dr. Raven Bowen, NUM’s CEO, shared her thoughts on the issue: “We must recognise that sex for rent is unfortunately a housing strategy, and any interventions must first provide safe and affordable housing to those affected, only then will it be safe for victims to report landlords. Reporting victimisation leads to financial insecurity, instability and homelessness for many survivors, and we have to take up a ‘support and housing first’ approach, providing immediate resources and alternative housing if we are to have any success in stamping out this exploitation. Enforcement is important, but cannot be the first or only funded response, as this will lead to more scrutiny for marginalised individuals seeking tenancies, increased housing discrimination towards populations like sex workers and people who use drugs, increased exploitation and homelessness.”
We expect this consultation to inform us of current lived experiences of sex for rent, and remind us of some things that we already know related to the housing crisis and poverty, such as structural inequity and the lack of high quality, safe and affordable housing. We know that there are also documented disparities among populations such as the poor and working classes, people of colour, the disabled and migrants, who are disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living and fuel crises.
We need to overhaul our national housing strategies; improve the quality of housing stock; work with developers to mandate the building of affordable quality housing; ensure that this housing is accessible to those who need it; and to make landlord-tenants complaints processes work for sex for rent victims. Our racial justice project has been examining the harms that sex workers of colour in particular can face by those in positions of public trust, including landlords. More information about this and the associated reporting form will be shared in the coming months.
Hookers Against Hardship recently called for rent controls for the whole of the UK, and a moratorium on evictions as part of what is necessary to end destitution experienced by sex workers. Trading sex for rent is a means to avoid worse predicaments such as homelessness and strategies must lead to improved material conditions in the living situations of the most vulnerable. This has already been discussed as part of the DWP exploration of Universal Credit and “Survival Sex”,
Dan Wilson Craw of Generation Rent said, “Given the unparalleled access landlords have to tenants’ personal spaces and lives, and the scale of the issue, this consultation is necessary in ensuring that everyone, especially the most vulnerable among us, has access to a safe and secure home, free from harassment and exploitation.”
The English Collective of Prostitutes said, “There is a massive housing crisis in the UK exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis, rising poverty, low wages, lack of social housing and property being used for speculation and profiteering rather than to accommodate people…Any legislation outlawing “sex for rent” will be an occasion for increased surveillance against sex workers. Sex workers face high levels of homelessness and are discriminated against in the housing market.”
We encourage sex workers to read the ECP Action Alert, and for those who would like to share their experiences as part of this consultation, click here. We look forward to working within our communities to inform future government strategies.
This statement was updated on 22nd May 2023 to add additional resources from ECP.