Written evidence submitted by Ms N
I came to the UK at age 16. I agreed to come knowing I would enter prostitution. Me and my boyfriend at the time, came together. He was going to work at something else. I came because my family had a bad situation. My father was violent to all of us including our mother. Even though we all had top marks at school he drank and beat us. I would have done anything to get away.
Once we arrived here everything was fine. I was working in a flat. I was almost 17. My boyfriend’s uncle’s partner was also working in prostitution so I had someone to talk to. After three months my boyfriend decided to go to Romania - he had some stuff to do. One night I had off from work and his uncle had a party. People were taking drugs, not me, I didn’t take any drugs or drink, I was just helping. The uncle asked me to go upstairs and make coffee and then he came into the kitchen and caught me around my neck and pulled me into the bedroom and raped me. After a while of the boys from the party realised I wasn’t there and came upstairs and bashed the door open and got me out and looked after me. I told my boyfriend what happened and he said I asked for it, that’s what his uncle had said, that I wanted to. So that ended the relationship with my boyfriend. .
I told the uncle’s girlfriend what happened. He had been violent to her as well, and we left together. Another girl we knew also wanted to leave the place she was working so the three of us rented a house together. A month later our house was broken into and trashed. While we were clearing up I discovered my boyfriend had taken my ID when he went to Romania. I met a client who was from the same city as I am. He wanted to marry me. He said he would sort it all out and within a week I got my ID back. I don’t know how, but whatever happened they deserved it.
I was really upset by everything and I hit the bottle and I hit the drugs - nothing to do with the prostitution, just to do with the fact I had wanted a better life. My heart had been broken through disappointment.
I would be considered a trafficking victim because I was brought from Romania even though I wouldn't consider myself that I was because I agreed to come with my boyfriend and then had the misfortune to end up in the hands of a violent rapist.
The criminalisation of clients would not have helped me in any way at all. If clients were criminalised they would be nervous of coming to the flat which would likely mean that the flat would have been in a more hidden away place and I would have found it more difficult to meet other people, find out what where I was and what I needed to do to get away from the men holding me. Trafficking is nothing to do with the clients. Sometimes they come forward to report that someone is trafficked and I have heard they were then prosecuted and nothing absolutely nothing happened to the trafficker. At various times clients are the ones that have been kind and helped me through with moral support.
Twice I was beaten up by a client even though I had a maid with me. She was also beaten up.
The first time he went after the maid, he was trying to get the money and I got in between them. He had a dog and a gun. He was outside in the hallway. I called the police, I gave all my details described what was going on, the operator said someone will be with you shortly. The maid had pushed the bolt of the front door in time. It was very strong and he would have had to break the door frame to get in.. I called the police again after an hour and again after another hour. No one ever came.
The second time I was in the bedroom with a client who was no problem. But as I let him out of the room he put his arm around my neck and beat me and I passed out. When he came out of the door without me the maid knew immediately something is wrong. She grabbed the phone to call the police and close the flat. He bashed her arm until she let go. He got away and she came and looked after me. The police never turned up. This was central London.
How could I ever trust those police to help me if I was trying to escape from a violent man that was holding me?
1) 'Whether criminal sanction in relation to prostitution should continue to fall more heavily on those who sell sex, rather than those who buy it.'
Neither. When two adults consent to have sex in exchange for money neither of them should be sanctioned. But if the buyer is violent towards me and when I call the police I want it to be treated as an assault
2) 'What the implications are for prostitution-related offences of the Crown Prosecution Service's recognition of prostitution as violence against women.'
Prostitution is not violence any more than being a bank clerk or nurse or a TFL representative. But in any of those other jobs, violence is dealt with immediately by the police and the CPS. In any job you might experience assault or verbal abuse. Whose fault is it that those who assault sex workers get away with it? I think it’s the police and CPS. They would rather prosecute the prostitute for prostitution than take the assault on her seriously.
3) 'What impact the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has had to date on trafficking for purposes of prostitution, what further action is planned, and how effectively the impact is being measured.'
They haven’t done anything to help real victims of trafficking I haven’t met any sex workers who are trafficked in the last year. But by your standards I am a victim of trafficking just because I’m a migrant sex worker.
For example in 2012 I was working in a flat, 15 police officers raided my premises there was only me and my receptionist which she was there for my safety. They banged on my door very hard, my receptionist opened the door and they all barged in. They took her on the side and then me into another room. They showed her the warrant.
From the first second they asked me my name and where I was coming from. Even though I speak very good English and I was answering in English, the Romanian police officers were translating whatever the English police officers were saying. Five minutes into the questioning I said to them to stop and I asked, Is he translating whatever you are saying by any chance or is it just me? Can’t you understand I don’t need a translator, I have English mathematics and IT, I don’t need a translator it is doing my head in. If I needed one I would ask for one myself. The translator walked out.
They were in my flat for around four hours For roughly two hours they questioned me about my life, my family, my life here, my life from the time I was little until I did this. The police said, so apart from this job many people beg steal and pickpocket, do you do this, I said no. Then they asked if I was a Gypsy.. Then they fingerprinted me. When they brought the machine to do this said, laughing, I want to see if you are a serial killer!
Then some of them started to search the sitting room and the bedroom, for drugs, alcohol, condoms, lubricant, porn. After all these questions and the whole flat was turned upside down, everything was everywhere. It was awful, everything was taken out of the cupboards and the fridge. Then one of them ripped off the sign on the door and ripped it up in small pieces and I said why did you do that? He said, because I want to. I asked him what I can do after you go, and he said you can work or you can go home. But how can I work if he’s ripped the sign off?
By this point I was starting to breathe heavily because they were pushing me around all the time. Then one of the lady police officers took me on the side. Everybody else walked away, it was just me and her talking. Then she asked me if I’m a trafficking victim and I said well I’m not a trafficking victim but you should have asked at the beginning not after 2 hours of humiliation. If I had been a trafficking victim that is the way to ask them, if they’re a trafficking victim. I’m sorry but let me take some medication. I was hardly able to breathe. She allowed me. Because of their behaviour I was having panic attacks and I felt I was going to pass out any minute.
Her next question was do you know anyone who is trafficked, do you know anyone else who is trafficked, do you know any gangs? I replied no. She asked me about my relationship with my mother and my father, what would they say if they found out. I said my father would kill me, does this mean you will contact my mother and my father, and she sort of no, I said that should be NO. I said I live with my cousin, his wife and their 2 daughters. When I am not here I do cooking, collect them from school, help them with their homework. At that time Romanians did not have the full right to work which I do have now. She did admit that after all this it is unlikely we will come into your premises.
They asked me how much I charged and where I keep the money and how much I made today. I took one of them to where I keep it and took the money and gave him the paper record of what I had earned. He said he wanted to count it and I said you can count it from what is recorded on the paper or you can give me a receipt and you can count the money. He didn’t say anything more. He knew I knew my rights. I knew to say this because the receptionist had warned me that if this ever happened, to ask for a receipt as it had happened to her. She said, if they take anything from you, money, jewellery, anything, to always ask for a receipt otherwise you won’t get it back.
In the middle of the time the men police officers were humiliating me and before the lady police officer questioned me about trafficking, the police had given me a letter in Romanian telling me to go to the police station in two weeks time to be deported. I only read it after they’d gone.
A client was in the bedroom when they came in and they asked him if he had ever seen me I used drugs. That was the only question they asked him and told him to go.
4)'Whether further measures are necessary, including legal reforms, to:'
- 'Assist those involved in prostitution to exit from it'
the only legal measures you need to get out of prostitution is to have your record wiped clean through decriminalisation so I can get another job if I want and when I want to.
-'Increase the extent to which exploiters are held to account'
The exploiters are those who I say when I come forward to report not as now when the police use the law to go after my partner or maybe my child if they are over 18 or my receptionist who is there for my safety.
- 'Discourage demand which drives commercial sexual exploitation'
That is a stupid question. I need my clients to be able to make a living. With what I earn I paid off my student debt, I pay my rent in London, my expenses on a daily basis, so yes I do need my clients. Hands off them.