My name is Audrey, and I’ve been a sex worker for the past five years. I know firsthand how the cost of living crisis is affecting sex workers - I’m personally feeling the pressure to see clients I would normally refuse, or to provide services that I usually would not, just to be able to eat and keep a roof over my head.

I’ve always struggled with my mental health, but after leaving an abusive relationship, the lasting toll it took on my health and wellbeing left me barely able to function. I had to leave my job, and started sex work as it was the only work that allowed me the flexibility to work around my health and still pay my rent.

I found the majority of mainstream jobs were inaccessible to me - it’s hard to hold down a 9-5, five days a week, when incapacitating depression and panic attacks left me unable to even get out of bed.

I’m finding the cost of living crisis terrifying already, as we’re not even in the thick of winter yet and I am struggling to see a way in which I’ll survive it without incurring crippling debt. My work has noticeably slowed down, with fewer clients, and the clients who remain are already trying to pay less money. At the same time, my energy and food bills have increased and my rent is extortionate.

One of the main challenges I face as a sex worker is the potential risk of violence - not because sex work is inherently dangerous, but as a direct consequence of it being both criminalised and heavily stigmatised. The law in the UK forces me to work in isolation, as two sex workers are not legally allowed to work together indoors for safety. It’s also illegal for women to work on the street, which means that they’re pushed to work in dark, deserted areas in order to avoid harassment from the police.

If we are assaulted at work, many sex workers feel unable to turn to the police out of fear of being further stigmatised, or because it’s the police who enforce the laws that put us at so much risk. Two years ago, when I was assaulted by a client, I tried to report it to the police and I was laughed out of the station. The officer asked me: ‘Isn’t violence just an expected part of your job?’

Together with sex worker-led organisations in the Hookers Against Hardship campaign, I’m calling on the government to decriminalise sex workers working on the street or together with others indoors. During a cost of living crisis, when many more people (particularly mothers) will be going into sex work, the law should not be endangering sex workers who are just trying to make ends meet. We also need anti-poverty measures so that we can leave prostitution if we want to - and to prevent people from having to start sex work in the first place.

Please sign the petition if you agree that the government must decriminalise sex work, to protect sex workers from danger and harm.

You can find out more about the Hookers Against Hardship campaign and our other demands of government here: https://decrimnow.org.uk/hookers-against-hardship/