Thread by @nordicmodelnow

🧵We will be live tweeting the second half of 'POWER PLAY: Is the Sex Industry REALLY empowering for women?' conference, in Coventey. The time is 3:30PM BST.

We welcome Esther to the stage. Esther has a longstanding interest in research on legal and public policy approaches to sexualised violence and domestic abuse. She uses her own experience of porn and prostitution to reflect on these issues.

Drawing on her inside knowledge of the sex industry and her extensive legal research, Esther will discuss the health and safety, employment, equality law and safeguarding implications of considering prostitution a regular job.

Can prostitution ever comply with employment laws and regulation practices? It can't , in short - Esther

"Prostiution is control of sex for money" - Esther

If you were looking on a job site this would the job specification for what is called "Full Service Prostitution - Esther

Some organisations purporting to speak for sex workers also involve pimps, so are trade organisations, not unions. They do not fight for pay or better working conditions. Traffickers want to increase demand and reduce pay to boost profits. - Esther

Esther shared health and safety risk assessment - detailing horrendous physical, mental and emotional risks that women who are prostituted are subjected to:

Esther outlines the ways in which prostitution would fail against Equality Act 2010, one aspect of which is protected characteristics. The sex industry fetishises characteristics such as race, class and religion.

Decriminalised sex industry in Germany tries to sell itself as a health service - yet keep women of different ethnicities on different floors in the mega brothels - Esther

Interviews with sex buyers show that the most likely thing to get them to stop is exposure. They need to be exposed and shamed for what they do - Esther

Progressives are promoting selling control of sex. They ‘other’ prostituted women. #PowerPlay - Esther

Our final speaker today is Kellie Ziemba. As someone with lived experience of sexual exploitation, both inside and outside of the sex industry, Kellie is passionate about the needs and rights of women and girls...

...Previously a strategic lead for a large rape crisis centre, she now leads an organisation that supports, advocates for, and empowers women subject to, or at risk of, sexual exploitation, including women involved in street-based prostitution.

Kellie will discuss the need to provide effective support services to women involved in prostitution and what this involves.

Kellie grew up with a father who bought sex all over the globe. A framed picture of him with two prostitutes on his arm hung in the living room, which her mother would have to dust. She was told by him that the best thing to do after leaving school was to become a prostitute.

Kellie got out of prostitution by being a service user. Step by step, with support of agencies, she was able to exit the sex industry by building a career.