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On speaking terms
English language lessons for migrant women working in the UK sex industry aim to tackle exploitation by clients and bosses
Diane Taylor
Wednesday July 25 2007
The Guardian


A group of foreign women who sell sex in London have turned their hand to teaching English - but the words they are imparting to their students are unlikely to feature in tourist phrase books. The classes are aimed at migrants working in London's sex industry and phrases such as "I do not do anything without a condom" are required learning.

The capital's sex industry is booming and around 80% of women involved in off-street work - going to flats, escorting, working in saunas and strip clubs - are thought to be migrants. Brazilians, Thais and eastern Europeans dominate, although Chinese women are increasingly becoming involved.

Many foreign sex workers struggle to string a sentence together when they are negotiating prices and sexual acts with clients. When men put pressure on them to provide sex acts without a condom, it is much harder to refuse when they are unable to cajole punters into accepting something safer. The language barrier means they also fail to secure themselves the best possible deals and working conditions with brothel owners.

Fake visas

Debt bondage comes with its own set of problems, particularly among women from south-east Asian countries who have travelled to the UK to work in the sex industry. They pay an agent a fee of around £20,000-£30,000 for an air ticket and a visa, which is often fake, and then work off their debt in a brothel. Some women continue to work in the industry after they have paid their debt, to send money home to their families.

Alice (not her real name), a 25-year-old Australian who is in London studying for her masters in post-colonial theory, is the brainchild of the language classes. She says: "There are some pretty horrific stories of exploitation among women in debt bondage ... These women are asking for their conditions to be different."

Alice also works as an escort, commanding rates of between £200 and £350 an hour. She is involved in the International Union of Sex Workers and formed a group with 14 other women - many of whom are working in the industry - to set up the classes. "Women are [working in the sex industry] for the money, not because they like meeting four or five strange men a day," she says.

Those behind the "x:talk" project believe in "the autonomy of all people moving across borders and the dignity of every gender employing their resources in the sex industry". The organisation's website says: "Central to our understanding of gender and social relations is an understanding of sex work as labour ...". x:talk aims to create an open and critical space to collectively organise and empower workers in the sex industry and to encourage and support critical interventions into discourses about gender, labour, migration and human rights.

The idea of the language classes first came to Alice when she sold sex in flats and realised that some of the migrant women she worked alongside, both those in debt bondage and those working independently, were unable to talk their way out of sex acts they did not want to perform. "During down times, when we were waiting for bookings, I found myself giving impromptu English lessons to these women," Alice says.

The teachers secured a modest grant from the Feminist Review Trust grant-giving body, and a central London hospital that provides a health service for sex workers offered a venue.

All 15 places on the 12-week pilot course have been taken, and the students include women from Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Thailand. They have been learning vocabulary to describe their appearance, how to negotiate working hours, and how to handle conflict situations, such as telling a man they will not kiss him or have sex without a condom.

"We wanted to develop a project to improve the working conditions of migrants in the sex industry," Alice says. "Our aim is to give women the skills to get out of certain situations they may not want to be in. So much of sex work involves language, and not having language stops people from negotiating with bosses and clients."

Jane Ayres, manager of a central London NHS sexual health project for sex workers, welcomes the new initiative. "A significant number of migrant sex workers come to Britain with little or no English, and without language you can't negotiate," she says.

Ayres adds that migrant sex workers with precarious immigration status are reluctant to report sexual assaults from punters because they fear that going to the police will hasten their deportation. Perpetrators often know that this group of women are soft targets.

Support system

As well as teaching the sex workers English, the classes aim to provide a support system for this group, who are often isolated and are concealing the nature of their work from friends in Britain and family back home. They also enable foreign women to "network" with others in the industry. Ayres says: "Traditionally, women in the sex industry have supported each other, passing on information about dangerous punters, but migrants don't get this information."

One of the key components of the course is how to make small talk with punters. "The more the women can talk to the men, the less time they have to spend having sex with them," says Alice.

· For more information email xtalk.classes at googlemail.com or visit xtalkproject.net

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