Skip to main content
Advertise Buy the paper Contact us Shop Subscribe Support us
Daughters of the working class deserve better than the mantra ‘sex work is work’
Marxists’ and leftwingers’ opposition to prostitution is not a moral question — it’s a class issue and a human rights issue, argues HELEN O’CONNOR

PROSTITUTION is one of the worst forms of human exploitation and, although some men and boys are exploited in this way, it remains the case that the vast majority of those trapped in the sex trade are women and girls. 

The existence of prostitution is not a form of work, it is a social ill and research has consistently shown that prostitution increases in societies that have high levels of inequality and where economies are unstable. 

Existing TUC policy affirms that prostitution is inherently exploitative. This would echo the views of most workers who instinctively hate and fear the idea of themselves or their families being forced into prostitution via economic necessity. 

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 2 June 2023
2 June 2023
From sexual harassment to the denial of flexible working patterns, women’s issues are sidelined and their voices silenced in our movement – and they are voting with their feet, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
Features / 16 January 2023
16 January 2023
Divorcing doctors, as the first line of our universal healthcare system, from the NHS by turning them into salaried employees is an obvious move towards further privatisation, writes HELEN O’CONNOR
Features / 16 November 2022
16 November 2022
HELEN O'CONNOR says the Autumn Statement risks confirming a disastrous strategy that has bled the health service white
Features / 3 November 2022
3 November 2022
Rather than ending the current strike wave and endorsing Blairite neoliberalism instead, calling for a general election now and a getting a Labour government in would put the workers’ movement in a better position to leverage our power, argues HELEN O’CONNOR
Similar stories
TUC 2024 / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
Women need access to meaningful and properly paid work, not coercion into the abusive and dangerous sex industry, write LUBA FEIN and HELEN O’CONNOR
Features / 24 June 2024
24 June 2024
The Communist Party of Britain issues the following public statement on prostitution
Features / 19 June 2024
19 June 2024
Is the United Nations finally recognising that the sex trade is a form of exploitation and a breach of human rights? LUBA FEIN welcomes a new report which suggests that might be the case