{"id":47363,"date":"2018-12-14T13:32:07","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T13:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=47363"},"modified":"2018-12-14T13:32:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T13:32:07","slug":"inpoverty-then-and-now-the-link-between-poverty-and-prostitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2018\/12\/14\/inpoverty-then-and-now-the-link-between-poverty-and-prostitution\/","title":{"rendered":"#InPoverty: Then and now, the link between poverty and prostitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout history and to this day, poverty is often the underlying cause of prostitution. Looking back, we see very little has changed<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"

For many women in Wales, prostitution is less of a choice than a response to difficult living conditions.<\/span> Studies show that as sex workers, women are often confronted by dangerous situa<\/span>tions, suffer daily abuse and are exploited.<\/span><\/p>\n

On November 25, the UN started a 16-day campaign<\/a> to end violence against women\u00a0and to get their voices heard with the #hearmetoo movement<\/span>.<\/b> UN Women explains, \u201cFor far too long, impunity, silence and stigma have allowed violence against women to escalate.\u201d And who has suffered more from stigma than the women working in prostitution? <\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go all the way back to 1861. We\u2019re in Swansea Town Hall and Joseph Harding, advocate for women\u2019s protection, is making a speech in front of a predominantly male audience. He\u2019s talking about prostitution. <\/span><\/p>\n

He calls it \u00a0\u201cA great social evil\u201d and says women become prostitutes for two main reasons: naivety or moral corruption.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Despite what he and others might have thought, prostitution in late nineteenth-century Wales stemmed in fact from a more practical and urgent need. Many women regarded it as a means to an end, an addition to their small earnings from day jobs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Judith Walkowitz, a historian on Great Britain, explains: \u201cMilliners, dressmakers, tailoresses, domestic servants, laundresses: young women would rarely earn more than six to eight shillings a week, barely half what a male day labourer would earn.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon Jenkins, a historian who has focused his work on prostitution in Cardiff says: \u201cVery few people in this time understood the underlying reasons behind prostitution. They thought it was all due bad morals and drink.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

History’s forgotten women: The life of Dorcas Carr<\/strong><\/p>\n