Planned memorial aims at ‘dignified remembrance’ of women of St Pauli detained as perverts under the Nazis Sex workers in Hamburg’s historic red-light district who were persecuted under Adolf Hitler are to get their own memorial at Herbertstraße, a notorious street in Germany’s second city still blocked off to all but sex workers and their clients. Few people, even residents, know that it was the Nazis who built the world-famous gates around the row of “houses of pleasure” in an attempt to shame sex workers while discreetly keeping business going ..read more

Alex Chalk urges local council where racing festival takes place to stop granting licences to such venues The presence of pop-up strip clubs at Cheltenham is making women feel “threatened and intimidated” at one of Britain’s biggest race festivals, the justice secretary has said. Alex Chalk, the MP for Cheltenham, challenged the local council to stop granting licences to so-called sexual entertainment venues (SEVs ..read more

As a judgmental 10-year-old, I was shocked and ashamed when I walked in on Mam with a client. Decades later, I realised what a remarkable woman she was I think I was about 10 years old when I discovered my mother was a sex worker. I arrived home one afternoon from school and caught her at work. Hearing sounds I vaguely associated with sex, I let myself in, then quietly straight back out again. I wasn’t actually sure what I knew for quite a while. Eventually, I put it together: an unusually high level of phone calls, whispered conversations in the hall and a too-young viewing of the film Pretty ..read more

Trial drew attention to violence faced by sex workers in city, where the cases of four women killed in 1990s remain unresolved Police Scotland is examining several unsolved murders of women in Glasgow after the trial of the serial rapist and killer Iain Packer highlighted the horrific levels of violence facing sex workers in the city. Packer was sentenced to at least 36 years in prison last Wednesday for the murder of Emma Caldwell in 2005 and a catalogue of other sexual and violent offences, including 11 rapes ..read more

Outreach groups say sex workers are unwilling to report violence to police, with doubts about how they will be treated Nearly 20 years after Emma Caldwell’s brutal murder, sex workers still face horrific levels of violence that they are unwilling to report to the police, outreach groups have told the Guardian. The trial of Iain Packer, who was jailed for 36 years on Wednesday for Caldwell’s murder in 2005 and a catalogue of sexual violence against 22 other vulnerable women, exposed chronic police failings in their dismissive attitude towards women selling sex as well as normalised violence fro ..read more

Britain’s most famous madam talked cupboards, whips, mild humiliation and the feature film she believed she had inspired On 15 March 1987, as Personal Services – the film strenuously asserted not to be based on her life – hit cinemas, the Observer met ‘unlikely national heroine’ Cynthia Payne. ‘Madame Cyn’ firmly believed she had inspired it and the article was illustrated with eye-catching stills of Julie Walters as ‘Christine’ and her most outré clients. Like a talented scaffolder, Mrs P provided erections for the old, the ugly and infirm, the article explained, if any context were needed. P ..read more

Frances Harper had never used a video camera before. But at the age of 60, lying in the bath, she heard a story that changed her life One morning in 2007, Frances Harper was taking a bath and listening to the local news on BBC Radio Suffolk when one story caught her attention. A young woman, Louise, was being interviewed about her life as a sex worker in Ipswich. “I couldn’t see how this interview was helping her situation at all,” says Harper, who was 60 at the time. “I got out of the bath and made some notes. I realised she needed a documentary to tell her story properly and I thought perhap ..read more

Story of garment worker’s ordeal in Bangladesh, where she works in a factory producing clothes for brands including Tesco, Matalan and Next, shines light on low factory wages Every night, Ruby Rafiq* lies awake on the cold, hard floor of her small room, worrying how her family will survive the winter. Curled up next to her under a large patchwork blanket donated by a charity is her 13-year-old daughter, Maya. The mother of two waits for her children to fall asleep before quietly creeping out of the house. Wrapped in a shawl, she heads to the market down by the Buriganga River in Keraniganj, on ..read more

A ‘vicious’ multibillion-yen system is pushing vulnerable young women who rack up extortionate bills into prostitution Yuko’s 24-year-old daughter thought she had found the ideal partner when she matched with a man on a dating app three years ago. They were around the same age and both at university, where he was studying medicine. The “match”, though, was the beginning of a nightmare that saw the young woman rack up debts of millions of yen at host clubs – money that she is paying back by dropping out of university and working in Japan’s commercial sex industry ..read more

In devastating land and livelihoods, Cyclone Freddy pushed more women and girls into prostitution to feed their families It has been nine months since Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded, struck Malawi twice in six days. The cyclone triggered floods and landslides across the country, killing more than 1,000 people and displacing nearly 700,000. For Grace*, a 29-year-old subsistence farmer from Najawa in the ravaged southern Machinga district, the damage was life-changing. “The water destroyed our home and our crops. I had one acre of maize and two plots of rice ..read more