‘A Particular Kind of Job’

The Programme for Reform of the Law on Soliciting and the British Women’s Liberation Movement’s stance of sex work

Abstract

The Programme for the Reform of the Law on Soliciting (PROS), active between 1976 and 1982, campaigned for the legalisation and destigmatising of sex work in Britain. Their campaign started, and thus centred on Birmingham and the Midlands, but quickly expanded to Britain’s major cities, including Bristol, Manchester, and Sheffield. This article examines their grassroots organising for political and legal change, effected most obviously in 1979 when PROS were consulted by the House of Commons Expenditure Committee. PROS negotiated not only cultural prejudices against sex workers but the illegality of soliciting, demonstrating their ability to work across a large section of society, gaining support from a number of organisations, whilst including lawyers, social workers, and probation officers alongside sex workers on their committee. Their focus on improving sex workers’ rights also led them to a contentious relationship with the British Women’s Liberation Movement (BWLM), and although sex work was not considered a high priority by the movement’s socialist-feminist strand, this article argues that PROS engaged with the BWLM at certain strategic points to improve their campaigning position, and thus the legal status of sex workers, at a provincial, grassroots level.

Funding Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant number: AH/R012776/1).