'Often the last option': Debate over sex work laws as charities warn more women are entering industry

Nightfall in Bristol and volunteers at One25 are stocking up their van for the evening.

Inside: Condoms, knickers, sandwiches, and teabags. The service is one of many that have been set up by charities across the country to support women selling sex on the streets.

As many as 140 women do so in Bristol on any given night. They are among the most vulnerable women in an industry where experiences can vary dramatically.

"We're going to where the women are actually working, so we're meeting their needs where they're at," said Tracey Tudor, a services manager, sitting in the front seat of the van. "We offer a safe haven, a safe space for women to have some respite from the street sex work." Women can come inside to access food and hot drinks or clean needles and underwear.  Sometimes they just need a place to charge their phone, but other times they may be escaping sexual violence.

'They don't want to be out here' "This is often the last option that women will choose," Tracey said. "They don't want to be out here.

If we had a better sort of system socially and economically, access to benefits, access to housing, access to health, it would be a perfect world." Many of the women One25 works with have long-standing issues, whether that's addiction or homelessness - sometimes both. Some may be pimped or trafficked, others will have come to this work as a last resort.

The charity has seen a 76% increase in demand for the service over the last two years. It is difficult to be precise about all the factors driving women into sex work.

However, charities across the country say rising hardship, driven by the cost of living crisis, is causing more women to enter or re-enter the industry. Dramatic increase in sex adverts, say support workers At Changing Lives, Merseyside, support workers have noted a dramatic increase in sex adverts in the city.

"A year ago, we had about 180 online sex ads for Merseyside at any one time. Today, 1,400," said Sarah Clarke, a manager.  The flow of women into the industry has added greater urgency to the debate on the laws surrounding sex work.

It is an arena that hosts passionate views on all sides, and the diversity of the industry complicates the search for neat solutions. The selling of sexual services is not illegal but soliciting in public and brothel-keeping are.

Sex workers can face criminal penalties like fines or prostitute cautions, which stay on record until the age of 100. Some campaigners, including former and current Labour MPs, say the government should remove sanctions on sex workers but clamp down on those who buy sex, criminalising the demand for services in transactions they say are inherently exploitative.

A similar model is in place in Sweden, Norway and Finland. 'They aren't in a safe situation' Baroness Thangam Debbonaire, a former Labour MP for Bristol West, said: "We have to legislate in a way that protects the largest number of people from the largest amount of harm.

"There will always be exceptions to any law, however, at the moment, they aren't in a safe situation, and they are also vulnerable to be criminalised for somebody else's behaviour and that makes me really angry. "I don't think the existing laws are satisfactory, but to legalise the demand side, to leave it legalised because effectively it mostly is, leaves men in a position of power." She added: "I know there will be women watching this who will say, 'I've done it and I wasn't unsafe', and I respect that difference of experience.

"But I have also listened to many women who have exited prostitution and I have looked at the research amongst survivors of prostitution who say there was no safe way and whether or not it was legal, that did not affect if it was safe in the room, in the car, on the street when they were in that transactional situation." 'The laws around sex work need to change' However, many are unconvinced by that argument, including Audrey, a sex worker who has been working in a brothel in Bristol for the past year. She says targeting buyers would only drive sex work further underground, making it more unsafe for women.  She says the buying and selling of sex should be decriminalised.

"The laws around sex work need to change. It needs to be decriminalised so sex workers are able to organise for our own safety.