Another Way - Violence, safety planning and breaking barriers to get support
We met Zara Wynn, a support worker at Edinburgh-based service Another Way, which specialises in supporting women who sell sex in different settings such as the streets, saunas and online.
In this interview, we discuss the risks and harms that women selling sex can face in different settings, their support needs and removing barriers for women to disclose the abuse they’ve experienced and get the support they need.
Can you start by telling us what is the Another Way service and why it was created?
Another Way is part of the organisation SACRO and it has been running for over 15 years. We support women who are involved or have been involved in the selling or exchanging of sex, whether that is street prostitution, the saunas in Edinburgh or women who are selling sex online. Occasionally women that have worked in the strip bars and lap dancing bars may come into the service, but that's not quite as common. We work closely with other services and agencies like the police, NHS, sexual health teams, substance misuse and homelessness services.
Originally SACRO was a support service for people in the criminal justice system because they were imprisoned or facing prison. Previously when women involved in selling sex were criminalised they would end up within the criminal justice system and would be referred to SACRO. That’s how Another Way was formed. As times have changed, attitudes towards women selling sex have also changed. In the understanding of gender-based violence and commercial sexual exploitation, Another Way focuses on safety and harm reduction for women and advocating for their needs.
We work to help women be as safe as possible and to give them more control over what they are doing and what they are experiencing. We are not geared up to make women exit, we don’t tell women they can’t sell sex. If women ever do want to exit, if they want to reduce how much they are involved in selling sex or even to change the way in which they sell sex, those are things that we can help them work out while making sure they have access to support.
What services does Another Way offer?
We run outreach services to meet with the women where they are. We cover quite a lot of aspects because of the situations that the women are facing - selling sex can make it very difficult for women to engage with many services.
We have the street-based outreach, which runs in the late evening once a week down in the Leith area where women are street-based in Edinburgh. The outreach allows them to pop into the service, access resources, have a chat with workers, have a cup of coffee, pick up some toiletries, condoms, things like that. This is a good way for us to get to know the women and introduce ourselves.
We also go into the saunas in Edinburgh alongside the NHS. There we again introduce ourselves and provide women with condoms and other supplies and we use that opportunity to direct them to the Wishes clinic which is a trauma-informed clinic focusing on sexual health especially created for women. The women can also meet us at the clinic and get a little chat to build up that relationship so they have someone they can come to for further support as and when they need it.
Finally, we do drop-ins at the GP service in Edinburgh for women who are homeless and don't have an address, we go into other homelessness groups and any other women’s only spaces where we can introduce ourselves to women who may be involved in selling sex or at risk.
When women come to Another Way after experiencing abuse, how does your service support them?
Initially, we offer them a space to talk about it. A big problem is that if the women experience violence, threats or intimidation, they can’t go to a service to seek help because of the fear of having to out themselves.
When they come to us and talk about it, many times they'll say that they don't want to pursue, they don't want to report anything, but we always make sure that they know that’s an option. We would also offer to report on their behalf, even if it was just to raise it as a concern or information-sharing with the police. Additionally, we ask if they have downloaded the Ugly Mugs app, and if they haven’t we offer to put up the incident form if that’s what they want. If they have access to medical services, we offer to go along to that service and get checked. If they don’t want to do that, then we offer them an emotional support so they have someone to talk to about what's happened.
In the Edinburgh area we work quite closely and quite well with the police. Here we have a Prostitution Liaison Officer who is very good at chatting to the women. She does walks for the women who are on the street and introduces herself. Again, we can offer to the women to speak to that police officer in particular and run the incident past her, see if she can give us any advice on how can we pursue this. We have done training with the police over the years as well and made them aware of the women that we work with and what they're experiencing day-to-day. And because we have those conversations, it means the report can be done quite informally in a non-threatening way. We can ask the police things like not to wear a uniform when they are going to interview, picking somewhere women feel comfortable to meet, things like that.
The aim is to break down barriers and obstacles that may be in the way that would prevent women from coming forward and talking about their experiences and wanting to report. For a lot of women reporting may not be an option, but it creates an environment where, if they did want to report, it could seem a lot more do-able to them and a bit less daunting.
In your experience, what are some of the main safety issues that women selling or exchanging sex experience?
I think a big one is probably historical trauma. So many of the women that we meet, not all but many, carry huge levels of trauma going back into their childhood that they’ve never addressed or the outcomes of reporting have not been positive experiences. This means they became adults who continue to experience high levels of trauma predominantly at the hands of men through domestic abuse, exploitative partners and friends.
Many women talk about friendships/partners they describe as being quite safe, but when you are on the professional end of it, you see flags about those relationships being quite exploitative and controlling. Especially if women are selling sex and other people are benefiting, be that financially, supporting another person’s drug use, paying their rent, etc. These issues come up for a lot of the women that we work with.
In Edinburgh there is not enough secure tenancies and many women selling sex are living in temporary accommodation, B&Bs, hostels, sofa surfing or private lets which are substandard quality and expensive (if they are not receiving help to pay rent).
When it comes to selling sex, women see issues around consent, what they are agreeing to and what they then have to provide, boundary pushing by buyers. In recent years, we have heard of women repeatedly experiencing stealthing (the removal of a condom without consent), getting into cars or going to tenancies and being locked in, arrangements being changed about what the women are paid for and what they're then expected to do. And for women who moved to selling sex online and meeting men indoors, there’s been issues around agreeing to meet one man only to find there's three or four men there, and what are they going to do in these situations? Over the last couple of years, there has also been an increase in threats to out the women, as well as a lot more bargaining and men expecting women to lower their prices and not being willing to pay what they agreed; and women experiencing sexual and physical assaults, being robbed and harassed.
What are some of the differences you see between the safety needs of women selling sex in the streets, indoors and online?
For women that are out on the street, the level of risk is very high. Being outdoors and not having anyone there for safety and then going away to an unknown location comes with huge levels of danger. People find that the indoor work is maybe a bit safer, but with indoor the risk is still really high. Women experience violence, assaults, threats, intimidation no matter where they sell sex.
Women are always trying to manage their safety, whether they’re on the streets or indoors. When we go and talk to them it is about making sure that they are recognising the dangers and abuse, and that they continue to safety plan. We talk to the woman regularly about whether they are taking registration plates, a record of the car, a mental description of who they are seeing, encouraging them to work in two or at least keep an eye on each other from a distance. Workers remind women to access the safety apps and update on any dangerous buyers and if they don’t have access to the safety apps we share information and can put any incidents on the system on their behalf.
For us, and for me in particular, it's really important to make the women aware that we know they are out here and we want them to come back safely, we want them to be as safe as possible. The women are aware of the risk, but they also see the danger as just par for the course of what they're doing. So for us it’s about saying “you need to take care of yourself. We don't want you to be harmed. Make sure that you are remembering where you're going and that you say to the person ‘I need to be back here at this time, and people are looking for me, people will notice if I'm hurt or I don't come back.’”
During the pandemic, the saunas were shut down, which meant women had to either go on the street or try to move online. And again, with the women that we were in contact with, it was about asking them “how are you changing the way that you are working because the sauna is different from being at home on the Internet. And what’s your internet safety like? Are you hiding things in your room such as names, addresses, pictures of your family, anything like that?”
During the pandemic, some of the women that we’ve worked with didn't necessarily want to meet people in person, but maybe they didn't have access to a phone or Internet or a space where they could take things online. We looked for ways to help the women have access to the Internet so they didn’t have to see anyone at all if that was something that they wanted to do. And at the same time giving them good access to services that were no longer face-to-face and making sure they were connected to their community, be that through WhatsApp or online groups, or speaking to a worker via a camera so the women could still access services for their mental health and wellbeing.
The idea of building a relationship seems really fundamental to the services that Another Way offers. How do you go about creating a space where women feel safe to talk about what is going on for them?
I think probably time is the best thing to get there. At Another Way we don’t have a very strict timeline on how long we can work with the women. We have that flexibility to let our relationship build up naturally. If someone wants emotional support and a familiar face to say hello to, we can be that service, and if they want something a bit more structured -like meeting weekly or every second week or a wee phone call- we can build up the support from there.
It may seem like the women aren't getting lots of support initially, but they are. They're actually getting a lot from having a person to come and sit with, there's no forcing them to answer questions or making plans about what's best for their needs, but just letting them lead that and say “actually, this is what I need from you” or “could you help me with this?” It’s about having patience to let them ask you as and when they need something.
Patience, time and really focusing on meeting them where they're at and letting them guide the relationship. It’s giving them the option to tap into a service and then tap back out of that service. They don't have to meet us every single week or every two weeks. We can just pause working with a woman and when she needs something, she can just give us a phone and we can start meeting again. Our service is quite flexible and it's centred on what the women want and need at the time.
When women come to your service, do they mention any positive or negative experiences with other support services?
It's mixed. It depends on where the women were at within their own minds and lives when they were accessing services and if the services were able to meet the woman’s needs at that time. I find the barrier is actually the initial engagement. Women can struggle to turn out for appointments because they forget days and times or cannot recall getting the appointments in the mail; or the anxiety - if they don’t know who they are meeting and have never been to the building before, they can feel overwhelmed. Women who have had negative past experiences of services anticipate appointments will not go well. All of these things mean women won’t show up.
The women I work with who are selling sex on the streets they are out all night and they may fail to get to a 10 AM GP appointment because they didn't get home until 6:00 AM. So they're not making it to these appointments and they don't have a valid excuse without outing themselves. Women don't want to disclose if they don't feel safe or because it’s something very private to them and not something they would commonly talk about. Sometimes women are not motivated to get up and go again because, depending on what experiences they've had that night, be that in a sauna or online or wherever, if they've had any bad experiences, they will be recovering from that. Quite quickly women doing OK and being safe can turn into them not doing so well and being in danger. They carry these experiences privately, with no one to talk to about them.
Another barrier is the ability to ask for what they need. I find that many of the women we are supporting struggle to articulate what they need. When they successfully manage to attend their appointments, they bring everything that is happening all at once into a very short initial meeting and aren't able to focus on the specific thing they need help with at that moment. Ultimately the women need a lot of help with lots of things and building a trusting working relationship is vital to cover all the support and care needs women have.
A real barrier to women accessing services is when they're experiencing trauma, complex trauma and workers aren't equipped to deal with it or don't know how to manage it. Women can almost seem like they're being difficult or hysterical or having drug-seeking or attention-seeking behaviour... But in fact they're looking for someone to name what's going on for them and help them find a way to manage it. Having someone acknowledge that they are traumatised is so important and can be life changing for women.
That’s one extreme, but the other side is that some of the women I've been working with are very good at minimising what is going on for them - they don’t want to ask for help and open up about any issues they have. So they go to appointments and say ‘I'm fine,’ and they're very compliant because they've never had a voice or been encouraged to say what they need and want, they haven’t been safe to speak out or ask for things. So when they come away from their appointments, they feel frustrated and disheartened that they didn't get any help. Everyone thinks everything is OK and that’s not the case.
What would be your advice to workers who knowingly or unknowingly support women who sell or exchange sex?
I think being brave and asking the question. I mean, if women don’t want to tell you, they are not going to tell you. If they want to hide it, they will hide it. With time and when you build up a positive working relationship, women are more likely to want to share this information with you. However, I think most women just want someone to ask the question outright. You have to be brave and ask them: “it looks like you may be involved in selling sex” or “are you involved in this?” Usually an honest question gets a straightforward, honest answer.
For many women, although not all, it could be quite a relief when somebody else knows what they're doing. It's a heavy burden to carry, a massive part of your life and your identity and you’re not able to tell anybody about it. It's quite hard to not have someone to share your day with. So I think even if it’s just one person or a select few people that know they're involved, it can be a good thing for the women.
Maybe selling or exchanging sex, prostitution, sex work is not what a woman identifies as doing, maybe she doesn't quite see herself as being involved in that. Sometimes as you go through what they are doing, that can change depending on where they are at. Are they in the early days of being involved or is it further down the line? Have they had a really awful experience yet or has it been OK by their standards so far? It's good to check in with them and ask them about it. And then if they say ‘yes,’ it doesn't have to be a massive deal. It's about considering how you can help the woman to be a safe as possible and what is she doing to keep safe and reduce risk of harm.
I believe asking a woman whether she is involved in selling or exchanging sex should be part of the risk assessment in any support service. Especially homelessness and substance misuse services, there is a possibility that she may never be involved in selling or exchanging sex, but there's definitely a possibility that she may have been propositioned by someone to get involved. Any space where women are in attendance and there is poverty and vulnerability, the risk is high.
This is why we at Another Way try to get involved in these spaces and make ourselves known and familiar to women who may need to talk to us.
In this interview, we discuss the risks and harms that women selling sex can face in different settings, their support needs and removing barriers for women to disclose the abuse they’ve experienced and get the support they need.
Can you start by telling us what is the Another Way service and why it was created?
Another Way is part of the organisation SACRO and it has been running for over 15 years. We support women who are involved or have been involved in the selling or exchanging of sex, whether that is street prostitution, the saunas in Edinburgh or women who are selling sex online. Occasionally women that have worked in the strip bars and lap dancing bars may come into the service, but that's not quite as common. We work closely with other services and agencies like the police, NHS, sexual health teams, substance misuse and homelessness services.
Originally SACRO was a support service for people in the criminal justice system because they were imprisoned or facing prison. Previously when women involved in selling sex were criminalised they would end up within the criminal justice system and would be referred to SACRO. That’s how Another Way was formed. As times have changed, attitudes towards women selling sex have also changed. In the understanding of gender-based violence and commercial sexual exploitation, Another Way focuses on safety and harm reduction for women and advocating for their needs.
We work to help women be as safe as possible and to give them more control over what they are doing and what they are experiencing. We are not geared up to make women exit, we don’t tell women they can’t sell sex. If women ever do want to exit, if they want to reduce how much they are involved in selling sex or even to change the way in which they sell sex, those are things that we can help them work out while making sure they have access to support.
What services does Another Way offer?
We run outreach services to meet with the women where they are. We cover quite a lot of aspects because of the situations that the women are facing - selling sex can make it very difficult for women to engage with many services.
We have the street-based outreach, which runs in the late evening once a week down in the Leith area where women are street-based in Edinburgh. The outreach allows them to pop into the service, access resources, have a chat with workers, have a cup of coffee, pick up some toiletries, condoms, things like that. This is a good way for us to get to know the women and introduce ourselves.
We also go into the saunas in Edinburgh alongside the NHS. There we again introduce ourselves and provide women with condoms and other supplies and we use that opportunity to direct them to the Wishes clinic which is a trauma-informed clinic focusing on sexual health especially created for women. The women can also meet us at the clinic and get a little chat to build up that relationship so they have someone they can come to for further support as and when they need it.
Finally, we do drop-ins at the GP service in Edinburgh for women who are homeless and don't have an address, we go into other homelessness groups and any other women’s only spaces where we can introduce ourselves to women who may be involved in selling sex or at risk.
When women come to Another Way after experiencing abuse, how does your service support them?
Initially, we offer them a space to talk about it. A big problem is that if the women experience violence, threats or intimidation, they can’t go to a service to seek help because of the fear of having to out themselves.
When they come to us and talk about it, many times they'll say that they don't want to pursue, they don't want to report anything, but we always make sure that they know that’s an option. We would also offer to report on their behalf, even if it was just to raise it as a concern or information-sharing with the police. Additionally, we ask if they have downloaded the Ugly Mugs app, and if they haven’t we offer to put up the incident form if that’s what they want. If they have access to medical services, we offer to go along to that service and get checked. If they don’t want to do that, then we offer them an emotional support so they have someone to talk to about what's happened.
In the Edinburgh area we work quite closely and quite well with the police. Here we have a Prostitution Liaison Officer who is very good at chatting to the women. She does walks for the women who are on the street and introduces herself. Again, we can offer to the women to speak to that police officer in particular and run the incident past her, see if she can give us any advice on how can we pursue this. We have done training with the police over the years as well and made them aware of the women that we work with and what they're experiencing day-to-day. And because we have those conversations, it means the report can be done quite informally in a non-threatening way. We can ask the police things like not to wear a uniform when they are going to interview, picking somewhere women feel comfortable to meet, things like that.
The aim is to break down barriers and obstacles that may be in the way that would prevent women from coming forward and talking about their experiences and wanting to report. For a lot of women reporting may not be an option, but it creates an environment where, if they did want to report, it could seem a lot more do-able to them and a bit less daunting.
In your experience, what are some of the main safety issues that women selling or exchanging sex experience?
I think a big one is probably historical trauma. So many of the women that we meet, not all but many, carry huge levels of trauma going back into their childhood that they’ve never addressed or the outcomes of reporting have not been positive experiences. This means they became adults who continue to experience high levels of trauma predominantly at the hands of men through domestic abuse, exploitative partners and friends.
Many women talk about friendships/partners they describe as being quite safe, but when you are on the professional end of it, you see flags about those relationships being quite exploitative and controlling. Especially if women are selling sex and other people are benefiting, be that financially, supporting another person’s drug use, paying their rent, etc. These issues come up for a lot of the women that we work with.
In Edinburgh there is not enough secure tenancies and many women selling sex are living in temporary accommodation, B&Bs, hostels, sofa surfing or private lets which are substandard quality and expensive (if they are not receiving help to pay rent).
When it comes to selling sex, women see issues around consent, what they are agreeing to and what they then have to provide, boundary pushing by buyers. In recent years, we have heard of women repeatedly experiencing stealthing (the removal of a condom without consent), getting into cars or going to tenancies and being locked in, arrangements being changed about what the women are paid for and what they're then expected to do. And for women who moved to selling sex online and meeting men indoors, there’s been issues around agreeing to meet one man only to find there's three or four men there, and what are they going to do in these situations? Over the last couple of years, there has also been an increase in threats to out the women, as well as a lot more bargaining and men expecting women to lower their prices and not being willing to pay what they agreed; and women experiencing sexual and physical assaults, being robbed and harassed.
What are some of the differences you see between the safety needs of women selling sex in the streets, indoors and online?
For women that are out on the street, the level of risk is very high. Being outdoors and not having anyone there for safety and then going away to an unknown location comes with huge levels of danger. People find that the indoor work is maybe a bit safer, but with indoor the risk is still really high. Women experience violence, assaults, threats, intimidation no matter where they sell sex.
Women are always trying to manage their safety, whether they’re on the streets or indoors. When we go and talk to them it is about making sure that they are recognising the dangers and abuse, and that they continue to safety plan. We talk to the woman regularly about whether they are taking registration plates, a record of the car, a mental description of who they are seeing, encouraging them to work in two or at least keep an eye on each other from a distance. Workers remind women to access the safety apps and update on any dangerous buyers and if they don’t have access to the safety apps we share information and can put any incidents on the system on their behalf.
For us, and for me in particular, it's really important to make the women aware that we know they are out here and we want them to come back safely, we want them to be as safe as possible. The women are aware of the risk, but they also see the danger as just par for the course of what they're doing. So for us it’s about saying “you need to take care of yourself. We don't want you to be harmed. Make sure that you are remembering where you're going and that you say to the person ‘I need to be back here at this time, and people are looking for me, people will notice if I'm hurt or I don't come back.’”
During the pandemic, the saunas were shut down, which meant women had to either go on the street or try to move online. And again, with the women that we were in contact with, it was about asking them “how are you changing the way that you are working because the sauna is different from being at home on the Internet. And what’s your internet safety like? Are you hiding things in your room such as names, addresses, pictures of your family, anything like that?”
During the pandemic, some of the women that we’ve worked with didn't necessarily want to meet people in person, but maybe they didn't have access to a phone or Internet or a space where they could take things online. We looked for ways to help the women have access to the Internet so they didn’t have to see anyone at all if that was something that they wanted to do. And at the same time giving them good access to services that were no longer face-to-face and making sure they were connected to their community, be that through WhatsApp or online groups, or speaking to a worker via a camera so the women could still access services for their mental health and wellbeing.
The idea of building a relationship seems really fundamental to the services that Another Way offers. How do you go about creating a space where women feel safe to talk about what is going on for them?
I think probably time is the best thing to get there. At Another Way we don’t have a very strict timeline on how long we can work with the women. We have that flexibility to let our relationship build up naturally. If someone wants emotional support and a familiar face to say hello to, we can be that service, and if they want something a bit more structured -like meeting weekly or every second week or a wee phone call- we can build up the support from there.
It may seem like the women aren't getting lots of support initially, but they are. They're actually getting a lot from having a person to come and sit with, there's no forcing them to answer questions or making plans about what's best for their needs, but just letting them lead that and say “actually, this is what I need from you” or “could you help me with this?” It’s about having patience to let them ask you as and when they need something.
Patience, time and really focusing on meeting them where they're at and letting them guide the relationship. It’s giving them the option to tap into a service and then tap back out of that service. They don't have to meet us every single week or every two weeks. We can just pause working with a woman and when she needs something, she can just give us a phone and we can start meeting again. Our service is quite flexible and it's centred on what the women want and need at the time.
When women come to your service, do they mention any positive or negative experiences with other support services?
It's mixed. It depends on where the women were at within their own minds and lives when they were accessing services and if the services were able to meet the woman’s needs at that time. I find the barrier is actually the initial engagement. Women can struggle to turn out for appointments because they forget days and times or cannot recall getting the appointments in the mail; or the anxiety - if they don’t know who they are meeting and have never been to the building before, they can feel overwhelmed. Women who have had negative past experiences of services anticipate appointments will not go well. All of these things mean women won’t show up.
The women I work with who are selling sex on the streets they are out all night and they may fail to get to a 10 AM GP appointment because they didn't get home until 6:00 AM. So they're not making it to these appointments and they don't have a valid excuse without outing themselves. Women don't want to disclose if they don't feel safe or because it’s something very private to them and not something they would commonly talk about. Sometimes women are not motivated to get up and go again because, depending on what experiences they've had that night, be that in a sauna or online or wherever, if they've had any bad experiences, they will be recovering from that. Quite quickly women doing OK and being safe can turn into them not doing so well and being in danger. They carry these experiences privately, with no one to talk to about them.
Another barrier is the ability to ask for what they need. I find that many of the women we are supporting struggle to articulate what they need. When they successfully manage to attend their appointments, they bring everything that is happening all at once into a very short initial meeting and aren't able to focus on the specific thing they need help with at that moment. Ultimately the women need a lot of help with lots of things and building a trusting working relationship is vital to cover all the support and care needs women have.
A real barrier to women accessing services is when they're experiencing trauma, complex trauma and workers aren't equipped to deal with it or don't know how to manage it. Women can almost seem like they're being difficult or hysterical or having drug-seeking or attention-seeking behaviour... But in fact they're looking for someone to name what's going on for them and help them find a way to manage it. Having someone acknowledge that they are traumatised is so important and can be life changing for women.
That’s one extreme, but the other side is that some of the women I've been working with are very good at minimising what is going on for them - they don’t want to ask for help and open up about any issues they have. So they go to appointments and say ‘I'm fine,’ and they're very compliant because they've never had a voice or been encouraged to say what they need and want, they haven’t been safe to speak out or ask for things. So when they come away from their appointments, they feel frustrated and disheartened that they didn't get any help. Everyone thinks everything is OK and that’s not the case.
What would be your advice to workers who knowingly or unknowingly support women who sell or exchange sex?
I think being brave and asking the question. I mean, if women don’t want to tell you, they are not going to tell you. If they want to hide it, they will hide it. With time and when you build up a positive working relationship, women are more likely to want to share this information with you. However, I think most women just want someone to ask the question outright. You have to be brave and ask them: “it looks like you may be involved in selling sex” or “are you involved in this?” Usually an honest question gets a straightforward, honest answer.
For many women, although not all, it could be quite a relief when somebody else knows what they're doing. It's a heavy burden to carry, a massive part of your life and your identity and you’re not able to tell anybody about it. It's quite hard to not have someone to share your day with. So I think even if it’s just one person or a select few people that know they're involved, it can be a good thing for the women.
Maybe selling or exchanging sex, prostitution, sex work is not what a woman identifies as doing, maybe she doesn't quite see herself as being involved in that. Sometimes as you go through what they are doing, that can change depending on where they are at. Are they in the early days of being involved or is it further down the line? Have they had a really awful experience yet or has it been OK by their standards so far? It's good to check in with them and ask them about it. And then if they say ‘yes,’ it doesn't have to be a massive deal. It's about considering how you can help the woman to be a safe as possible and what is she doing to keep safe and reduce risk of harm.
I believe asking a woman whether she is involved in selling or exchanging sex should be part of the risk assessment in any support service. Especially homelessness and substance misuse services, there is a possibility that she may never be involved in selling or exchanging sex, but there's definitely a possibility that she may have been propositioned by someone to get involved. Any space where women are in attendance and there is poverty and vulnerability, the risk is high.
This is why we at Another Way try to get involved in these spaces and make ourselves known and familiar to women who may need to talk to us.
