University researchers have been given £500,000 of lottery funds to find out how many students are selling sex to pay for their education.
12:31PM BST 20 Sep 2012
University researchers have been given £500,000 of lottery funds to find out how many students are selling sex to pay for their education.
It will spend three years investigating the scale of students turning to prostitution, lap-dancing and escort agencies to fund their studies.
A website was launched yesterday to allow students to talk confidentially with researchers to talk about selling sex.
Student leader Hannah Pudner said: “We are coming across more and more stories of female students turning to the sex industry to fund their studies.
“This research is more important now than ever. This industry is often seedy, unregulated and dangerous.
“The more we know about it, the more we can help the students working in it, ” said Ms Pudner, director of the National Union of Students in Wales.
Swansea University research leader Dr Tracey Sagar said: “Our project identifies ‘sex work’ as including activities such as erotic dancing, web cam sex, phone chat sex, escort work, massage parlour work as well work in the porn industry.
“Also our project emphasises that sex work is not associated only with women but also men and transgender workers.”
Dr Sagar, lecturer at the Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology at Swansea University, specialises in the regulation of sex work.
A survey published in 2010 found more than a quarter of 315 undergraduates at a London university knew of a student who had worked in the sex industry.
They listed pole or lap dancing as the most popular type of sex work, followed by stripping, but prostitution was the next most common.
About ten percent knew of someone who had worked as a prostitute or escort, and when asked why they thought students undertook sex work, 93 per cent gave the need for money as the main reason for doing so.
The National Union of Students (NUS) said it was aware some students were sex workers and research was needed.
Sexual health agencies are concerned that increasing numbers of students are becoming sex workers to pay for their education.
The website will go live following a major Student Sex Work Project conference at the University today.
Dr Sagar hopes that student sex workers will get in touch via the website to share their views in confidence.
Researchers will be at student events, such as fresher fayres and student nights.
Dr Sagar said: “What we now need is for students and student sex workers to get involved with the project.
“We will work to ensure that the right policies and services are in place for young people who engage in the sex markets.”