The social media trend leaving Soho sex workers fearing for their lives
Dressed in a black puffa jacket and box fresh trainers, a teenager scurries towards a flat door and kicks it frantically, before changing position to give it a good boot from a different angle.
The flurry of frenzied blows only last for a few seconds – but it’s all been caught on camera. Not to capture the culprit, but ready to share on platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
The video, which appears to have since been taken down, is just one of many making the rounds on social media recently, as part of a horrifying trend where groups of gangs can be seen barging into Soho flats and terrorising sex workers inside.
When Sally first began working in the sex industry, Soho was considered ‘a fairly safe place’ for people like her, she tells Metro.
From the outside, her place of work could easily be missed. The entrance is just a door on a small terraced house, while inside a narrow staircase leads up to two or three flats, where she and other sex workers operate. Fixtures and fittings are basic, but ‘comfortable’, and within each flat is a bedroom, a small kitchen with a seating area, and a bathroom.
‘We’ve got CCTV and all the workers have each other. Girls are safe inside the flats, and a maid is usually outside listening for any trouble inside the rooms,’ the 29-year-old Londoner, who is going by a pseudonym, explains.
Sex work was something Sally got into as a means to provide for herself and her child, and for the last seven years, she has arrived at her building in Soho each morning to find everything ‘pretty quiet.’
‘There are lots of lorries nearby bringing food for the Chinese restaurants. As the day progresses, outside the flat is busier with tourists and people going about the business,’ she adds. ’But it’s a nice vibe around here.’
However, in the last five weeks, that ‘vibe’ has shifted after groups of up to 40 young people aged 10 to 20 started harassing Sally and other sex workers in Soho, leaving them in a state of anxiety and fearing for their safety.
‘They creep up the stairs, giggling and laughing. They get their cameras out, like it’s a big joke,’ says Sally. ‘They knock, knock, knock on our door. Then they start kicking on our door, hitting the door with sticks, smashing bottles just outside the door. They run around – shouting things like “suck my cock” and calling us dirty.’
The kids, often with hoods on their heads, have thrown glasses at the door, ripped down signs in the hall, tried to take down the CCTVs and bashed the walls with metal poles.
Latest London news
Outside the building, they’ve been seen cornering customers as they attempt to get in the building, asking them how much it costs and what the women are like.
While some of the workers would love to confront the gangs, they have to hold themselves back as they can’t risk being filmed or being set upon by the older youths.
‘It’s disgusting,’ Sally says. ‘We’re just trying to earn money and feed our families.’
Niki Adams, spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes, said the attacks are escalating – becoming more frequent and more dangerous for the wide range of British and migrant workers in the Soho flats.
‘The women are extremely upset and frightened,’ she tells Metro. ‘They feel trapped and fearful of further attacks. At the same time, they are angry and frustrated. They feel ignored and blocked from properly reporting what is happening, and they feel their safety is not being treated as a priority.’
Although some women have reported the harassment to the police, they admitted they felt in two minds about doing so.
‘It takes a great deal of courage for sex workers to report incidents to the police,’ says Niki, explaining that the women risk being criminalised by the police for working together. ‘There is clearly a major concern that police priorities could shift if called by sex workers and they would focus on investigating the women for working in what is considered an illegal setting. This points to a serious problem with prostitution laws, which prevent women from working together safely.’
She adds that it ‘takes real bravery’ for women to risk ringing the police to report this latest round of harassment – ‘but they feel they are being fobbed off and treated as though their lives don’t matter.’
It’s a sentiment Sally echoes. ‘The police have been useless,’ she insists. ‘We’re scared what they’re going to do or say, so we normally just try and fly under the radar. But we can’t really do that now. We need help, because someone’s going to end up getting hurt badly with these kids.’
Sally isn’t just frightened for her safety – she’s petrified that the youths will post videos or photos of her online, revealing her chosen line of work to the world to all her friends and family.
‘I’ve had my privacy for so many years, I don’t want my face on the internet, so that all my friends and child know what I’m doing,’ she says.
Bella* is another sex worker in Soho who, alongside the anxiety of being caught on camera, worries that the frequent harassment in the past weeks has impacted her income because customers are frightened to visit their premises.
‘I’m so stressed with finances,’ the 36-year-old tells Metro. ‘Customers aren’t coming as much now because of these groups of young kids and young men.’
She recalls that about a month ago, a police officer came around to assure the women that the workers weren’t to blame for what was happening.
‘He handed us his phone number, and said if we had a problem, to call him personally,’ she says. ‘I rang him three times and he never answered. There was a lot of talk, but he did absolutely nothing.’
When police have occasionally shown up, Bella says they stick around for a few minutes, but she hasn’t ever seen them approach the youths to tell them to leave the women alone.
‘The only people who have taken what is happening seriously have been community officers,’ she says. ‘They actually went to the group of guys and told them to bugger off.’
With next to no protection, Bella makes sure that after her shift, she runs to the railway station in case they catch her.
So why does she think youths targeting sex workers in this way? ‘Notoriety,’ she says, adding that she’s seen some of the videos filmed from outside the flats circulating on TikTok and believes it all stems from getting views and likes on social media.
Sally wonders if the kids are trying to get them ‘closed down’ by claiming the women working have been trafficked. ‘They want to make out like they’ve uncovered it and told everyone on social media,’ she explains. ‘They’ve got nothing else to do. It’s all fun and games for them.’
Meanwhile, Niki worries that young people are ‘picking up on a general hostility towards sex workers’ from misinformation promoted by politicians.
‘The general public often understands that sex workers are mostly mothers supporting families and show sympathy and concern for their safety,’ she says. ‘But certain politicians have promoted the idea that all sex workers are trafficked, and focus on crackdowns that close flats like the ones in Soho. This is dangerous and can encourage young people to adopt hostile attitudes and act on them.’
Niki adds that the treatment of the group of sex workers by gangs of kids reflects the stigma still surrounding sex work. ‘When they are portrayed as undeserving of rights or protection, it can legitimise abusive behaviour in the eyes of some young people.’
In a bid to stop the abuse, Niki is calling for immediate action from the police to take these attacks and reports of harassment seriously.
‘They should provide proper protection and recognise that sex workers’ lives matter and that they deserve safety and protection like anyone else,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to believe this level of intimidation would be tolerated if it were a royal residence or an ambassador’s home under threat.
‘More broadly, this situation highlights the urgency of decriminalising sex work, as it would allow women to work together more safely from premises and feel more able to report rape and other violence, without fear of criminalisation.’
A Met Police spokesperson told Metro:
‘We’re aware of a social media trend that has seen young people going into businesses and private properties then posting the videos online.
‘We take reports of violence and harassment seriously and we’ve used our policing powers where appropriate to move on those involved in this behaviour. We’ve issued a number of Community Protection Warnings and continue to review our use of further powers, like Criminal Behaviour Orders, for persistent offenders.
‘The trend doesn’t exclusively impact sex workers but they are among those who have been targeted. We would urge anyone who is the victim of violence or harassment, including when it is done in the name of social media entertainment, to contact police on 101 or 999 in an emergency.
‘Officers from our local Neighbourhood Policing Teams work closely with partners in the NHS, local authorities and third sector organisations to provide support for vulnerable women and others who find themselves involved in sex work. Our priority is to identify and intervene against criminal and sexual exploitation, and modern day slavery. We will use our full range of powers to safeguard those at risk, including the use of closure orders to shut down brothels and other venues.’
*Name has been changed.