Edges Magazine Issue 27 - Women at Risk

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 27

November 2001

Women at Risk -

where can I go tonight?

Dr Brenda Mosedale is from the Streatham Sreetlink Project

It’s a question a lot of people ask – but when the question’s being asked by a young woman who’s been thrown out of her hostel – yet again – and who knows that she needs to be out on the streets to get money for her drugs and because there’s nowhere to go she’ll be out there all night – it’s perhaps a little different.

Streatham Streetlink works with women who are involved in street prostitution in South London. It began as a response to need, both from women and one particular local community. But things have changed. Homelessness has become an even bigger problem for women. Crack cocaine has introduced a desperation that was maybe not there before. Local residents have noticed that women are out working the streets all day as well as all night. Why? The simple answer – although it’s far from simple – is that they have nowhere else to go.

Life isn’t safe on the streets. Women are at risk from violent assault, rape and murder. If you talk with them most will be able to tell you of friends they used to work with who aren’t there any more. They learn how to avoid risk as much as possible – but how do you live when you have to keep watching for who is least likely to abuse you? The answer is that many don’t. There are far too many funerals taking place for young women who have worked on the streets of South London.

Streetlink has as its aim to give women opportunities for choice in their lifestyles. The work is based at the Spires Centre – a day centre for the homeless and unemployed. This means that there is a team of people with skills in housing, benefits, employment training opportunities, drugs and alcohol, as well as the worker specifically dedicated to working with women. She works on their behalf with any and every organisation, statutory and voluntary who may be able to give some opportunity. She supports women through the seemingly impossible tangle of bureaucracy involved in any statutory service. And she’s there when it all falls apart, because, when it’s more than you can do to crawl out of bed in the morning and tie up your shoelaces, everything else that you may have to do in order to conform with what is needed for society to accept is way, way too hard.

Women involved in street prostitution are women who have multiple needs and any support work needs to recognise this. Many women are mothers – although their children are unlikely to still be with them, especially if they have a significant substance misuse problem. Research shows that substance misuse and prostitution are more likely among women who have gone through the care system. What are we doing to their children when they are taken away from them?

There has been an increase in the use of crack and women often describe how it is this and the extreme addictive nature of the drug that forces them out on to the streets again and again. There isn’t time to go to hospital or the police station when you’ve been assaulted – however well or badly you might be treated there. You need to get back out there for the money. Often the only place you can find sleep is the local crack house, and it is difficult to sleep when you have to be constantly watching out for yourself.

For women and for some local residents things are becoming more and more desperate. It’s important to try to co-ordinate work that could support women. Housing, drug issues, children, benefits – all these are issues to work with but before any of this can happen they need someone to sit down with them, to listen and try to work things through. Someone is needed to always be there, when things are going well or when things have fallen apart, someone with whom they don’t always need an appointment and who can handle the chaos that’s so often around. That’s the way Streetlink, together with the Spires Centre and anyone else who’ll be part of it, aims to work with women.

It’s important too to recognise that it is really difficult for some residential communities to live with this kind of chaos and fear and uncertainty that drugs and violence brings. That’s why a community based initiative is important and the work that’s done within and between different groups in the community can change things.

Streatham Streetlink had its beginnings in the faith communities of Streatham and that is where it is firmly based. It aims to work with people to make links and build bridges and create opportunities for choice and so enable improvement in health in its widest sense for both women and their families and the local community. It’s a big aim but we’ll continue to work with anyone who will work with us to make it possible.

Where can I go tonight? The question will keep being asked. Sometimes we can find an answer. Sometimes we have to live with the uncertainty but still be there the next time the question comes.