Sex for shelter- One scandalous result of our housing crisis.

When you hear of vulnerable young people paying for shelter with sexual favours, what country springs to mind? We would be willing to bet that the UK isn’t the first place that you thought of. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening right here in one of the worlds ‘developed countries’ and ‘leading economies’.

Disgracefully more and more adverts are appearing on websites offering accommodation in exchange for intimacy. One example advert is below.

‘Free accommodation and bills for a woman in exchange for house work and fb/fwb. House mate only home two to three days a week due to work. Please send picture and description.’

Disgraceful it may be, but surprising it is not. We are pretty deep into this housing crisis now and unfortunately sex has been used as a currency since the dawn of time. The Guardian reports that this menace is “a by-product of a housing crisis where young people are unable to find somewhere to live without spending exorbitant sums”.

This combined with the internet providing anonymity and thus freedom from the shame of buying sex, it seems like it was only a matter of time until the UK regressed to a state so primitive and the Government should have intervened long before we fell this far.

The crime these so called ‘landlords’ (more accurate to say room owner to control the reputational damage stories like this can do to professional landlords) is inciting prostitution which is punishable by up to a 7-year jail sentence. That’s the more important story that is being missed by some of the headlines. This is a crime.

The link between violent crime and poverty has been long discussed, explored, mapped out and publicised, but this should be extended further to establish both the link between housing crisis and ALL crimes. Only from here can we truly understand the reach, cost and implications of the single biggest and urgent crisis we face. Realistically, paying for rent with sex is just one of the many horrible repercussions.

 

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