Debanking: First Farage, now London sex workers in bid to end ‘Victorian age’ lending
London campaigners are urging the government and mayoral candidates to help drag the capital’s adult entertainment workers out of a “Victorian age” of banking.
The city’s sex workers are in a fight to avoid being ‘debanked’ – frozen out of the banking system – and are calling for action to ensure they are given access to basic financial accounts.
One of the campaigners is London-based Mintstars, a ‘fansite’ designed to give a greater percentage of profit to online sex workers.
Co-founder Jessica Van Meir, also a former Gates Cambridge Scholar who is now researching sex workers’ rights at Harvard, said it is an “outrage” that sex workers can pay taxes but are denied access to essential services.
She said: “That is why we are urging candidates for London Mayor to publicly back the tens of thousands of such workers in the capital, and pressure banks to do the right thing by opening up their services to this sector.
“As things stand, adult entertainers face a banking system from the Victorian era, hypocritical in the extreme and unnecessarily damaging to huge numbers of Londoners.”
Morning Wire approached London mayor Sadiq Khan and the Conservative Party mayoral candidate Susan Hall for comment.
Green Party mayoral candidate, Zoë Garbett, said: “The financial discrimination against sex workers is appalling. Sex workers should not be denied access to banking services because of their job.
“I support the London’s adult entertainers in their fight to avoid being ‘debanked’. Sex workers should be able to access the same financial services as anyone else including business accounts, overdrafts and loans – as well as current accounts.”
Responding to the call, Lib Dem Mayoral candidate Rob Blackie, said: “Sex workers have the same right to access banking services as any other worker and the industry needs to catch up with the 21st century and respect that right.
“Some women working in this sector are particularly vulnerable to financial abuse and so the ban on sex worker banking is not only unfair but potentially dangerous.
“As Mayor, I would be happy to join the campaign’s call for financial independence for sex workers.”
The London mayoral election, held every four years, is due to take place in May this year.
“While wealthy individuals such as Nigel Farage might be seriously inconvenienced by getting debanked, it is hard to overstate just how disastrous it can be for people living paycheck to paycheck,” added Van Meir, who said the victims are usually women, trans or non-binary people.
This week the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking slammed banks for “offloading customers” seen as potentially high-risk or controversial, including sex workers, bookies, yacht brokers and politicians.
The report said it discovered “an awkward truth”: the financial, regulatory and reputational pressures on banks are prompting some to decide that many clients are “simply not worth the candle”.
“There is growing evidence that banks may be wrongly using the label of economic crime to offload customers merely because they represent little or no profit for the bank,” it said.
It comes as an online petition calling for government to ensure that people who work in the sex industry can access banking services has surpassed the 10,000 signature-mark which means it requires a government response.
A response to the petition, which closes today, is yet to be received.
While concrete figures on the number of sex workers in London are scarce, the government estimates there are around 32,000 prostitutes in the city, with an unknown number in various other forms of adult entertainment, including online fansites.