As One25’s communications manager, Forsyth spreads the word about the charity’s intentions in aiding the sex workers in Bristol city, and exposes the true stories of the inspirational women that One25 have come to help.
Helping women “step away from the streets,” One25 was established in May 1995 by charity worker Val Jeal. Josie describes how “Jeal worked at a homeless project in the same area that we work now. It was a day centre for the vulnerable but she noticed that women weren’t using the services provided, it was mainly men. When approaching the women in the community they explained that the mixed services (men and women) were un-ideal due to the fear of stigmatization and exploitation in being identified as street workers. At the time there wasn’t a charity in the city solely catered towards these women working in the red-light district who were in need of support that the joint services evidently couldn’t provide.”
Twenty years on One25, a charity that is run by a team of female staff, volunteers and case workers; work with over 200 women to offer the safety and support that wasn’t initially on offer, and have worked towards supplying the women, who are often isolated, a sense of community. The women working the streets of Bristol are easy to find, covering a distinct one mile circuit in inner city areas such as St Paul’s. Josie describes how these women are “living in abject fear and deprivation, and in many cases are entrapped within the lifestyle in order to fund alcohol and drug addictions; primarily crack cocaine and heroin. For many of these women the drug and alcohol use started from an early age, on average at 13, and in underpinning these addictions we tend to discover a lot of trauma.”
As a result, women who volunteer for One25 have to be over 18 to help with campaigning and 20 or over to volunteer in the drop-in centre or on One25’s van outreach project that goes around the red-light district and offers care to the women who are working the streets, due to the nature of the work, which Josie comments can “create and emotional toll.” 100 percent of the women that are in rehabilitation with the charity have been subjected to childhood abuse or neglect with the additional inherited violence and exploitation of working the streets. Forsyth ensures a tactful volunteer process which “enables you to become quite professional in how to cope with the harsh and traumatic nature of the work at hand.”
(Josie Forsyth pictured inside One25’s van outreach project.)
Forsyth explains why these women often receive little support and have become a stigmatized minority; “the women that are on the streets of Bristol just around the corner from you may have had the same hopes and aspirations as we did as children, but these desires have been compromised due to their abuse or neglect. It’s commonplace for charities to offer support to children suffering abuse in our society, however when young females who are abused hit 18 and are left to cope with the trauma the abuse has caused, the support isn’t there and they commonly develop a dependency for alcohol and drugs to compensate. The sex work funds these addictions. They get caught in the cycle of selling sex to buy drugs to take, which then traps them further into sex work. The women trapped in this cycle appear to no longer be the child that was abused and got sympathy.”
One25 works at supplying the care and sympathy that Josie examines is missing for the women working on the streets. “Part of what we do is to care about these women and see their value; show them they are equal to us, to the extent that our volunteers and staff can see how these women could be sisters, daughters, and mothers of ours.” One25 believe that these women deserve a second chance in life; “Our volunteers offer support in our night van, Monday to Friday in the late hours of the morning, giving out basic care, even helping women file reports against members of the public that have attacked them. “ The charity aids further than basic pastoral care and works to build trusting and lasting relationships with the women. One25’s drop-in centre is a resource that provides medical attention, education and support. Josie describes how it enables the women to “get more in-depth help.” They are supplied with case workers that work with them to change their lifestyle. “Around 80% of the women we work with are homeless; your rights are very limited in society without an immediate address. We have case workers who specialize in housing, criminal justice, rehabilitation; or specifically with sexual abuse and domestic violence cases.” Seemingly, each woman’s personal situation is addressed and their personal ambition, whether to finally learn to read or write, or to enter into working in the public sector, is supported and encouraged.
Last year One25 helped 55 women – a third of the women the charity supports – break free from sex work and realise their potential. One25 shares a vision for Bristol to become a safe city where women have the control and the choice to leave the street work and the entrapment of the red light district, that propagates the action. “Let’s turn the red lights green” and supply these women with the esteem and possibilities that they have been deprived or that they believed was not available to them.
For more information on how to get involved in volunteering: http://one25.org.uk/get-involved/