'Looking back, I was trapped by what I did. I didn't have anything else'

RUBY is petite, auburn-haired and vivacious, with an open, honest face, wide smile and ready laugh. She's prettily and conservatively dressed. She could be any mum at a school gate, any worker in one of many spheres, any daughter, sister, aunt. Working girls will tell you they see women of all sorts, including those who go on the game because they want a better kitchen than their day job can afford or want something for their kids they could not afford to buy any other way.

It's the nature of prostitution and how it is viewed by society that so many women – for they are mostly women – keep it secret from almost everyone. Inevitably, a woman who feels she must hide how she earns a living often feels she must also hide any harm she may come to while doing it.

One such woman is Ruby. It's been a few years since she worked in a brothel which ostensibly traded as a sauna. She's been working to change her life, but the events that led her to spend decades having sex with strangers are with her every day and to blame, she says, for the mental health problems she continues to battle.

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"My parents didn't love each other and my mother didn't actually want children," says Ruby candidly. "They beat each other up and they beat me and my sister up. After we were six or eight, dad started sexually abusing us and mum went on hitting us.

"By the age of 13, I had become very sexualised. I couldn't take the situation at home any more and ran away. I ended up on a park bench, where I was found by a young man and taken to a houseful of others who all wanted sex. After a while, someone said to me, 'Seeing as you're doing it anyway, you might as well do it for money, rather than a bag of glue or a bottle of cider.'

"I know it sounds strange, but I felt empowered by earning money and being able to buy nice food and decent clothes, the first nice clothes I'd ever had." Ruby doesn't glamourise the sex trade, though.

In the 25 years she worked as an indoor sex worker ("there's so much danger and hostility outdoors") she was based for a year in London, sometimes seeing as many as 30 punters over a 17-hour period in a flat, but paying high overheads to the middle men. She had a serious problem with the drugs she was supplied with to keep her going.

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Finally, she got to the point where she couldn't take any more. "I was the busiest one in the sauna, earning 300 a day. I stayed so long because it was all I knew. It was one of the only things I have been good at in my life, but it was doing my head in, so I left. For two years I 'hid' as a volunteer in a charity shop. I was so confused."

Ruby knew about Genesis, the Leeds-based charity that works for the health and safety of sex workers, the prevention of sexual exploitation of young people and to help those who wish to move on with their lives. Genesis works with 600 people in the indoor and outdoor sex trade in Leeds each year, and with the help and support of project worker Louisa Rodriguez, Ruby has been making up for her lost education, doing courses in English, Maths and IT. In time, she hopes to study social sciences at university.

"Looking back, I was trapped by what I did and I went into it really because of how I was abused by my parents. I didn't have anything else. I've realised now that I've come into my own in my 40s and although I'm seriously dyslexic, I'm a bright person. Louisa went to the GP with me when I needed to discuss my anxiety and depression.

"I don't feel bitter about it all now, but I would say to people that they should think before they judge anyone by what they do for a living. And, instead of thinking of those women murdered in Bradford or Ipswich or anywhere else as 'only prostitutes', they should instead remember that they are someone's wife, mum, daughter or sister."

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Sophie, a striking and articulate woman, came to Leeds from a small town after her marriage broke down. She was estranged from her family and homeless, couldn't get work and had a heroin habit. A sex worker she befriended asked her to look after her bag one night while she took a punter around the corner. Sophie was propositioned herself while she stood around waiting, and "I could see that it would be a better way to survive financially than the benefits I was getting at the time.

"It wasn't easy work by any means, though. You had to switch off emotionally, but there was always someone willing to pay. It meant I could stabilise my life and get off heroin. I tried to leave the street on and off over 10 years but attempts to get other work didn't succeed."

"Genesis had a van that used to come round the streets and give girls tea and coffee, health or safety advice and give out condoms and warnings about dodgy punters. You could get in the van and have a chat without anyone being judgmental. I got to a point where I'd got clean and really wanted to move away from sex work. They said to me, 'You're better than this, but it's so easy to get sex work that a vicious circle is created, especially if you can't get a job elsewhere."

With support from the charity, which was started 21 years ago by a group of people who were concerned about the lack of support for women working in prostitution in Leeds, Sophie brushed up her skills and went to a university open day. She's now studying for an arts degree, and with the help of student loans and income support, has a small flat and a more regular life. She'd like to work in the media.

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Teela Sanders, reader in sociology at Leeds University and chair of Genesis for the last six years, says: "The increasing criminalisation of prostitution means it is more hidden. It's harder to find the women and engage them with services. They take more risks and tend to work in more out of the way, dark and derelict places.

"Serial killers have a tendency to go after sex workers because they are the most vulnerable group of women in society, and when something horrific happens to one of them people assume that they 'deserve it' because they're out there.

"A service like ours should be core funded by key agencies like education and social services because of the preventative work we do in schools and because we are dealing with the poorest and most marginalised group of women in the society. "

The main funder of Genesis's budget of 250,000 for six staff and other running costs has been the NHS, under the primary care trust's sexual health remit, but Teela Sanders says last year's PCT funding was cut by 80,000. At the same time, there have been brothel closures in the city, which mean women have to work harder and perhaps take more risks.

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Like many charitable organisations, Genesis is facing difficult times ahead as a small but crucial part of David Cameron's "Big Society" of grassroots projects dealing with big problems. Chasing pockets of funding from Comic Relief or Children in Need to fill the shortfall is part of the job, says Teela. A source of great frustration is that the Home Office has given funding for an ISVA (independent sexual violence adviser), but the 20,000 has to be matched locally, and no-one has come forward.

"The work this person would do is directly related to local and national government strategies to end violence against women and children. It's really important and without match funding and more local funding, the viability of the whole organisation is threatened."

n Names have been changed to protect "Ruby" and "Sophie".

n Genesis is celebrating its 21st Anniversary with a charitable performance of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler by Act Too theatre company at The Riley Smith Hall, Leeds University Union at 8pm on Friday, July 30. Tickets cost 10, and all of the money will go directly to the charity. www.leedstickets.com

n www.genesisleeds.org.uk

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