The Office of National Statistics (ONS) recently announced that prostitution contributes around £5.3 billion to the British economy, subsequent to a controversial European Union ruling that illegal drugs and prostitution be included in member states’ calculations of their GDP.
Prostitution, apocryphally “the world’s oldest profession,” and illegal drugs account for around £10 billion to the economy of Britain annually if the ONS statistics are to be believed, together being worth approximately .7% of the UK’s GDP. To put that in perspective, these figures would put these vice-based enterprises on a similar scale as agriculture or the gambling and hospitality sector, and of more economic value than the entirety of the UK’s advertising industry which only accounts for .5% of economic output.
The director of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects (UKNSWP), Alex Feis-Brice, weighed in on the ONS estimates of the UK’s sex trade, stating “It’s very difficult to estimate the population of sex workers as much of it is hidden due to laws which criminalize aspects of sex work and therefore drive it underground. Some estimates say there are around 80,000 sex workers in the UK but this figure is also problematic.”
With estimates as large as these for the prostitution industry, now officially mandated to be counted in the UK’s GDP estimates, some sex worker advocates hope that this will be a step towards making the industry a completely legal, and regulated vocation, exchanging its underground and largely tax-fee status, for sex worker safety and full protections under the law.