We need to stress the violence and stigma faced by sex workers who are all really brave, funny, kind women. Police know the women by name and look out for them. But if I was to take them around Manchester they would not know who any of the lads are,” he says. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is an offence to cause or incite prostitution or control it for personal gain. They are hard to trace and even harder to shut down for officers faced with frightened women, who speak limited English and don’t trust the police. Manchester’s homelessness problem is feeding the rise with experts predicting more than two thirds of them have slept rough or lost their home at some point.

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In the recreation room the conversation is easy and the atmosphere is light thanks to the dedicated volunteers. There are currently hundreds of young men across Manchester selling sex. Many are homeless or unemployed, dozens have recently been released from prison. One particularly startling statistic is that many of these men told charity workers they started doing sex work from as young as 14. Inevitably many of them are in care. Romanian couple Alexe Popa and Gabriela Diac were last week convicted for operating pop-up brothels around south Manchester and employing Eastern European women as prostitutes. Rooms or flats within a building which are let separately to different individuals offering sexual services can also count as a brothel.

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It’s something that DC Nield agrees with: “We would love to get more intelligence that allows us to help male sex workers but we just don’t get any,” he says.

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MASH, which supports sex workers across the city, helped 350 women last year. Over the last six months, the charity’s homelessness worker has managed to support 14 women in getting off the street and into housing. Though some of the women are rough sleepers many sofa surf, stay with punters or remain in abusive relationships. DC Nield explains: “A lot of the time we find out about pop up brothels because neighbours don’t want it on their street. The girls working in these premises are looked upon as a problem rather than human beings. Everyone surrounding them hates them because they are causing a problem in the area.

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Many women still work in Manchester’s traditional red light districts behind Piccadilly train station, near Strangeways and along Cheetham Hill Road. at least their groping themselves shitless is transparent, most blokes wait til their crutch is hidden, I always avoid handshakes myself.

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We work with a lot of lads in their mid twenties who are out having a great time in the Village, have a home but no job, with high drug and alcohol use and use sex work as something to do,” he says. “They are comfortable with it and happy with it. And then there were brothels, in many cases operated with the tacit knowledge of the police as long as they were drug-free and didn’t use underage girls. I’ve had people say ‘If I fancy him I won’t charge him’. That’s the reality for a young, out, gay sex worker. Some even see sex work almost as a right of passage. As Helen says: “Women do not have to come here at all so they have to know that we are trustworthy. It may only be when they’re in crisis that they ask for help. For some people there is nowhere else they can go.”

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Kerb-crawling is also banned, providing it can be shown the individual was causing a persistent annoyance. A lot has changed - and this change has brought huge challenges for those who want to protect the vulnerable. MASH has a drop in centre at 94 - 96 Fairfield Street in Manchester city centre. The charity offers a range of services including counselling, sexual health clinics and help with the law. While they would previously have met men working on the streets to offer advice face to face, they now reach out through instant messaging apps like Whatsapp. Running a brothel, being raped while working as a prostitute, paying for sex - stories from the sex trade