The first sex worker strike

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1975 hundreds of French sex workers took refuge in churches across France to protest against police harassment, in their first ever collective action. The strike began at Saint Nizier church in Lyon but spread to other cities, including Paris, where it was reported that all sex workers were on strike. In Lyon police had begun systematically issuing fines in a crackdown on the women who found customers on the streets. Those who couldn't pay were often imprisoned for days at a time and separated from their children. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Pere Christian Delorme who helped the women and stayed with them at Saint Nizier church till police forced the women to leave after ten days protest.

Photo: June 1975, Lyon, a hundred women prostitutes occupy the church of Saint-Nizier (Alain Nogues/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:37.0	Hello and thanks for downloading Witness history from the BBC World Service with me Claire Bowes.
0:47.0	To the 1970s now, when 200 sex workers took refuge in a Catholic church in Lyon to protest against police harassment.
0:57.3	It led to a wave of strikes by sex workers across France.
1:01.8	The first protest of its kind, it later inspired similar action around the world.
1:07.0	No girls at all are working at the moment in the streets of Paris. There is no girls at home.
1:15.0	No prostitutes are working anywhere in Paris.
1:17.0	Anywhere in Paris.
1:18.0	How many work in Paris normally?
1:20.0	Oh, about 3,000 and 5,
1:25.0	June 1975 and a BBC reporter finds himself in a church in Paris
1:31.0	surrounded by women. Many have hidden their faces as they don't
1:36.8	want to be recognized, but this blonde woman speaks openly and forcefully on
1:42.0	camera as the press gathers to witness a unique scene,
1:46.6	sex workers on strike.
1:49.2	We don't want any persecutions about the police and we would like to have in the
1:55.0	persecutions about the police and we would like to have the right to work normally.
	...

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