Portal:Prostitution

The Whitechapel murders were committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London between 3 April 1888 and 13 February 1891. At various points some or all of these eleven unsolved murders of women have been ascribed to the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.

A number of the victims—Emma Elizabeth Smith, Martha Tabram, Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles, and an unidentified woman—were prostitutes. The Metropolitan Police, City of London Police, and private organisations such as the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee were involved in the search for the killer or killers. Despite extensive inquiries and several arrests, the culprit or culprits evaded identification and capture. (read more ...)

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John Rykener, also known as Eleanor (fl. 1394), was a 14th-century transvestite sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with another man, John Britby, in London's Cheapside. Although historians tentatively link Rykener to a prisoner of the same name, the only known facts of his life come from interrogation made by the mayor of London. Rykener was questioned on two offences: prostitution and sodomy. Prostitutes were not usually arrested in London during this period, while sodomy was an offence against morality rather than common law, and so pursued in ecclesiastical courts. There is no evidence that Rykener was prosecuted for either crime. Rykener said that he was introduced to sexual contact with men by Elizabeth Brouderer, a London embroideress who dressed him as a woman and may have acted as his procurer. (read more ...)

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• ... that the Silver Cross Tavern (pictured) is the United Kingdom's only legal brothel?
• ... that a documentary film by Ucu Agustin led to a prostitution district in Tulungagung, East Java, being shut down?
• ... that the 1886 novel Albertine (painting of a scene shown) expedited the abolition of public prostitution in Norway?
• ... that sex workers across the world have organised since the mid-1970s to demand sex workers’ rights, including the decriminalisation of prostitution and equal protection under the law?

• 1st
  • 1957: The Prostitution Prevention Law, which outlawed Prostitution in Japan, came into force.
• 4th
  • 1888: Murder of Emma Elizabeth Smith. Her killing was the first of the Whitechapel murders.
• 10th
  • 1836: Murder of Helen Jewett, a New York prostitute, whose alleged murderer, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted.
• 13th
  • 1946: Brothels were outlawed in France by the passing of the Loi Marthe Richard.
  • 2016: Paying for sex in France became illegal by Law 444 (2016) coming into force.
• 17th
  • 2009: Iceland enacted legislation to adopt the Nordic model of prostitution which criminalises the buying of sex.
• 24th
  • 1891: Murder of Carrie Brown, a New York prostitute who was murdered and mutilated. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper.

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