Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

Sex: My British Job (2013x53)

Air date: Sep 25, 2013

Investigative journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai specialises in undercover work on the lives of immigrant workers. Hsiao once more teams up with Nick Broomfield, with whom she collaborated for Ghosts, about the fate of undocumented Chinese workers in the UK and the 23 Chinese cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay in 2004. Sex: My British Job is a chilling exposé as Hsiao works undercover as a housekeeper in London brothels and unveils the terrible reality of the British sex trade. Hsiao embarks on a prolonged period of secret filming, using cutting-edge camera glasses, to expose not just why illegal workers turn to sex work, but also how: through a complex combination of pressure and verbal abuse from the brothel owners, the lure of high earnings and the guilt they are made to feel about not providing for their families back home. This eye-opening film shows how easily Chinese and immigrant women can be drawn into sex work and highlights the shocking reality of what is happening behind closed doors up and down the country.