It’s always the most vulnerable that face the brunt of an economic collapse. They’re the ones left exposed when you start to pick apart society’s safety nets, who are ignored when the money starts to dry up. In the UK, benefit cuts have pushed ex-sex workers back on to the streets, and the charities that help them are finding it more and more difficult to get funding.

Gill Nowland, chief executive officer of One25, which helps these women, explained what happened when benefit cuts were introduced at a drop-in centre in Bristol: “We have started to see women work again after they haven’t for some years. It could be that they have a flat, that they’re holding down a tenancy just about, that they’re just about surviving, then suddenly their benefits have been cut or they have to pay this extra tax on a bedroom and it just tips them over the balance.”

The frailty of these women’s situations leaves them exposed to the government’s cuts, and charities in Manchester and Southampton talked about the same issues Nowland mentions.

Cate Allison, chief executive officer at Manchester Action on Street Health, told me: “Women have to work more often and for longer hours to meet their bills, including the bedroom tax. It’s an economic thing.” Mark Wakeling, director at Beyond the Streets, added: “In terms of the recession, we have spoken to women that have specifically mentioned the cuts. The one that was a particular concern was the bedroom tax and the impact there.”

It’s even more devastating when you consider the length of time it can take these women to stop working, get clean and build a new life, and the dangers of relapsing into drug or alcohol addiction.

Rachel, an ex-street sex worker, told me it took eight years from when she first went to One25’s outreach bus to go through the process of getting clean and starting over: “There were times when I was out on the streets in the snow for five-to-six hours. They [One25] were an absolute lifesaver. They gave me condoms and hot drinks. You often run out of these sort of things — then you take a huge risk.”

There’s a concentrated trade of sex workers in central London, with prostitutes soliciting on street corners and from the kind of walk-ups you see in Soho. The Westminster-based Sex Worker Task Group says the prices charged by these women have halved over the last few years as they get more and more desperate for business. Worse still, one of the councillors working on the project says a “recession-fuelled environment” has caused a substantial increase in the risk of violence as women travel further and deal with clients that appear to be dangerous.

The police are cracking down on kerb crawling, including naming and shaming offenders. These efforts, along with sharing warnings about dangerous clients through “ugly mug” notices and helping women seek justice, have helped, but a huge number of street sex workers face violence.

Gill says One25 receives around 20 reports of violent attacks every month: “It could be domestic violence or violence on the streets, robbery, sexual offences. It’s different reports, but women talk about violence quite regularly. There’s this perception that women are on the streets and punters are picking them up and beating them. That does happen a bit, but on the whole, it might be the pimp or boyfriends that they go back to.”

When Rachel was raped by a serial offender the witnesses at the trial were helped by charity-funded case workers and this kind of support can be vital to a case’s success. The accused received a 10-year prison sentence.

If two or more prostitutes are working in the same property it’s illegal, but little action is taken by the police to shut brothels down. High-profile establishments like the Steam & Sun club, which was estimated to be making £26m a year, have been raided, but only 20 people were found guilty of keeping a brothel in 2012, less than half the number in the previous year.

And opinions are divided on whether enforcing the law would improve the situation, because it might force more women to work on the street. If premises were licensed and testing and inspections carried out it could reduce exploitation, but it’s been argued that legalising prostitution perpetuates the culture of violence. Another option is to make it illegal to pay for sex, while decriminalising the sale. This has the benefit of treating women as victims and ensuring they get support.

I talked to PC Tina Newman, vice liaison officer for Avon and Somerset Constabulary, about the police’s attitude towards prostitution. Asked why brothels in the area aren't being shut down, she says: “The quick answer; we haven’t got unlimited resources. If we had a massive pot of people we’d be targeting them and shutting them down. We target where we have our complaints. I think last year we received 140-plus complaints in regards to on-street prostitution and we received a handful, if that, in relation to parlors.”

Wakeling says the debate on legislation can become quite polarising: “I’m cautious because we could get sucked into a you’re right you’re wrong debate, when what’s actually much more interesting is saying; ‘what is it within our society that we keep on getting in situations where there’s an inequality that creates a vulnerability for predominantly women?’”

Police will warn, caution and eventually charge girls found to be persistently loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. However, the number of prostitutes that have been taken to court has dropped nearly 90% over the last decade. The charities I spoke to suggested that this reflects a change in police attitudes, rather than any decrease in the number of street sex workers.

Newman says the police have made efforts to work with local services: “It is really important that it’s not just about arresting and taking women to court. That is just a sticky plaster, addressing the cause is crucial. If the rapes and the robberies aren't going to stop the women from working, certainly arresting them isn't going to. I can’t stress enough the support that needs to be there for them.”

Charities do everything from providing free condoms and clothes, to taking women to court dates, helping them get training and supporting them in housing applications. “One25 is invaluable,” says Rachel: “Without it a lot of girls would be in real bad trouble. I know of a least five women that have been clean three-four years now, they all went through the system, without that we’d still be on the street corner.”

It’s a difficult cause to raise money for, particularly through donations. Often these organisations rely on charitable funds to make up a large share of their funding, but their income has fallen and the competition for funds has increased because of the downturn.

“It’s not a popular cause. It’s not easy to get people to give when people think, when a lot of the perception out there, is that it [prostitution] is a choice. ‘Why don’t they just get a job and pull themselves together’ is often what we hear. There’s a lot of having to educate people; that’s not possible, their lives are so complicated and they've had so much abuse. It’s not a matter of pull yourself together, get a job and do something different. Choices are limited to what your life circumstances are,” says Nowland, adding: “We often say it’s a choice made out of no choice.”