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Memorandum submitted by Dr Helen J. Self (PC 11)
SEXUAL OFFENCES AND SEX ESTABLISHMENTS Prostitution 13
Paying for sexual services of a controlled prostitute: 14
Paying for sexual services of a controlled prostitute: 15 Amendment to offence of loitering etc for purposes of prostitution 16 Orders requiring attendance at meetings 17 Rehabilitation of offenders: orders under section 1(2A) of the Street Offences Act 1959 18
Soliciting:
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Comments
1) The biggest problem for sex workers is stigmatization. The endless repetition of terms such as 'selling their bodies', ' prostituted women', 'sex slaves', 'prostitute' and 'prostitution' reinforce the stigma and distracts our attention from harm reduction and safety (see for example, Fiona MacTaggart, letter to the Times, 23 Jan.).
2) We do not have to condone sex work but should still fight for just laws which protect those who are willingly involved in a legal activity (which is the majority), as well as those who are trafficked and exploited. The argument that nobody ever chooses sex work is incorrect and merely part of the current victim-centered ideology. Sex workers and trafficked women should not be conflated.
The current law already violates the human rights of sex workers. For example: the right to travel, the right to a family life, the right to safe working conditions, the right to just law and absence of arbitrary arrest.
3) The evidence base and statistics upon which the campaign for new offences has rested are flawed.
In 1998 it was recorded that
71 trafficked women were known to the police (Stopping Traffic, Police
Research Series Paper 125, Kelly
& Regan, 2000) . This was doubled by Professor Liz Kelly who speculated
that there might be 142 or 1,420 trafficked women in the
Figures for on and off-street work have been conflated and misreported in the press with statements that 98% are drug addicts (e.g. Deborah Orr, Independent, 13 Dec. 2006).
UNICEF announced that the UK had 5,000 children working as 'sex slaves', this was repeated by ECPAT and published in the Rowntree Foundation's Report on Contemporary Slavery (2007).
The government has relied on a ten year old survey conducted by Hilary Kinnell which estimated that there were 80,000 sex workers in the UK (women, men and transsexual) yet this is being quoted as if it was a contemporary Home Office figure applying to women only, though they also argue that the problem is increasing, which cannot be correct if it is still 80,000.
The Home Office has done no
research to establish the number of sex workers in
4) The current dogma that prostitution is not inevitable, that no women chooses sex work, that all are victims of pimps and drug dealers and that men are abusers or rapists should be challenged. It is only the latest justification for coercive measures, as was the Victorian concept of 'fallen women', the Edwardian 'feeble-minded', Wolfenden's 'flaunting' women and so on. (See also Fiona McTaggart on R4 'Today' and R.4 programme 'More or Less', 9 January.)
5) The definition of 'trafficking' should adhere to the UN Palermo Protocol (forced or deceived) but it has become very fluid in the hands of the police and is rarely defined in the media, or by politician.
6) The Swedish system should be deconstructed. It makes one side of a contract legal and the other illegal whilst presenting the women as abused victims, then subjecting them to compulsory interference in their private lives whilst the promised welfare is not forthcoming.
7) Loitering, soliciting and kerb crawling are public nuisance offences. The penalties for these offences are excessive. The proposed offences will make sex work virtually illegal and as the they are intended, as far as possible, to stop prostitution, they will leave those who continue in a very vulnerable and isolated situation.
8) Putting pressure on indoor work will shut down the safest off-street venues. The Home Office claim that they wish to protect vulnerable women is a very shallow one. Small brothels should be legalized.
9) It would be wise to scrutinize policies which have driven women into prostitution, such as Margaret Thatcher's withdrawal of welfare from 16 to 18 year olds and university tuition fees. The new Welfare Bill looks set to make matters still worse for single parents.
10) The Home Office has claimed to have consulted widely yet it has conspicuously ignored academic work which does not support the policies it wishes to pursue. It commissions work from people who cannot be relied upon, or accepts as genuine research papers which are below the standards imposed upon academics. This is destructive and undermining of academia.
January 2009 |