Crime and Policing Bill

Written evidence submitted by CEASE to the House of Commons Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill (CPB47). 

CEASE   – the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation – is a UK based charity working to expose and dismantle the cultural and commercial drivers behind all forms of sexual exploitation in the UK. We shine a light on what sexual exploitation is, where it occurs and how it contravenes human rights. We campaign for new and better laws and advocate for policy change to hold the global sex industry to account. 

Summary

1. CEASE, the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation, strongly supports amendments NC1, NC2 and NC3 and NC4 to the Crime and Policing Bill to update and strengthen legislation on commercial sexual exploitation .

NC1: Outlaw pimping websites

2. This amendment, tabled by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, would make it an offence to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person, online and offline. This amendment is necessary to modernise anti-pimping laws in England and Wales and combat the pimping websites fueling sex trafficking.

3. The laws we have across England and Wales against adult sexual exploitation are outdated and ineffective.   The world has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Pimps and traffickers have moved online to advertise their victims. Sex buyers can now order a woman to exploit as easily as ordering a takeaway. Yet legislation has not kept pace with this technological change.   

4. As the law currently stands, it is illegal to place a prostitution advert in a phone box, but legal to host that same advert on a website for profit. This cannot continue. We urgently need to bring our laws against sexual exploitation into the twenty-first century.  

The need for reform

5. V iolence and exploitation are inherent in prostitution. Physical violence and psychological trauma are regular occurrences for prostituted people, as confirmed both by people currently in the prostitution industry and those who have exited. This violence and trauma are predominantly perpetrated by sex buyers, as well as pimps and traffickers. [1] Women and girls are forced to endure unwanted sex, inclusive of violent and dehumanising sex acts at the hands of sex buyers. [2]  This is why the Scottish Government in its strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls has declared that prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls . [3]

6. Anyone, be they individuals or companies, who facilitate and/or profit from prostitution are therefore actively participating in violence against women and girls, exploitation and sex trafficking. This includes pimping websites.   

7. In 2017, the UK’s Joint Slavery and Trafficking Analysis Centre stated that: ‘Adult services websites’ (pimping websites) represent the most significant enabler of sexual exploitation in the UK. [4] The APPG on Commercial Sexual Exploitation’s 2018 inquiry found that organised crime groups typically use prostitution procurement websites to advertise sex trafficking victims to sex buyers . [5]

8. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Human Trafficking in 2023, Andrea Salvoni , Acting Co-ordinator for Combating Human Trafficking at the OSCE stated that 75% of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are advertised online, usually on ‘adult service websites . ’ [6]

9. The Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation found that:  

· Sexual Exploitation Advertising websites are a major enabler of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in Scotland.    

· ‘Market-leading’ Sexual Exploitation Advertising websites centralise and concentrate demand online from sex buyers.   

· Opportunities and incentives for third parties to traffic and exploit women via Sexual Exploitation Advertising websites cannot be ‘designed out’ of the websites.   

· Sexual Exploitation Advertising websites knowingly facilitate and profit from the prostitution of others.   

· Sexual exploitation advertising websites do not enhance the safety of women. They endanger vulnerable women by incentivising and enabling sex trafficking. [7]

10. Following his 2022 visit to the UK, the former Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe ( OSCE ) Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Valiant Richy said in his report:   

11. ‘The business model of such [pimping] websites is based on making money off the sex industry, which is notoriously high risk and permeated by exploitation. Time and again, the website operators have shown no interest in meaningful prevention or protection and, in some cases, actively contribute to exploitation.’ [8]  

12. Further, w omen affected by conflict are at increased risk of being exploited in the sex trade. The OSCE highlighted that in 2022 when the war in Ukraine began, searches on prostitution advertising websites for ‘Ukrainian escorts’ increased by 200% in the UK. [9]

13. Again, the Home Affairs Select Committee’s 2023 human trafficking inquiry found that indicators of trafficking for sexual exploitation and other third-party exploitation offences were prolific on pimping websites, with the full knowledge of those who run them. [10]    

14. In fact, after hearing evidence from Vivastreet , one of the UK’s most prolific pimping website s , about the measures they have put in place to combat trafficking, the Home Affairs Select Committee’s 2023 Human Trafficking Inquiry concluded: ‘Upon scrutiny, we considered these measures to have barely reduced, let alone prevented, traffickers from using these websites to advertise their victims to sex buyers.’ [11]

15. It is therefore incumbent upon the government to accept Amendment NC1 to the Crime and Policing Bill to prevent the trafficking and exploitation of women that is prolific on pimping websites and bring legislation and regulation up to the date.

NC2: End impunity for paying for sex and NC3: Support rather than sanction victims

16. Amendment NC2, tabled by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, would make it an offence to pay for sex. This amendment is necessary to deter demand for sexual exploitation and hold perpetrators accountable.

17. Amendment NC3, tabled by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, would repeal the offence under the Street Offences Act 1959 of persistently loitering or soliciting in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution. This amendment would help ensure victims of sexual exploitation receive support, not sanctions.

18. Prostitution and related sex trafficking are a highly gendered phenomenon. The UK APPG on Commercial Sexual Exploitation (APPG CSE) state that ‘sex trafficking is [also] a highly gendered crisis: the people who are exploited are overwhelmingly women, and the people who pay to sexually abuse them are overwhelmingly men’. [12]

19. In fact, ‘the demand that drives the sex trade is both a cause and a consequence of inequality between women and men .’ [13] The commercial sex industry perpetuates the idea that women and girls are disposable objects, who only exist to satisfy the male desire for sex. Although men and transgender people are also affected, ‘it is the desire and willingness of some men to pay to sexually access women’s bodies which is the primary foundation of the sex trade . ’ [14] This male demand creates a market and traffickers and pimps supply the women and girls to fill it.  

20. According to a report by the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation the majority of women involved in sexual exploitation were highly vulnerable before their involvement in prostitution:

· Approximately 50% were paid for sex acts before they were 18 years old. Up to 95% of women in street prostitution are believed to be problematic drug users.   

· A study involving 133 women in prostitution in five locations across England found that over half of the women had been raped or indecently assaulted. [15]    

21. A 2016 report commissioned by the House of Commons estimated that approximately 72,800 individuals are involved in prostitution in the UK, with approximately 32,000 of this group based in London. An estimated 95% of this group were women. [16]

22. Other research included in this report estimates that 17,000 migrant women were involved in prostitution in England and Wales, with 15% reporting being trafficked. [17]

23. The recent COVID pandemic, as well as the current cost of living crisis in the UK is driving more and more women into prostitution , as means of survival. [18] Therefore the numbers of women involved in prostitution and being trafficking into the U.K. are likely much higher.

Shifting the burden of criminality

24. Conversely those who pay for sex are men. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation has found that the men in the UK, who are most likely to have paid for sex are single, aged 25-34, in professional occupations and report high numbers of (unpaid) sexual partners. [19] This is consistent with global research on men who pay for sex. [20]  

25. As stated, it is the demand of these men to pay for sex that fuels prostitution an d sex trafficking across the United Kingdom. To stop this exploitation, sex buyers must be held to account b y the introduction of sex buyer laws , and anyone who sells sex must be decriminalized, and offered support and exit routes out of prostitution .

26. There is extensive research evidencing the real-world effectiveness of shifting the burden of criminality off victims and onto perpetrators – both pimps and sex buyers - to prevent sexual exploitation.

27. Men who buy sex repeatedly confirm that one of the strongest deterre nts to buying sex is the possibility of a criminal sanction and record . [21] I n countries such as Sweden, France and Ireland, where sex buyers are penalised , consumer-level demand is constrained. [22] This reduces the scale of the sex trade and curtails sex trafficking. [23] Germany has a prostitution rate between 30 and 40 times that of Sweden. New Zealand a country that does not criminalise paying for sex, and which has a population of 4.5 million, has between 6000 and 8000 women in prostitution, which is 12 to 16 times that of the sex trade in Sweden. [24] A study comparing the effect of criminalisation of sex buying on the amount of sex bought in Denmark (sex buying is legal), Norway (sex buying criminali s ed ), and Sweden found that 2.6% of Danes had purchased sex in the past six months, compared to 1.7% of Norwegians and 0.5% of Swedes. [25]    

Removing sanctions from victims of sexual exploitation:

28. Removing criminal sanctions off those who sell sex (majority women) is critical as sanctions can make it harder for women to leave the sex trade and rebuild their lives. Women face substantial barriers to exiting prostitution and rebuilding their lives. [26] These include the effects of trauma, addiction, housing difficulties, debt and coercion by third parties. Having a criminal record for soliciting can compound these barriers, as can the related requirement to pay a fine. [27]

29. Sanctions can also stop victims of trafficking seeking help. An inquiry by the APPG on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade found that traffickers and pimps can use sanctions against victims to exert control over them. In one case highlighted by the Metropolitan Police, a sex trafficking gang advertised its victims to sex buyers by requiring them to solicit on the street. If the women were arrested and fined for persistent soliciting, the traffickers refused to pay the fines and deliberately transferred the sense of criminality to the women, deterring them from seeking help. [28]

30. However, a ‘demand reduction’ approach to prostitution and sex trafficking which shift s the burden of criminality off victims and onto perpetrators (sex buyers and pimps) has been shown to reduce commercial sexual exploitation while supporting women to exit prostitution. S o far it has been adopted by France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Israel, Iceland and Canada. 

· Sweden was the first country to criminalise paying for sex and decriminalise victims of sexual exploitation in 1999, affording over two decades of evidence. It demonstrates that demand has dropped, public attitudes have transformed, and traffickers are being deterred.  

· In Ireland, the demand-reduction approach has "increased the likelihood that women in prostitution will report violence committed against them without fear of being criminalised themselves."  

· In France, hundreds of women have been supported by exiting programmes, with one major service reporting, "90% of those who have finished an exit programme…have found a stable job at the end." Meanwhile, 78% of the French public support the country’s new approach to prostitution. [29]  

31. CEASE therefore full y support amendments NC2 and NC3 to the Crime and Policing Bill.

NC4: Update the definition of human trafficking

32. Amendment NC4, tabled by Carolyn Harris MP, would bring the definition of human trafficking in the Modern Slavery Act in line with the internationally agreed definition, removing the need for the victim to have travelled and clarifying that it is irrelevant whether the victim consent to the exploitation, not just the travel.

33. The requirement for the victim to have travelled is nonsensical. As the Home Affairs Committee highlighted in their 2023 inquiry on human trafficking, "it is the exploitation - not the travel - which is the fundamental harm." [30] Therefore, it is "nonsensical" that a man who forces a woman into prostitution and profits from it can only be charged with human trafficking if the victim goes on a car ride or other journey during the exploitation. Additionally, the Modern Slavery Act only specifies that it is irrelevant whether the victim consented to the travel, but does not state it is irrelevant in relation to the exploitation itself. Again, this is nonsensical. It is the exploitation that is the core harm.

34. The U.K.’s definition of human trafficking is out of line with internationally agreed definitions. International legal definitions of human trafficking do not require the offence to have involved the travel or movement of a victim. These include the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol), the European Convention on Action against Trafficking (ECAT), and EU Trafficking Directive 2011/36/EU.

35. The reform has cross-party support. The Home Affairs Committee [31] and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation have both recommended that the Government update the definition of human trafficking in the Modern Slavery Act to remove the need for travel and to clarify the consent of the victim is irrelevant in relation to the exploitation, not just the travel.

36. CEASE therefore fully support amendment NC4 to the Crime and Policing Bill.

April 2025.