The UK’s anti-trafficking policy is undermining the rights of sex workers, leaving them vulnerable to arrest and conviction or, in the case of migrant workers, detainment and deportation. The UK is also failing to meet its human rights obligations to trafficked persons, particularly men, transgender people and people trafficked into non-sexual labour, says a report by sex worker rights network, x:talk.
The report, Human Rights, Sex Work and the Challenge of Trafficking is now available in PDF format. It describes how the UK’s anti-trafficking policy has created new crimes around the selling of consensual sexual services between adults and how its implementation has resulted in an increase in arrests and convictions for sex workers and others in the sex industry. The combination of anti-trafficking raids, brothel closures and increased surveillance of the indoor sex industry has caused serious disruptions to sex workers’ working environments and made the industry less safe, especially for migrant sex workers. The report describes the UK anti-trafficking measures as causing “an unprecedented incursion into the lives and work of people employed in the indoor sex industry”.
It finds that many undocumented migrants are unable or unwilling to exercise their rights as workers, or access basic services, such as healthcare. Provisions in the Policing and Crime Act 2009, introduced to combat trafficking, have resulted in a situation where migrant sex workers do not seek redress when they are wronged or abused and are more vulnerable to exploitation and rights abuses.
Ava Caradonna, sex worker and spokeswoman for x:talk, said: “We have always suspected that attempts to address human trafficking have been co-opted by people with another agenda—the eradication of the sex industry. What the x:talk report has highlighted is that, rather than assisting and supporting trafficked people, anti-trafficking policies have been most effective at putting the safety, health and even the lives of sex workers at risk. They have also helped to make sex workers a soft target for the Border Agency.”
x:talk has recently filed an FOI request for details of the Poppy Project [1], to coincide with the report’s release. The request aims to find out how the Poppy Project have spent more than £9m granted by the government and what support it is provided to trafficked women –information that is not currently publicly available.
for more information:
Ava Caradonna: 07914 703 372
http://www.xtalkproject.net
Notes:
[1] The Poppy Project is the sole government-funded, dedicated service for women trafficked into sexual exploitation It received £5.8m from the Home Office between April 2006 and February 2009, with a further grant of £3.7m for three years from March 2009. The Poppy Project operates from an avowed abolitionist framework. Support through the project is contingent upon women giving up sex work and its program is aimed at ‘rehabilitating’ women out of the industry. The project has been publicly criticised for conflating the number of people trafficked into sex work in the UK.
Archive for November, 2010
ANTI-TRAFFICKING POLICY FAILS TO ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF TRAFFICKED PEOPLE AND PREVENTS SEX WORKERS FROM ASSERTING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Posted in Migration, Trafficking on 28 November, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
French Parliament seeks the facts on prostitution
Posted in Government Reviews and Change on 26 November, 2010 | 1 Comment »
It appears that the French parliament is to seek facts on prostitution. Provided they listen to sex workers this may be a good thing. It is certainly something our Parliament should do. The previous Labour government here in the UK certainly did not listen to sex workers but rather to bigots with the result that the UK has had to endure yet more bad legislation that has further alienated sex workers and made their work more dangerous.
What I find particularly fascinating is that the Swedish solution to the so called sex work problem, much loved by so called feminists, has led to an increase in the involvement of organised crime. No surprise of course to sex workers but the joke is that the anti sex worker lobbyists will now use that criminal involvement to justify their demands for their bad laws that have created the market that criminals now exploit.
If it was not so sad it would actually be quite funny.
That aside this article by By Alison Hird explains what is happening in France:
>.
Prostitution isn’t illegal in France but since the so-called Sarkozy II law of 2003, soliciting is. And it’s made life for prostitutes tougher and more dangerous. With a fact-finding mission on prostitution underway at the National Assembly, many are hoping for a change in the law.
“France has a dreadful legal system concerning prostitution, full of contradictions. Because prostitution is tolerated but soliciting is a crime. […] It’s made the milieu of prostitution and the work itself a lot worse.”
Françoise Gil, sociologist and founder of the association Femmes de droit, Droit des Femmes representing prostitutes, echoes the views of campaign groups, and both the Socialist and Green party, that the law needs changing.
The Internal Security law of 2003 included an article making passive soliciting a crime, punishable with up to a fine of 3,750 euros and a two-month prison sentence.
“Just standing in a place known for prostitution, at night, means you can be arrested for soliciting,” says Gil.
To escape arrests and fines Gil says women have increasingly moved off the streets and into places such as woods or industrial estates where they’re less visible but far more vulnerable.
“They’ve slashed their prices and are doing acts they used to refuse like unprotected sex, kissing on the mouth.”
The number of women with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has increased since the law was passed she adds.
Ethnologist Marie-Elisabeth Handman, co-author of a major report Prostitution à Paris says the law has actually increased the number of pimps.
“The young men who live around [the woods] found it very easy to become pimps of these women. If the morality of all that was to get rid of the pimps, then, no, it’s made it worse.”
The law defines pimps as anyone helping prostitutes or benefitting from their revenue. It’s therefore prevented women from working in groups, sharing flats and looking out for one another, since they’d be accused of “reciprocal pimping”, says Handman.
Read rest of article “HERE”.
Prostitution: Should it be decriminalized in Canada?
Posted in Government Reviews and Change on 26 November, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A chance for us all to do a little to help our friends in Canada. We can all vote for decriminalisation and if we wish to comment on why Canada should lead the way in decriminalising sex work we can do so.
If Canada has the good sense to do this it will be a great incentive to those fighting for justice here in the UK and in the USA.
Note the photo is from the CBC news so predictably it is a salacious picture of two street women. Hmmm yawn.
The link is “HERE”.
LETTER TO MSP.
Posted in Campaigns and Groups, Government Reviews and Change on 26 November, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Trish Goodman a Labour MSP is, as reported previously on this blog, once again trying to push a bill through the Scottish parliament to not only criminalise men who buy sex (note only men) but also to criminalise the seller. What she effectively wants is the criminalisation of consensual sex if ANY payment by any means occurs.
We must fight this bill.
A reader and supporter of Harlots has kindly forwarded this open letter which she would like to share, This letter has been sent to all members of the Scottish Parliament. If everyone could perhaps use this letter as inspiration and send something similar it would help enormously in the campaign to stop Trish Goodman from inflicting so much harm on so many innocent people.
Contact details for SMP .“HERE”.
The author has asked to remain anonymous at present.
The letter reads:
“I am writing with great concern in regard to Trish Godman MSP, Labour for her proposal of a bill for the Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex (Scotland) .
Her main aim is to outlaw the act of purchasing sex, with the focus being on the male client and his role in purchasing sex. She wishes to place the male as a criminal when seeking to buy sex. She feels that society is complacent and indifferent to the purchase of sex. She wishes to challenge this complacency within society. Trisha Godman wants to also criminalise the selling of sex. This means that all sex workers will be committing a crime when working, that they will be carrying out an illegal act when having sex.
There is a massive gender war at present among certain feminist groups that are seeking the criminalisation of men purchasing sex and such legislation as is being proposed is part of a this wider anti male legislation that is occurring at present.
In regard to this gender imbalance that is occurring how do you, as an MSP within Scotland feel about the rights of the individual, the rights of a man not to be discriminated by government legislation? Have you thought about the violation of human rights in this matter of the man that is being targeted?
What of the sex worker, male or female? At present sex work is not illegal, and many sex workers do so as a legitimate business, and are registered as self employed. Many sex workers make a pro choice to do this profession. There is this constant stigma pushed forward by the media, extreme feminist groups, and targeted anti-male campaigners that sex work is something which is vile, nasty, associated with drugs or violence. It is not for the majority of sex workers. If sex work occurs due to the need to supply a drug habit, then the issue is that of drugs and not of the sex worker. If violence occurs, then it is an act of violence from a violent individual, and not a consequence of sex work. Sex work does not equal drugs or violence. So why continue to act as if it is so?
Trish Godman would like to see this bill go forward possibly as a reflection of the Swedish model for the criminalisation of sex, however, there is a documented evidence of negative effects experienced since the Swedish law was passed. As can be read in a report by Kulick (2005: 209-210):
“In reality, however, the law has had entirely predictable and deeply negative consequences for street prostitutes, who by all accounts do not number more than 650 to 1,000 in the entire country. These consequences include increased police harassment; reduced power to choose between clients, since they have become scarcer (hence prostitutes tend to find themselves with precisely the violent and unstable clients they would have avoided before);”
I can go on, and I have multiple research papers and articles, and contacts with many organisations that will defend what I have pointed out so briefly.
It is important that the SNP do not back this bill and can I remind you of a statement that I briefly saw on your website in regard to donors
SNP statement “The SNP are proud to be different from the other political parties. We have built a broad base of individual donors who care about Scotland to ensure that we answer to no one but the people.”
So if SNP is as proud, and is as different as I have always been led to believe then I do hope that you will do thorough research into this area and realise that Trish Godman mainly has an anti-male agenda and a dislike of the sex industry of which she clearly has no real idea of what occurs or simply wishes to ignore the facts that she is told.
So do listen to the people, and answer to the people of Scotland on this matter. Do not allow this Bill to go through. If it does go through it will only reflect that Scotland is anti-male and frightened of the pro sex choice workers.”
YOU HAVE GOT IT WRONG THERESA MAY!
Posted in Feminism, VAW on 25 November, 2010 | 2 Comments »
.“Theresa May. has decided to tackle domestic violence. Her Rhetoric however does not bode well for those of us fighting for sexual freedom and decriminalisation of sex work. It reeks of feminist propaganda.
Domestic violence is a real problem. It destroys lives and it destroys families. Domestic violence and bullying is an often dark secret within families.
Domestic violence however is not just about male violence against women. Domestic violence is not gender specific. Theresa May has made a huge mistake when she tackles domestic violence a part of the feminist rhetoric that persists in making the woman the victim and the man the perpetrator of violence.
The same powerful and multi million dollar industry that perpetuates the feminist agenda that men are always violent perpetrators and women are powerless victims, the same rhetoric that influences lazy government ministers in attitudes toward sex work, is to seen to be at work in Theresa May’s announcements today.
Theresa May is to allow women to call fowl on their husbands and male partners by informing the police that
they are victims of domestic abuse. The police then have the power to arbitrarily ban the male partner from the family home. It does not take much imagination to understand how this will be used within families to increase tension and perhaps by spouses to intimidate and threaten. How will children feel to see their fathers removed and forbidden contact on the word of their mother?
Once again the truth is being ignored both by ministers and by the media who both prefer easy headlines that play to prejudice. The facts are that within cases of domestic violence it is usual that both partners are equally violent, not just the man. Women are as violent as men and against other women worse.
Theresa May is playing to public prejudice and misconceptions and the consequences will be broken families and broken lives and domestic violence will continue in secret. When will the government learn that as with sex work creating badly thought out laws that pander to ideological propaganda rather than reflecting the reality of the experiences of the people involved will only lead to misery.
Not good Theresa. Not good at all.
.“Erin Pizzey. 
who founded the first womans refuge in 1971 said and wrote:
The feminist movement everywhere had hi-jacked the whole issue of domestic violence to fulfil their political ambitions and to fill their pockets. I marvelled at the organisation and the amounts of money that were floating about. [13] Under cover of the shelter movement which gave them funding and accommodation to wage their gender war against men, they began to disseminate misleading information. [14] I watched the feminist movement build its bastions of hatred against men. Fortresses where women were to be taught that all men were ‘rapists and bastards’ and the destruction of the children in the refuge. I watched the ‘consciousness raising groups’ designed to brain wash women into believing that their husbands were the enemy and must be eradicated. I saw fathers of children denied their rights and persecuted. Judicial neutrality and individual rights are declared to be patriarchal fictions. [15] Feminism, I realised, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinary cruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs – two biological parents under one roof – was being undermined by the very ideology which claimed to speak up for women’s rights. [16] Those women who love their husbands, partners and sons must join with the men’s movement in seeing that anti male legislation never gets passed. This is our last chance to right a horrendous wrong. Millions of men and their children have suffered in the hands of this evil feminist movement. The time has come for men and women to say: NO TO FEMINISM. [17]
Between Theresa May and a bunch of over paid career feminists I know whom I would listen to when it comes to issues of domestic violence.
You can read more on Erin Prizzey on her own blog/page.“HERE..
UN GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO HATE
Posted in Government Reviews and Change on 25 November, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It is funny how selective the media is in the stories it covers and in how it covers those stories.
Sex workers for example are almost always depicted as victims, inevitably as street workers with all the assumed associations with drug abuse and other social problems that are part of the stereotype we all too easily accept as fact.
Occasionally we, that is sex workers, are depicted as glamorous, high class tarts on the make.
However we are depicted it is usually as social parasites, undesirables, not something one would want to be or to be associated with. In short the media perpetuates our social exclusion by emphasising our perceived differences to what is normal society and normal behaviour.
Similarly gays and Lesbians; despite their high prominence within the arts and the within the media and despite in the west a general tolerance and acceptance of differences in sexual orientation. Despite all of this; is it not odd that when a dramatic and worrying change within the United Nations definition of what should not be considered justification for discriminatory execution is removed from gay people that little or nothing is heard, no protests in the media.
For the last 10 years sexual orientation has been included in a list of discriminatory grounds for executions that is unacceptable to the United Nations. This has now changed. African nations have won, all be it narrowly, a vote for the removal of the protection of the United Nations for gay, lesbian and trans men and women by removing sexual orientation from this list of unacceptable reasons for execution.
Although the United Nations has never stopped Nations executing and persecuting people because of their sexual orientation the fact that sexual orientation has been removed from a list of unacceptable reasons justifies the barbarism of countries like Iran and Iraq and Nigeria and the Sudan.
In these countries gay men especially; as well as trans men are targeted for torture and execution.
We also have to consider what sort of message does this send to homophobes here in the west? The UN seems to be justifying their ignorance, their intolerance and their hatred.
The fact the media has mostly ignored this change I think tells us something unpleasant about our own society and tells us that those in positions of authority are perhaps not as tolerant as we assume. It also explains why sex worker voices or the voices of any discriminated against minorities are rarely heard within the UN
You can read more in the “Pink Paper.
AFRICAN SEX WORKER SEMINAR CANCELLED. WHY?
Posted in Government Brutality, Government Reviews and Change on 24 November, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I have been made aware of the following letter that was sent informing all friends of sex workers and of human rights about the disgraceful pressure put upon the management of the Serena Hotel in Uganda. The Serena hotel was due to hold a seminar of African sex workers where issues relating to sex work could be discussed by those who suffer the consequences of anti sex laws the most, sex workers.
The hotel received a letter from the Minister of Ethics and Integrity Hon Buturo on behalf of the Ugandan government warning of consequences if the conference was permitted to proceed. A less fitting title for this minister perhaps could not be invented. Sadly this action illustrates the type of prejudiced persecution that happens everywhere that sex workers come together to demand freedoms that others take for granted. In the UK sex workers voices are ignored by ministers in favour of wealthy anti sex work pressure groups who are often funded by the government. No bias then.
I have written to Akina Mama wa Afrika asking how sex workers and our allies and friends can help. I will keep you informed.
From: Kasha.N. Jacqueline
Sent: 11/18/10 06:37 PM
To: ucscohrcl, lgbti-info-uganda, queerafrica, ILGA-Africa
Subject: Sex worker conference under attack by Government in Uganda-thrown out of Hotel
Its with sadness that I inform you of the cancellation Akina Mama wa Afrika conference for the Commercial Sex Workers Leaderhip institute that was to start on the 18 to 20th November at the Serena Hotel,Ranch on the lake.This is because the Minister of Ethics and Integrity Hon Buturo directed the hotel to cancel their booking as they were hosting a conference for a certain group that is illegal.In his letter to the hotel the Minister states that prostitution is illgeal and so should the hotel go ahead and host this conference on their premises they woudl be complying with illegalities.
Background.In 2008 again the same Minister stopped a sex workers confence which was scheduled to take place in Entebbe and the conference had to relocate and have the confence in Mombasa,this time around the conference unlike in 2008 had started.It is a violation of human rights of the highest order and we need all the support available to condemn this abuse.Everybody has a right to work and this means that the Minister is undermining the work the Sex workers are involved in.Its their bodies and they have the right to choice and bodily integrity.So for the Minister to dictate what they should or shouldnt do with their bodies is a violation of the CSW rights.
Akina Mama wa Afrika has been very involved in fighting for sexual minorities rights in Uganda and needs all your support at this tying time.
We need ally our support to condemn this action and call for the decriminalization of CSW in Uganda.
You are not free until everyone is free.
Inset picture is of letter from minister sent to hotel.
The Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex (Scotland) Bill
Posted in Campaigns and Groups, Government Reviews and Change, tagged Scotland, sex workers, Trish Godman on 24 November, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Trish Godman was roundly defeated this year when she tried to introduce a clause into the Scottish Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill making the purchase and advertising of paid sexual services a criminal offence. Not only was the clause defeated in committee, but when she and her supporters brought their bill before the whole of the Scottish Parliament it was again soundly defeated, with only the Labour party supporting her.
With all predictability she is still campaigning to criminalise the purchase of sex, with the detrimental affect this will have on sex workers in Scotland. It is no coincidence there is more danger to sex workers, and greater percentage of vulnerable street sex workers in Glasgow then there is in Edinburgh. Glasgow is a hostile place to sell sex and to buy sexual services. In contrast Edinburgh licences brothels and the police inspect them making Edinburgh a much safer place for sex workers.
Although Trish Godman is retiring in May 2011, she is still intent on getting her name on a bill criminalising the client. On Thursday 25th November she is introducing a Members bill:- The Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex (Scotland) Bill this will appear in the Scottish Parliament Business Bulletin on 25 November and will be open for consultation from 25 November until 18 February.
Instead of phaffing around wasting so many peoples time, with a bill that will seriously harm sex workers, wouldn’t it be useful that this time and money was spent helping those who are vulnerable. Just a thought.
THE POPE CLARIFIES COMMENTS ON CONDOM USE
Posted in Religion, Safety on 24 November, 2010 | 1 Comment »
It would appear that the catholic church has at last approved the use of condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and infections such as HIV. There has been some controversy and confusion over Pope Benedict’s comments in a new book of interviews given by the Pope. During one interview the Pope appeared to agree 
that the use of condoms by male prostitutes was a lesser evil.
Previously the Pope and the Catholic church had taught that condom use for any purpose was intrinsically evil and a sin. The Pope during a recent visit to Africa had even suggested that condom use was of little effect in preventing the spread of HIV. These comments had caused out rage around the world. The Pope has now made it clear that condom use by all prostitutes, not just male prostitutes is a lesser evil.
The catholic church however maintains its official teaching that condom use within heterosexual families for the purpose of birth control is always sinful and against the teachings of the church. The Popes comments however will make such distinctions between disease prevention and birth control harder to define. Hopefully it will allow health agencies to now work with the church especially in Africa and the Phillipines where the Catholic church is very powerful to encourage condom use to prevent the spread of HIV which has devastated families and communities.
This article in the “Guardian” explains.
Madam Becky, interview for 5 Live News. The Modern Face of Prostitution, Middle Class Prostitution
Posted in In the Media, tagged brothels, Five Live News, Madam Becky, sex-work, Suzzane Jenkins on 18 November, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Madam Becky an ex brothel owner from the UK was interviewed by 5 Live News, dispelling the myths about prostitution. The myths that most sex workers don’t have control of their lives, are abused or come from abusive backgrounds, are on drugs, work the streets and are trafficked.
MB maintains that the women she came in contact with, and the most successful are in their late 20′s to 40′s are often from the caring professions, like nursing. She saw a growing proportion of middle class women entering the profession to supplement their life style. They are working for a better life, and have made the decision to work in the sex industry and feel empowered by the job.
This view is backed up by recent independent research in the UK by Suzzane Jenkins from Keele University in a paper Beyond gender: an examination of exploitation in sex work She found that most women working in the sex industry were in their 30′s to 40′s, and most frequently had been working 3-5 years, suggesting that very few had started working as sex workers in their teens, oe even early 20′s. The large majority were empowered by their work, respected their clients and felt their clients respected them. She found a third held BA degrees and 18% held post graduate degress.
Unfortunately 5 Live News still deem it necessary to cut in scenes from street workers. It will take time to educate the media from the standard stereotypes.
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