Home Affairs Select Committee calls for sex work to be decriminalised
As we work in the adult industry making and selling leather bondage gear, we at Affordable Leather Products deal with many people who work in the sex industry and we like to keep an eye on the state of the laws that surround it.
We recently blogged debunking Kat Banyard’s claims that Decriminalising prostitution legitimises the abuse of women and now we have more pleasing news as the Home Office Select Committee has called for an end to the criminalisation of sex workers.
[bctt tweet=”The criminalisation of sex workers should therefore end. Full report: https://t.co/cwjNpJHzfe”]
At midnight on the 1st of July, presumably in the traditional way of trying to bury news where people are least likely to see it, the Home Office tweeted that “The criminalisation of sex workers should therefore end” following the publication of their interim report on Prostitution.
Now, ignoring the fact that it’s not actually illegal to be a sex worker in England and Wales and, excluding street-walking, solicitation by sex workers is not an offence, this is good news and we can take from this that the Home Office Committee has actually listened to sex workers and their representatives.
In the past such Committees have made a (presumably deliberate) practice of only taking “evidence” from groups opposed to prostitution and those who operate the so-called “rescue industries”. These people believe that all (or almost all) women involved in prostitution are forced into it or are trafficked and must therefore be saved from themselves (whether they want to be “rescued” or not) and put back on the straight and narrow.
What is pleasing is that, firstly that they call for those sex workers who have been convicted of solicitation offences to have these criminal records deleted and, secondly, and more importantly, they say that “[…] the Home Office should immediately change existing legislation so that soliciting is no longer an offence and brothel-keeping laws allow sex workers to share premises, without losing the ability to prosecute those who use brothels to control or exploit sex workers.”
[bctt tweet=”Home Office should immediately change brothel-keeping laws-allow sex workers to share premises”]
Of these statements, the one amending brothel-keeping laws is definitely the best one to ensure the safety of the workers since, at present, if two women work at the same address for their own safety, they can both be prosecuted for “running a brothel”. The current state of the law forces them to work separately, meaning that if a client starts to act aggressively or unacceptably, there is nobody to help protect the worker.
The Select Committee also added “There must be zero tolerance of the organised criminal exploitation of sex workers.” This is something which we entirely agree with, but such a law must be implemented correctly to ensure that if the workers wish to employ security staff or even cleaners, those people are not accused of exploiting the workers.
There is, unfortunately, still a concern because the Select Committee say “The Committee will be seeking further evidence on the impacts of the recently introduced sex buyer laws in Northern Ireland and France, and the model of regulation used in for example New Zealand, to make a better assessment for its final report.”
Northern Ireland and France have recently introduced the so-called Nordic Model which decriminalises the sex workers whilst, at the same time, criminalising those who purchase their services. This is a nonsensical method of trying to protect the workers, since it means that clients will endeavour to conceal their identities as much as possible, making it very difficult for the workers to know if a potential customer is dangerous or, if the client behaves aggressively, to report that client to the Police.
Call for Evidence-based Policy Making on Prostitution
The Committee commented that “Without a proper evidence base, the Government cannot make informed decisions about the effectiveness of current legislation and policies, and cannot target funding and support interventions effectively. The Home Office should commission an in-depth research study on the current extent and nature of prostitution in England and Wales, within the next 12 months.”
[bctt tweet=”Without proper evidence, Govt can’t make informed decisions about effectiveness of legislation”]
This is another pleasing aspect, too much campaigning (generally on the anti-prostitution side) is based on anecdotal evidence and “Appeal to Pity” arguments that “Person X had a bad experience having been forced into prostitution” and trying to extend a single example into a general case that, therefore, many other workers have similar experiences. This is then used to justify calls for a total ban.
Keith Vaz, the Chair of the Committee, said: “[…] there has been universal agreement that elements of the present law are unsatisfactory. Treating soliciting as a criminal offence is having an adverse effect, and it is wrong that sex workers, who are predominantly women, should be penalised and stigmatised in this way. The criminalisation of sex workers should therefore end.”
He continued “The current law on brothel keeping also means sex-workers can be too afraid of prosecution to work together at the same premises, which can often compromise their safety. There must however be zero tolerance of the organised criminal exploitation of sex workers, and changes to legislation should not lessen the Home Office’s ability to prosecute those engaged in exploitation.”
Some key facts that the Select Committee reported:
* Around 11% of British men aged 16–74 have paid for sex on at least one occasion, which equates to 2.3 million individuals.
* The number of sex workers in the UK is estimated to be around 72,800 with about 32,000 working in London.
* Sex workers have an average of 25 clients per week paying an average of £78 per visit.
* In 2014–15, there were 456 prosecutions of sex workers for loitering and soliciting.
* An estimated 152 sex workers were murdered between 1990 and 2015. 49% of sex workers (in one survey) said that they were worried about their safety.
* There were 1,139 victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2014 and 248 in April to June 2015 (following implementation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015).
Write to your MP
If we are going to build on this good start, we need to keep the momentum going by contacting our MPs and telling them that the Nordic Model is not the one to follow as it puts women at greater risk from dangerous clients.
Tell your MP that we should adopt the New Zealand Model of Prostitution which was designed in consultation with that country’s sex workers and has resulted in NZ being described as “the best country to work as a prostitute” by a Sex Workers’ advocacy group.
Is common sense finally breaking out in MPs minds? It would be great if it is!