This month, Amnesty International delegates will vote on a proposal to make decriminalisation of sex work a campaigning matter for the human rights organisation. This, understandably, has raised ire from many people, but none so large as parts of the feminist movement.
Just last week, we saw several Hollywood actors – ordinarily staunch allies of Amnesty’s work – sign an open letter promulgated by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women calling for Amnesty to reject the policy. One notable signatory was Anne Hathaway, who received an Oscar two years ago for her portrayal of Fantine in Les Miserables.
Fantine’s story is one that resembles that of many sex workers – after losing her job at Valjean’s factory, and being unable to make ends meet, she turns to selling sex at the docks of Montrieul. Eventually, after she is assaulted by a client, Javert arrests her and sentences her to prison. Only through Valjean’s intervention is Fantine able to die a free woman. Would criminalisation have helped Fantine? Obviously not; solicitation was highly illegal in 19th century France. In addition, like many of these laws, it was a law only ever utilised against the poorest workers. Hugo’s message in telling Fantine’s story was not one against prostitution; it was one of moral judgement failing the most in need.
In a comment piece for the Observer, CATW board member Esohe Aghatise called for the rejection of decriminalised models such as that used in New Zealand in favour of the Nordic model of criminalising clients. She describes the former as failing spectacularly and the latter as working. But nothing could be further from the truth.
To back her claim that decriminalisation hasn’t worked in New Zealand, Aghatise cites a report that apparently states that sex workers are not more likely to report crimes to the police than before decriminalisation. She must not have read the report properly, as it states that over two thirds of sex workers state that they were more likely to report crimes. Furthermore, it proposes mutually beneficial models, such as those working in Christchurch over there and Liverpool over here, as a way of reducing stigmatisation.
Secondly, criminalisation of clients doesn’t work in the Nordic countries. Even a Swedish government report set up to report favourably on the Swedish law stated that there was no evidence that the law had reduced trafficking, the number of clients, or the number of workers.
Also, Amnesty’s own research into Norway paints a harrowing picture: street workers are more likely to receive anti-migrant abuse, the Norwegian police run programmes to get sex workers evicted from their homes, and those workers who are able to stay must take liberties with their safety because of the law.
We should be realistic: sex work is not without its flaws. Sexual exploitation remains a massive problem in society, after all. We must not pretend that abolition through criminalisation is a panacea. When we talk about the exploitative systems in play in the sex industy, we’re actually talking about exploitation in an uncaring neoliberal world. Yet the “progressive” forces behind the criminalisation effort, from Labour here to the Social Democratic parties in Scandinavia, persist in cutting taxes on the rich and welfare on the poor with no regard for their impact on their society or their historical principles.
There is nothing moral about taking away a woman’s autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit and forcing her to work behind a shop counter for a paltry welfare payment. There is nothing moral by pretending to care about disadvantaged migrant workers, then raiding their flats and deporting them. The only way to reduce exploitation of any kind is to starve the beast that feeds it. Only by liberating people from ignorance, poverty, and conformity can we hope to see a more stronger and fairer society.
* Sarah Noble is an activist in Calderdale. Alongside her role on the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats executive, she shares a keen interest in devolution and transport policy.
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48 Comments
From the Open Letter: “A vote calling for legalizing pimping would in effect support gender apartheid, in which some women in society can demand protection from rape, discrimination and sexual harassment, while others, the most vulnerable among us, are instead set aside for consumption by men and for the profit of their pimps,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, CATW’s executive director. “This is far from what Eleanor Roosevelt envisioned for the world when she penned the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
This is my concern regarding this. I think debate and resolution still has a long way to go. Please do not forget that Males prostitute themselves out too, so this isn’t just a female problem, it’s about the stigma and oppressive response from society as well which makes this universal.
When I lived in Aberdeen the police created a tolerance zone where they monitored who was picking the prostitutes up on cctv to try and make the trade a little safer. The public supported the policy too because it kept it all in one area.
The lib dems in holyrood however decided to be tough on crime and voted to strengthen the laws against the trade and the tolerance zone closed. Grampaign police said that the change in the law made the zone legally unsustainable. You won’t get sympathy for decriminalising prostitution from the lib dems I’m afraid.
Have I understood your argument? Are you saying Labour’s somehow to blame for the exploitation of prostitutes because it “takes away” women’s “entrepreneurial spirit” by “forcing” them “to work behind a shop counter”?
Workfare-and-a-Sandwich was a key plank of Labour’s manifesto this year.
Attempting to abolish sex work is a task that is impossible to complete and that harms the very people the attempt would aim to protect. Legalisation and regulation is the best policy approach to take – it is also the most liberal approach, refusing to enforce conformity to particular ideas of sexual morality and refusing to lock people into poverty by stigmatising a past or present prostitute.
The idea of progress by criminalising the purchaser needs to be criticised, and political parties holding to that notion need to be challenged on it. It isn’t a workable policy idea, it won’t free people who sell sex and won’t make them any safer either. We could also look to the experience in Scotland – has the replacement of a tolerant approach in Edinburgh with a more Glaswegian-style approach to the trade helped? The Liberal Democrats could do worse than to go into next year’s elections with a proposal to introduce New Zealand style licensing, legalisation and regulation to prostitution.
Not all sex workers are female.
I’m in favour of ‘regulation’ of prostitution.
Excellent article, Sarah. The exploitation of sex workers will continue for as long as they don’t receive the full protection of the law – which can only happen when prostitution is legal, overt and subject to regulation. Authoritarian responses will never be successful as long as demand exists (we see exactly the same situation with drugs, of course).
“There is nothing moral about taking away a woman’s autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit” – we need to shout this from the rooftops.
@sarah. Look at the parties voting record in Scotland. The lib dems would never decriminalise the sex trade. If you want to know what the lib dems would do with the sex trade were they in power think of Sweden.
@ Sarah Noble,
I am sorry Sarah, but one would have to take a very Eurocentric view of the sex trade to accept your argument of the reasons behind the multi- billion pound sex industry.
There may be some women who sell sex because they are autonomous and entrepreneurial, but for many, perhaps most, even in the west , women sell sex to survive. I would argue that there is nothing moral about standing back whilst people who objectify these women, exploit a grossly unequal power relationship.
Amnesty must have taken leave of their senses if they think that the exploitation of vulnerable women is a ‘human right’.
Good article. At the core of this is that’s it’s disgraceful that anyone purporting to be acting in the interests of sex workers would do so without asking them what they want. Listen to the sex workers, not the Hollywood stars.
“There is nothing moral about taking away a woman’s autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit and forcing her to work behind a shop counter for a paltry welfare payment. ”
This can’t be said enough times.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038h4fs
This thread is yet another example of the lib dems problems laid bare. The article’s author writes about an issue that isn’t going away and must be tackled head on one way other the other and dealt with.
But it seems that the party is made up of two very different groups of people who see the role of the state differently and therefore come to two very different conclusions when debating this.
The social democrats seem to see prostitution as the explotation of vulnerable women regardless of consent and therefore come to the conclusions that one would expect a social democrat to come to. That the sex workers should be treated as victims and their clients criminalised. This tends to be what the law is in countries where the political centre of gravity is social democratic, it is also what lib dem MSPs have pretty much consistently voted when in power in Holyrood.
But liberals seem to see the role of the state rather differently and believe that even if the prostitues are essentially being exploited since they are consenting to it the state has no right to prohibit it, liberals tend to believe that people should be allowed to make the wrong choices and that prohibiting things for someone’s own good is not a good enough reason to take their freedom away. They therefore come to the conclusion that the trade should be legal and regulated which tends to be the law in places where the majority of people are liberally minded. Freedom isn’t always pretty as it involves having the freedom to make bad choices which can screw ones life up.
I believe that the UK as a whole is more liberal than social democratic. However the lib dem party seems split down the middle and therefore seems incapable of dealing with this issue head on, if the lib dems came to power I doubt the party as it presently is could tackle this issue one way or the other. It would be bitterly divided on the best way forward and would end up keeping the status quo and trying to avoid or fudge the issue to avoid upsetting one group or the other.
I don’t see decriminalisation as an ideological stance more than I see it as a practical stance: we know it works, we know that it helps the women in sex work more than any other model (including legalise and regulate, criminalisation of buyers, or full criminalisation). The medical community agrees that decriminalisation of sex work is essential for eradicating AIDS (because it makes the work safer). This is from equally a feminist stance as it is from a liberal stance.
David: party policy, passed by an overwhelming margin at both Federal and Scottish Conferences last Autumn, was to back decriminalisation.
The Open letter suggests that the policy covers (a) pimping and (b) profit-making brothel-keeping. I am not sure it does from reading the policy http://www.scribd.com/doc/202126121/Amnesty-Prostitution-Policy-document#scribd that it does
What is Sarah’s view on whether (a) pimping (ie control and/or share of proceeds) and (b) profit-making brothel-keeping (as opposed to a salaried receptionist or manager) should be decriminalised?
@ Sarah Noble: “David: party policy, passed by an overwhelming margin at both Federal and Scottish Conferences last Autumn, was to back decriminalisation.”
Sarah thanks for taking the time to respond to me but with all due respect a vote passed at conferences is utterly irrelevant. Under a Lib Dem majority government prostitution would not be decriminalised. Nothing would happen to change the status quo nationally in any meaningful way, things would pretty much remain exactly as they are now. In Scotland however you would get the same sort of laws as they have in Sweden if it was up to the Scottish party at Holyrood and indeed they pretty much already achieved that around 2007.
It was 15 years ago that the Lib Dems voted to change the party’s policy to one of legalising cannabis. Since then there has been Lib Dem MP after Lib Dem MP telling the press that they personally don’t support legalising cannabis, followed by individual MPs running campaigns to get the government to “toughen the law” and outlaw cannabis seeds so users are forced into the criminal market and can’t grow their own. There as been flip flop after spineless flip flop on that divisive social issue, what on earth makes you think that decriminalising the sex trade would be any different? What do you think the Lib Dems are at parliamentary level? They’re different to the others how exactly?
I know the Tories wouldn’t let the Lib Dems do certain things when in government but that excuse can’t be used for everything. After 5 years in government the Lib Dems have achieved some good things but it no coincidence that the laws on social issues such as sex and drugs are pretty much identical to how they were before the Lib Dems were in government.
I personally would not want decriminalisation of sex work to include decriminalising pimping.
On the other hand, I would reform the legislation around brothel-keeping, though, given that the primary use of the existing law is to crack down on sex workers working together for reasons of safety rather than cracking down on pimps.
@ Evan Harris,
My understanding of the policy on the basis of my reading of it, is that it would also de-criminalise pimps, brothel keepers and any of the assorted mafia etc’. who make the real profits. Perhaps someone has offered a clarification on this point.
@ Sarah Noble,
In what way does de-criminalising prostitution make the work safer?
By the way, I remember a time post AIDS when men were offering women a higher rate if they would agree to unprotected sex. This some of them agreed to against their better judgment. I dare say this still happens when a person is desperate for the money.
Of course, pimps and “the assorted mafia who make the real profits” only really exist because it is currently a criminal trade. The apple trade isnt associated with pimps and the mafia, and neither is the magazine trade.
Jayne: because in a quasi-criminal system, sex workers, especially those on the street, have to cut corners because of feat either on the part of the worker or the client of police action. That makes sex workers less able to do background checks on prospective clients, or negotiate safer sex.
Criminalising clients is criminalising the workers by the back door. As I’ve mentioned in the article, police in Norway routinely leverage landlords to evict workers, and bodyguards will not offer their protection services to workers for fear of police action.
I know one woman who works in Scotland who does not take calls from withheld numbers. She has said publicly that criminalising the purchase of sex would deter clients from calling her because the police would be able to raid her flat and take her phone as she’d be seen as an accessory to the crime.
The current legal structure around sex work makes the work incredibly unsafe. Take for example, the laws around brothel keeping. Those are used more against independent workers working from the same flat (and people they employ for security or housework). Solicitation laws too; they’re only ever used against street workers, who are on average the most deprived workers in the industry.
Those who would wish to criminalise the purchase of sex say that they would “decriminalise the worker”, but it’s never a unconditional offer; Labour withdrew an amendment to the Modern Slavery Act repealing of solicitation laws when it was clear that the amendment criminalising the purchase of sex would not be accepted.
I don’t think strong regulation is the answer. The French have had a system for centuries where all workers must be registered to a legal and regulated brothel, but that only works as a way to criminalise the most disadvantaged workers (and was the system in which Fantine in Les Mis was arrested and sentenced to prison). I think a system of soft touch regulation, coupled with better coverage of contraceptive protection, as well as treating them as any other self-employed worker, would work much better.
I’d guess that about 40% of the population would be liberally minded when it comes to prostitution and would like to see the trade legalised, regulated and taxed. It is a shame that there is no party to represent the liberal constituency in this country. It’s clear to see why the lib dems are doing so badly, they don’t represent those who should be their core voters, so those people don’t vote for them. This country actually needs a social liberal party, I believe in the future the Tories will be that party.
@ Sarah,
I believe that the Swedish model of prostitution is the only one that does not view the victims of male coercion and exploitation from a male perspective. It has been successful in leading to change in social attitudes even amongst the police. I would argue that whatever its shortcomings, it is more successful in protecting prostitutes than legalised systems.
The law, by decriminalises the coerced and exploited and criminalising the exploiter acknowledges that there will never be gender equality while men buy, sell and exploit women through prostitution.This feminist
approach means that funds are also made available to help women who wish to get out of prostitution. (If prostitution is legal and a deemed a true ‘choice’, where is the imperative to make available the means to help women who want to get get out of the trade. ( See work by groups such as ‘SPACE INTERNATIONAL ‘etc.
Where prostitution is legalised there is still exploitation of prostitutes by pimps etc. Also, sex trafficking and prostitution cannot be separated, they are intimately linked. Look at the evidence of what has happened in the Netherlands and Germany and compare that to what has happened in Sweden. It is not difficult to find evidence that undermines MBoy’s argument.
David Wallace, you are of course entitled to your opinion. If I were to say I think it is misinformed though I’d be making something of an understatement. The Tories as the party of social liberalism, seriously? Have you met them? One of the other problematic side effects of the coalition was that our presence in it means the Tories now look a good deal cuddlier than they otherwise would on social issues.
Anyway, you’re panning this party based on what it was circa 2007. It is no longer that party. It has in many ways been destroyed over the past few years, and will now require being rebuilt. The vast majority of these much derided parliamentarians of ours you like to rail at are now gone. New people will step up or not, depending on the leadership of Tim Farron and the decisions he and Conference make regarding this party’s future and position. Judge what exists now, not this caricature you’ve been drawing.
It is useful to have a reminder of what happens to us when we lose grip on the liberal issues and allow populism to dilute our mission of providing liberal solutions to the problems society faces. But still, come on, credit where its due. You can say that the law on sex and social issues hasn’t changed, but to take an example, which party was it that pushed for equal marriage in the last parliament? I’ll give you a clue, Lynne Featherstone wasn’t standing with a blue rosette pinned to her.
Daivd Wallace care to cite your actual sources.
I’ve just looked up the vote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2806501.stm
6 Lib Dems made up the majority of the 11 votes for the Tolerance Zones
Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland)
Ian Jenkins (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)
John Farquhar Monro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West)
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon)
Keith Raffin (Mid Scotland and Fife)
Margaret Smith (Edinburgh West)
While I accept that four also voted against [Mike Rumbles (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) Nicol Stephen (Aberdeen West), Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) and Jim Wallace (Orkney)] with the exception of one Labour MSP they were the only one of the big four Scottish parties to have voted in favour and the only one where the majority of their MSPs votes for. All the SNP and Conservatives MSPs who voted and 44 Labour MSPs all blocked it.
Sorry wrong link
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=4432&i=31777
This vote was also back in 2003 and as quoted above a lot of understanding over the issues has changed over the intervening 12 years including a range of policy discussions and votes held at party conference.
@stephen Glenn.
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/news/1004641.aspx
There is a link to the article on the bill I’m talking about where the lib dems voted for a law making tolerance zones illegal. The party voting for this was what caused me to leave the party. As a social liberal it sucks not having a party that I can be a part of but I have never regretted my decision to leave. The Tories are not a socially liberal party but I believe that one day they may become so as the country is becoming more socially liberal. The lib dems however will never be a socially liberal party. They don’t have the spine for it. Standing up to the right wing press in the face of moral panic is tough, it would take real backbone and disipline.
I believe the priority for the Liberal Democrats should be to promote freedom and equality and that finding effective strategies to tackle the sexual exploitation inherent in prostitution is what we should be advocating. I believe the Nordic model of criminalising the purchaser but supporting the sex worker is the way forward.
Arguably, use of prostitutes is rape. We might try to pretend that coercing someone into sex by offering money is more dignified or respectable than coercing through violence, but it is still coercion. Coerced sex is not consenting sex, and is therefore rape. Legalising a form of coercion is not consistent with laws against rape, which are already difficult enough to prosecute.
Arguing that the only issues inherent in prostitution are related to safety and security accepts the basic premise that it’s OK to purchase someone’s consent to sex. I think that we should oppose this thinking – it’s a fundamental undermining of human rights. There is also an uncomfortable undertone of assuming that we can set up a system of ‘safe’ prostituted women to be ‘used’ by men who feel the need to use them and that the rest of us can live our righteous respectable lives and ignore them. This is not how we should treat our fellow human beings.
Our priority should be to uphold the rights of people everywhere to say no to sex that they do not freely consent to. Freely means without inducement or coercion of any kind. The Nordic model recognises that the people paying for sex are the ones committing a crime and not the ones offering it and I believe that that is the most humane and liberal way forward.
@Sarah Olney: the Nordic model certainly promotes equality and stops a lot of exploitation but it is not liberal and does not promote freedom. Consent in exchange for money is still consent unless some else is forcing the sex worker to do it.
Nevertheless I suspect that you will find a great deal of sympathy for your position in the lib dems and it is pretty much the same policy as the lib dems implemented in government in Scotland. So I think it is far to say that the party is on your side of the debate on this regardless of any votes that were taken at conference.
There are no doubt a lot of merits in the policy you advocate, just don’t pretend it is about liberty and individual freedom – because it is not. What you are essentially saying is that there are no circumstances where a person could be allowed to consent to sex for money, and that regardless of what they say or what the circumstances are they are incapable of granting consent. There is no liberty or individual freedom in that.
@Sarah Noble. I hope it is now clear to you that the lib dems would never agree to decriminalise prostituion. You would need a Dutch or German style liberal party for that, not a Nordic style social democratic one which is essentially what the lib dems have been since the 1980’s, the Clegg government was more like the exception than the general rule.
David: You obviously weren’t at either Federal or Scottish Conference in Autumn. The party voted for decriminalisation overwhelmingly. I accept that our MSPs, with all but four others, voted to criminalise kerb crawling, and I do find myself agreeing with Iain Smith’s speech. However, I should emphasise that decriminalising prostitution does not mean decriminalising public nuisance.
Jayne, Sarah: Sorry, but the Nordic model doesn’t protect women at all. Everyone in Sweden, including the government, agrees that the primary purpose of the law is not to protect women, but deter them from not starving to death. I don’t particularly think that the Swedish and Norwegian polices’ actions of getting sex workers evicted and unable to hire security is protecting women at all.
Citing Space International is weird too, given that one of their co-founders is a woman with the same name and a physical resemblance to a convicted pimp, and given logistical support by a charity with, at the very least, strong links to two orders of nuns that owe the Irish government millions for their roles in the Magdalene asylum abuse scandal.
@Sarah Olney: “Arguably, use of prostitutes is rape. We might try to pretend that coercing someone into sex by offering money is more dignified or respectable than coercing through violence, but it is still coercion.” – by this definition, anybody exchanging a service for money is coerced, and therefore a slave.
I understand why it’s attractive to consider the trade in sexual services to be somehow different from all other services, but it only makes sense if you’re confusing cause and effect. All of the undesirable elements of the sex trade – trafficking, coercion, exploitation etc – are CAUSED by the stigma attached to buying and selling sex (and the consequent illegal / legal grey area of the trade). Our objective should be to make sex work as normal a career choice as any other – normal for both buyers and sellers of sex services – through stringent legal protection, professional standards, unionisation and so on.
You may have a moral objection to the buying and selling of sex – and that’s entirely your prerogative – but it is illiberal to force others to conform to YOUR ideas of what is right and wrong when it concerns other adults engaging in a consensual trade of services. THAT is not how we should treat our fellow human beings.
@sarah noble. Part of the reason why the tolerance zones that the tolerance zones the lib dems voted to outlaw was to stop public nuisance by keeping the trade in one non residential area.
I was not at the conference but so what? What you seem to be saying is that you believe that how conference votes is a better predictor to what lib dem politicians will vote for in the future than how they have voted in the past. The lib dems in Parliament will continue to vote the way they always have. It’s true as someone said that most of these lib dems will no longer by in holyrood, but I’m sure some of the most senior ones will now be in the lords.
Conference voted to legalise cannabis years ago, not exactly persuaded the MPs though, has it?
@ Sarah,
Do you not allow for the fact that the Swedish model can be modified so that those who are concerned about being seen as people who live off ‘immoral earnings ‘ would have to have been shown to have profited from the trade rather than having provided a roof or protection?
It doesn’t concern me in the least that one of the co-founders of SPACE INTERNATIONAL may have been or not been a pimp before escaping the life that she previously led. As for links to a religious order, I have seen the appalling damage done by some who claim their authority from God, but I have also seen some excellent work done too. I doubt that members of the order would be able to get away with the sort of vile behaviour exhibited in the past, they more than any other are under scrutiny. How do you feel when an academic justifies the legalisation on prostitution because men need sex more than women?
The word that seems to be missing from this discussion is ‘dignity’. I remain happy with the 1949 Convention on Prostitution and Trafficking where it is viewed as incompatible with human dignity and worth of the human person and endangers the welfare of the individual, the family and the community.
To suggest that prostitution is a job like any other seems to me to be nonsensical. Men ( and it is usually men) use the two great powers, money and sex to abuse a woman. Money means that the man can get a woman to perform sexual acts for him, the emotions, the comfort, the effect of this abuse are of no interest whatsoever.
As far as I am concerned most prostitution is ‘survival sex’. Women would not consent to sex with the men that they have to have sex with if money was not involved. In poorer countries sex may be exchanged for food, here for money.
To suggest that legalising prostitution will make women safe also seems nonsensical. Women can never feel safe when they are in the company of such abusive men. Legalising prostitution was unlikely to have saved the lives of the poor drug addicted women killed by the Suffolk stranger, a man known to them and trusted. But who cares? Apparently so one argument goes, they keep respectable women like my own children and their friends safe. That is not exactly true though is it? Women will never be free from abuse whilst we continue to make excuses for our abuse. Prostitution affects families and communities too. There are, as Sarah Olney states, wider implications.
Sarah Olney’s view that prostitution and therefore porn too is arguably rape is dangerous. It would criminalise a lot of men and plenty of women too and ignores the fact that the coercion often works both ways.
David: Cannabis is a bad example. Look at the work Lord Paddick (who, as a senior figure in the Met, deprioritised cannabis possession) has been doing in the Lords in the past few months over the Tory bill to ban flowers and comedians.
Jayne: I can understand if they were repentant, but they’re not. The two religious orders behind Ruhama and Space International still owe the Irish government millions for their role in the Magdalene laundry abuse scandal. And the heads of the religious orders, who hold board seats on Ruhama, refuse to meet with Magdalene survivors.
I’m concerned about survival sex work too. I don’t want people to be coerced into it. But criminalising it isn’t going to help women in survival sex work; it’s going to starve them. That’s why the policy we passed last Autumn also called for strong social safety nets to ensure people are not coerced into entering into, or staying in, sex work.
And yes, decriminalising, and more importantly, destigmatising, will make sex workers safer. When sex work is criminalised at all, it’s more often the workers than the clients that end up being the target of police action.
@jayne Mansfield
Off topic but would you agree with legalising cannabis? The reason I ask is you seem to be very strongly against legalising the sex trade Dutch Style, and I wondered if it’s just this particular social issue you feel strongly against or if it’s other socially liberal things too.
Anyway, as I said before. I doubt most of the party activists would agree with you on this but I’m sure that if it was put to a vote in parliament the majority of lib dem parliamentarians would support your position.
@Jayne: I would not consent to sell a service if I wasn’t paid for it – who wouldn’t. Money means that a man (or woman) can get a sex worker to provide a service – yes, absolutely; this is commerce. The fact that YOU find this distasteful is neither here nor there. Remove the stigma and bring the trade into the open.
@ David Wallace,
When the coalition was first formed, we were invited to sign petitions and if a number of signatures were given, the subject would be debated ,I can’t remember the exact details, but I signed one petition hoping that there would be a discussion and decriminalisation of cannabis. I don’t smoke so I have never tried it but I did once ask for a portion of Space cake in a smoking cafe in Amsterdam. They said they didn’t have any and the curiosity passed.
I am socially liberal when it comes to sex too. I believe that women and men should be free to express their sexuality , but I don’t think it is socially liberal to support sexually abusive relationships, quite the reverse, it is socially damaging. If one wants a mutually satisfying consensual sexual relationship, it is not difficult in this day and age to negotiate one. When men buy sex from a prostitute , this is not on offer to the woman, the men are buying sexual control and that, as far as I am concerned, is abuse.
Eddie Sammon. I didn’t say anything about porn so I don’t know how you’ve made that leap. And how does coercion work both ways? It’s the result of a power imbalance so two people are unlikely to be in a mutually coercive relationship.
Fundamentally I don’t believe that sex is a service that can be bought and sold like any other. The trade in services usually comes about by people using their time and skills to create or change something external to themselves. Sex is essentially the sale of one’s own body.
I don’t agree that the undesirable elements of prostitution arise from the stigma surrounding it. I think they arise from the abusive and dehumanising nature of the exchange. I think making it a career choice like any other is effectively saying that there really isn’t anything that a rich man cannot buy. Which is the opposite of everything I agree with.
To be clear – I support the decriminalisation of offering sexual services and of doing everything to support those who find themselves in this position.
@ Simon Thorley,
Simon, if your daughter told you that she intended to pursue a career as a prostitute , you would say fine darling, I’ll always support you 100% in whatever you wish to do.
In my opinion, you are sanitising the nature of the commerce that is taking place , and will take place if the buyers of sex and the exploiters are legalised. You appear to pay no heed to the trafficking that takes place from Asia and Eastern Europe and the money that it makes for the mafia in places like the former communist countries.
I do not think that it is stigmatisation that causes the problems of violence, cruel and brutal treatment that is meted out to women who sell sex. It is the nature of the relationship. It is,I would argue, because they are seen as less than human by the men who ‘buy’ them’ . If these women are viewed as degraded, (stigmatised), who degraded them as human beings ?
You may argue that women enter prostitution out of a freely made choice, some may, but have you noticed the social and racialised nature of prostitution? The women that are deemed to be exercising free choice by entering into a commercial relationship that is inherently dangerous, are in the main, women from a social background where they feel that they have the least number of choices open to them. In other words, not my daughters.
@Jayne: I would not want my son to be a sex worker – it is dangerous and insecure work. Because it is not protected by the law in the manner of other professions. However, if he has a particular skill that is in demand, and the marginal utility (for him) in trading that skill is high, I believe that any moral objections are irrelevant.
I don’t disregard the blights of trafficking, abuse and coercion that exist in the sex industry. However, abuses exist in all industries where demand exists but supply is illegal… With the sex trade, the legal position is indeed only one part of the puzzle, as stigma that trading sex is inherently ‘improper’ (such as you maintain) drives the industry underground and into the hands of criminals.
Clients of sex workers do not ‘buy’ them, any more than you buy a waiter in a restaurant. Clients buy a service. I personally find it distasteful, as do you. But sex for some people is emotional; for others stress release or pure pleasure. For others it is a valuable, tradable skill.
However, if he has a particular skill that is in demand, and the marginal utility (for him) in trading that skill is high, I believe that any moral objections are irrelevant.
That’s good, I hear talented contract killers command very high prices.
@ Simon Thorley,
Where is Amnesty Internationals robust evidence that legalising prostitution will reduce abuse and those aspects of the sex trade that it believes should remain illegal? Most of what they are offering seems to be little more than anecdote and wishful thinking.
And please don’t imply that I am some latter day Mary Whitehouse. The rationale for legalisation of prostitution seems to be that it will lead to harm reduction. Just give me the evidence. There are numerous places where legalisation has taken place Germany, the Netherlands, the state of Victoria in Australia etc.
Sarah, thanks but I don’t agree. Sorry to bring porn into it, but if your argument is that sex for money is coercion then I fail to see a difference.
I want a big crackdown on porn, I think a lot of it does not look consensual. The same with prostitution, I am not in favour of outright criminalisation of the users and think criminalising the users but not the sellers is worse than criminalising both. It reminds me if criminalising drug buyers but not the sellers.
Finally, to be clear: I have no sympathy with the recent free market think tank report that said sex work should be legal because men need it. The only thing that matters to me is whether women want to sell it and most sex workers appear to not want to criminalise their clients.
Regards
Jayne: The New Zealand government did a post-legislative review of their Prostitution Reform Act 2003, which is linked in this comment piece.
On the opposite side, Sweden’s Kvinnofrid law has been frought with difficulties from the offset; the paper “The Swedish Law to Criminalise Clients: A failed experiment in social engineering” basically reviews the Swedish government’s review of the law very unfavourably, as opposed to the English translation of the executive summary.
@ Sarah,
Thank you.
My initial view is that the writing is very small and it will take me some time to read it with my eyesight problem, but also, the research (2008) is quite dated…. but here goes.
@Sarah,
I am sorry but I have read nothing that leads me to change my mind that legalisation will be any other than a boost for pimps ( or loverboys), and traffickers.
The numbers in the report cannot be relied upon, as is admitted. It was carried out when there was full employment.
I assume that you were referring to ‘4.5 General safety of sex workers when you refuted the figure given by the member of Equality Now. From what I have read, I agree with her.
If you look at the 70% figure, it merely states after the PRA had encouraged the reporting of incidents to the police and that the police response might help them, 70% of those who felt able to comment ‘felt’ that sex workers were more likely to report violence to the police, particularly street workers.
However if you look at the data of adverse incidents including violence, of what actually happened in the last year of the study, this does not appear to have been borne out, few participants had reported adverse incidents to the police, and instead had reported them to friends and co workers as they had done before legalisation. The majority thought that there was little that the PRA could do about the violence that takes place. Even when a report was made to the police there was reluctance to proceed to court.
I may have misread the relevant chapter but for various reasons I don’t particularly think it is worth the effort to re-read it and study it in more detail. I remain committed to the idea that the sellers of sex should not be criminalised but that pimps and traffickers should be. Prostitutes have human rights like everyone else, including the right to protection and health care , we should be fighting for these not encouraging exploitation.
Amnesty International must also have have taken leave of its senses if it thinks that those things that it argues would remain illegal, child prostitution, trafficking , violence, coercion, are somehow separable in a system of legalised prostitution, they are intrinsic to it.
Given the billions that are made in prostitution, who do you think will be most pleased if the Amnesty proposals are accepted? There are powerful vested interests in the ‘Sex Industry’ too.