SAFETY FIRST – a coalition to decriminalise sex work and prioritise women’s and children’s safety
Formed in the aftermath of the tragic
murders of five young women in Ipswich,
the Coalition includes members of the church, nurses,
doctors, probation officers, drug
and prison reformers, anti-rape and anti-poverty
organisations, residents from red light areas, sex workers, sex
work projects and others
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE & IMMIGRATION BILL
2008
– Aspects relating to prostitution
We urge you to
Oppose CLAUSE 104 which widens the definition of persistent soliciting to ‘two or more occasions in any period of three months’.
Support AMENDMENT No. 11 to delete Clause 105.
Mr John McDonnell MP, Page 71, Line 24
Clause 105 introduces compulsory rehabilitation for prostitute women, requiring anyone arrested for loitering or soliciting to attend a series of three meetings with a supervisor approved by the court. Failure to comply will result in a summons back to court and a possible 72-hours imprisonment. Amendment 11 would delete this Clause.
Oppose NEW CLAUSE 2 to criminalise clients in so called “zones of safety”.
Support NEW CLAUSE 13 on the definition of a brothel. It would enable two women and a maid to work together without it being classified as a brothel.
ARGUMENTS
1. Clause 104 rightly abolishes the biased term ‘common prostitute’ but by widening the definition of persistent soliciting many more women will be arrested.
2. Clause 105 and proposed Clause 2. False assumptions and misunderstandings relating to prostitution are being used to introduce the forced rehabilitation of prostitute women and the criminalisation of clients. Trafficking of women is being invoked. Yet trafficking is not just about prostitution but immigration – women from poorer countries who try to improve their lives by working in the UK. While many are exploited, whether in prostitution, agricultural, domestic or other service work, Clause 105 and proposed Clause 2 would not help them. By pushing prostitution further underground they would increase women’s vulnerability to rape and other violence. Violent men know that fear of arrest or deportation discourages sex workers from reporting, and that when they do report, their occupation is often used to discredit their report and the attacker may be freed to attack again. Given that at least 60 women who worked in prostitution have been murdered in the last 10 years, safety must be the priority.
3. Clause 105 is promoted as an alternative to a fine. It is not. The court will still be able to impose fines on women and send them to prison for non payment of a fine.
4. Clause 105 would give magistrates new powers so that women could end up on a treadmill of broken supervision meetings, court orders and imprisonment. Even the Magistrates Association has expressed concern.
5. Clause 105 is supposed to help women “by assisting the offender to address the causes of their involvement in prostitution and to find ways of ending that involvement.” Most sex workers are mothers and/or young people struggling to survive. But there is no provision for extra resources to address the poverty, debt, rape and domestic violence, homelessness, drug use, depression or a combination of these, which drive many women and young people into prostitution. And the government has announced that drug services are being cut.
6. Clause 105. Evidence shows that compulsory rehabilitation schemes do not help – where they exist, people complain of abusive and judgmental treatment and avoid using them. What women need are services independent of the criminal justice system.
7. Clause 105. The very concept of rehabilitation is degrading and humiliating. Every woman is entitled to be treated not as an immoral criminal or ignorant victim, but as a human being who deserves respect and support. Instead women will be asked to demean themselves by revealing their most intimate circumstances when there is in fact no concrete help available.
8. Clause 105. The police in Ipswich claim that women are no longer working on the streets there. While it is unclear how many have moved to other areas, if any have left prostitution it is because of resources made directly available to them in the form of cash, housing…everything Clause 105 doesn’t provide.
9. Clause 105. Imprisoning women for non-violent offences goes against recent recommendations in the widely respected March 2007 Corston report. The number of women in prison has nearly doubled in the past 10 years from 2,629 to 4,530 (Home Office 23.11.07). Yet there is no equivalent increase in the number of women committing offences or of women committing more serious offences. ASBOs have contributed a great deal to this tragedy. As women are society’s primary carers, imprisoning them destroys families, starting with the thousands of children separated from their mothers’ love, guidance and concern.
10. Clause 105. A criminal record institutionalises women in prostitution, preventing those who want to get out from getting other jobs. We know of dedicated mothers who supported their disabled children by working as prostitutes who had to turn down caring jobs they were eminently suitable for because their previous occupation was used against them.
11. New Clause 2. The criminalisation of clients is a major policy change which is being brought in without any serious discussion of its implications. While the 1999 Swedish law which criminalised men who buy sex is being used as an example, there has been no investigation of its consequences for women’s safety. Yet police in Sweden recently commented that the law has driven women into the hands of pimps and made it harder for the police to prosecute violent men, including traffickers. Clause 2 is even more punitive than Swedish legislation as it does not even decriminalise women.
12. New Clause 2 uses the term ‘safety zone’ to cover for a well worn and discredited policy of police crackdowns which have been shown to shunt women into neighbouring areas, break up existing safety networks and force women into isolated areas where they are more vulnerable to attack.
13. New Clause 2. At the same time the decriminalisation of prostitution successfully introduced in New Zealand four years ago on grounds of health and safety has not been looked at and should be considered by policy makers.
14. New Clause 2. Instead of targeting clients indiscriminately, the violence women report should be acted on, regardless of her occupation. An increase in the shamefully low conviction for reported rape would certainly help.
15. New Clause 13. The decriminalisation of two prostitute women and a maid working from premises is long overdue and will help women’s safety greatly. But it should not be used as a trade off to further crack down on street workers who are most vulnerable.
English Collective of Prostitutes or Safety First Coalition
Tel: 020 7482 2496, 07811 964 171 ecp@allwomencount.net www.prostitutescollective.net