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End Violence Against Women
End 2006 5 young prostitute women brutally murdered in Ipswich
- response within the town was amazing
- sense of horror and anger was very apparent
- seen as very vulnerable young women
- forced into prostitution through drug addiction
Unlike attitudes at the time of Yorkshire ripper – Peter Sutcliffe
- No interest in media till non-prostitute women murdered
Ipswich murders put issue of prostitution on map
- Government’s response
- use Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
- introduce compulsory rehabilitation for prostitute women
who were drug addicts
- to criminalise clients
Looked at Swedish model
- put into practice in Ipswich
That is not the answer
- sex between consenting adults has disappeared
- forcing women underground
- leaving them vulnerable to violent clients
Criminalization means no protection from violent men
Sweden = increase in pimping
- Clients robbed - can’t go to police for fear of prosecution
- can’t report violence against a prostitute
- more dangerous for all sex workers
Interestingly sex workers in England and Sweden not consulted
- New Zealand they were
Massive campaign by ECP along with Safety First Coalition
- against amendments in C Justice & Immigration Bill
- Government has now backed down
- deleting offending clauses from Bill
- real victory - cannot be complacent
- may try and bring it back under another guise later stage
Since the murders IDTUC active
- campaigning for decriminalising of prostitutes
- want to lift violent lid on street prostitution
- recognise sex workers are workers
- have the right to join a trade union
- should not be forced to sell their bodies to survive
Invited Catherine Healy from New Zealand
- Prostitution decriminalised 2003
- Now fewer women on the streets
- allowed to work from brothels
- Living on earnings and soliciting been repealed
- Sex workers can talk openly - have rights
- don’t have to work seven days a week
- Can say NO
- Clients fined if they don’t practice safe sex
- Workers in brothels have employment rights
- covered by health and safety legislation
- allowed to join trade unions
- have employment contracts
- as well as legal contracts with clients
- covered by relevant Gov agencies H&S, labour inspectors
- in other words – treated as workers
No more arrests for soliciting
- allows women to leave sex industry voluntarily
Most remain in industry for between 3-5 years
- How does criminalization help them out of industry?
Catherine founding member/national co-ordinator of the NZ Prostitutes'
Collective.
- involved in all discussions prior to the Gov decriminalising
- giving prostitutes a voice
- appointed to New Zealand Prostitution Law Review Committee
- hence decent laws for all sex workers
Legislation to criminalise sex workers will benefit no one
- number of women in prison has doubled
- many of whom are sex workers
- imprisoning women for non-violent offences
- against recent recommendations in 2007 Corston Report
Women - society’s primary carers
- prison destroys families and punishes 000’s of children
- separating them from mothers
- Over 70% of prostitute women are mothers.
Sex workers are working to support themselves and their families
- most effective way to deal with this
- provide resources to address problems that drive women into
prostitution
poverty, debt, low wages, rape and domestic violence, homelessness, drug
use, depression or a combination of these
Economic and Social Research Council found
- 2/3 sex workers violently attacked by their clients
- street prostitutes at greatest risk
- with 90% of them hooked on drugs
- 28% had suffered attempted rape
- 40 times more likely to be murdered than other women
- reflection of the society that we live in
- where violence against women is endemic
- forced into selling their bodies by pimps, traffickers and economic
necessity
Let’s have the debate on way forward
- make sure we are talking to workers in sex industry
- Remember they are workers and have rights too.
Prostitution and violence against women will continue
whilst poverty and inequality in terms of power and wealth
` remain within our society
breeding violence abuse economic/ sexual exploitation.
Some measures can make life less dangerous and harmful
for women involved in prostitution
no lasting solutions whilst poverty inequality and sexual exploitation
continue to exist.
Teresa MacKay, Secretary to Ipswich & Dist TUC |