Sarah, will the contribution of NUM to this inquiry be published on the website (like your responses to previous inquiries)? I would like to read it, you understand.
Reading NUM responses to previous inquiries has helped inform my own response to this latest one (shown below). I am presenting it here to get feedback on it from forum members before I submit it (if any forum-members are willing to do so). I would also like to know if there is to be a collective SAAFE response to the call for evidence. If so, I am happy to contribute to it (if whoever is in charge would like one such contribution).
Sarah, do you believe that our views will actually make a difference? I do not hold out much hope of this personally, particularly after learning, through NUM, of the TUC's rejection of sex workers' rights. (I am responding to the call for evidence even so, mind).
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1. Have you lived in a jurisdiction which has passed laws following either the full decriminalisation or Nordic models relating to prostitution? If so, please describe your experience.
N/A.
2. How do you think these two models - which have received the most attention in recent years - impact
a) the safety of those in prostitution?
The Nordic model:
To my knowledge, one of the aims of the Nordic model was to make it difficult (or more difficult) to work as a prostitute. To me, this is wholly incompatible with the notion of improving safety in prostitution.
Some prostitutes are happy to a) have their prostitution managed and, in engaging with that, to b) allow others to profit from their prostitution. The safety and protection offered in some massage parlours and saunas is precisely what attracts a number of prostitutes to those places of work. The example offered by City Sauna of Sheffield, a brothel whose day-to-day activities were documented in the 2015 Channel 4 documentary "A Very British Brothel", is just one example of this. It is the managing of and profiting from any prostitution other than one's own through coercion that should be a criminal offence, in my opinion. This is to address the element of the Nordic model which makes it a criminal offence to "manage or profit from prostitution".
As to any idea that making it a crime to purchase the services of prostitutes somehow improves the safety of those in prostitution, I am personally unable to take this suggestion in any way seriously.
Full decriminalisation of prostitution:
Owing to my ignorance of the full set of laws relating to prostitution, I cannot give a fully informed view of the possible impact of the wholesale decriminalisation of prostitution on the safety of those working as prostitutes. Sharing work-premises generally improves safety in prostitution (as I observed earlier in reference to massage parlours and saunas), the decriminalising of which having been endorsed even by the Home Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry into Prostitution of 2016. Similarly, in my view, consensual procuring should, for the reasons presented earlier again, be decriminalised (but not non-consensual procuring / sexual slavery, of course).
b) exploitation of foreign migrants and trafficked persons?
The Nordic model:
I do not believe that this would bring about any significant reduction in sexual exploitation for anyone, foreign or otherwise; sex-traffickers have no fear whatsoever of the law, I feel.
Full decriminalisation of prostitution:
As I stated directly above, I believe sexual slavery, which can involve individuals native to the country (as you know) as well as foreigners, will always exist whatever the law of the land may say. This notion is backed by the government's own response to the Home Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry into Prostitution of 2016 (part of which is quoted below under "Additional Comments").
c) exiting services?
As to what these may comprise, I can only conjecture that assistance with matters like accommodation, benefits, employment and counselling (for addiction and / or trauma, say) will be amongst them. If so, it should be borne in mind that, just as in the situation of full decriminalisation, the Nordic model does not render prostitution itself a criminal offence. In principle at least, then, a prostitute working under either model should have no fear of prosecution, for instance, in result of exposing him or herself as a prostitute in order to access the named services. Where this matter is concerned, then, to my mind, the two models are equal; a prostitute under either model should be able to seek exiting services with complete confidence.
3. What legislative change would you like to see? How would it affect the daily reality of those in prostitution?
1. Ensuring that any laws relating to sexual exploitation / non-consensual prostitution do not impinge, in any way, on consensual prostitution. (This view is reflected in the rest of my response, presented below, to this question). The matter of sexual exploitation / sexual slavery should, in my opinion, be dealt with as a completely separate phenomenon to autonomously-engaged, consensual prostitution. (As you can probably tell, I am concerned that any measures to eradicate sexual slavery - a most worthy cause, in my view - may interfere with consensual prostitution).
2. Making it legal for prostitutes to share work-premises. To me, this will significantly improve safety in prostitution.
3. Making consensual procuring legal. This is how massage parlours and saunas, which many prostitutes prefer as work-places for reasons of safety, operate.
4. Making public soliciting legal (in line with the recommendations of the Home Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry into Prostitution, 2016). For some prostitutes, this is the only way to find customers (and I cannot see what purpose it serves to arrest an individual and pursue him or her through law - using up valuable police time and resources in the process - for doing so).
These are the only laws (or elements of law) relating to prostitution of which I have any knowledge so I cannot suggest any further legislative changes.
4. At what point does prostitution become exploitation?
Being subject to systematic rape (in the course of one's prostitution) along with other forms of physical abuse (such as being drugged, beaten up and / or held prisoner) while receiving little-to-none of the money from one's prostitution is more than a matter of exploitation, I say. I understand that these are the experiences of a great many trafficked (or otherwise non-consenting) prostitutes.
Even less extreme forms of exploitation of prostitutes, which arise, like all other forms of exploitation in prostitution, through non-consenting involvement by a third party in one's prostitution, can have serious effects on a prostitute's life.
5. Additional comments.
Are the Nordic model and full decriminalisation of prostitution the only 2 possible solutions to the issue of sexual exploitation? If so, according to the government's response to the Home Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry into Prostitution of 2016, either strategy would be a waste of time: "We are aware of the different legislative approaches to prostitution taken across the world, and we have yet to see unequivocal evidence that any one approach is better at tackling harm and exploitation, which remains our priority". (My assessment assumes that, as in the case of the Nordic model, there is at least one country where the situation of full decriminalisation is in place). Personally, I believe that there are possible strategies for tackling sexual exploitation other than the two named.
To me, full decriminalisation of consensual, autonomously-engaged prostitution should be in place irrespective of its impact, if any, on the issue of sexual exploitation. As I have implied at several earlier points, the introduction of either the Nordic model or any model that makes a sexual transaction between consenting adults a crime (for any one or more of the transacting parties) is thoroughly unfair, in my opinion. In counter to the possible argument that full decriminalisation will only serve to bolster sexual exploitation, we do not ban driving because some people cause accidents through irresponsible driving. We do not ban alcoholic drinks because some people become alcoholics. It is unfair, in my view, to deprive everyone of a given activity, which may stem from either desire or need (and which, if indulged responsibly, causes no harm), simply because some people abuse the activity concerned.
Introducing more stringent background checks for potential rental tenants (since sex-traffickers often rent premises for their exploitative practices, as I understand it), incentivising neighbourhood watch schemes (in order to increase their number), expanding nationwide CCTV coverage, introducing tougher penalties (including, possibly, life imprisonment) for crimes involving sexual exploitation, and increasing police numbers may all help combat sexual slavery. (As I observed earlier, however, I believe that perpetrators of sexual exploitation, like many if not most other criminals, generally have no fear of the law).
On the point of criminalising the purchase of sexual services (which some women as well as men do [just as there are some men as well as women who work as prostitutes]), I consider this proposal glaringly illogical (not to mention highly insulting and shockingly crass). Even if one such law could be effectively and fairly enforced - which I very much doubt - in my view, this would be an outrageous misuse of (already over-stretched) police resources (and time) at the taxpayer's expense. Moreover, the people who have paid me for sex since I became a prostitute (July 2015) have enabled me to clear £40,00 of debt, gather savings, and open up my future once more. Given this, I cannot be anything other than utterly scandalised by the suggestion that any adult individual who buys sexual services from a willing adult seller should ever be considered a criminal for doing so (hence why I deem one such proposal markedly insulting).
Topic: Call for Evidence-Conservative Party Human Rights Commission (Read 6282 times)