Treat prostitution like rape
By guest author, Mary Honeyball MEP
Those who support men who pay for sex with women would often have us believe that the women who sell sex are somehow empowered, that it is they who are gaining and the men who are losing. If only these women were quite so fortunate. It's thought that 90 per cent of prostitutes are drug addicts and most have suffered some form of physical or mental violence or coercion. Some 85 per cent of women working in brothels are thought to be from abroad, many speak little English and most are trafficked here illegally. Most women trafficked into the UK have a vast debt to pay back to those who brought them here - a debt so large they will never pay it back. They are, in effect, slaves and have little scope for any free choice.
Prostitution is never a choice women make freely. But it is a choice that men - lots of men - make freely and with impunity. There is a clear demand from men who are willing to pay for sex with women and let's face it, with children too.
Such is the demand that every year hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the UK to work as prostitutes. Various measures have been copied from other countries to try to eliminate the prostitution that still blights some parts of our cities. It seems that everything has been tried from zero tolerance to tolerance zones. The problem never goes away though, it just moves somewhere else.
There is however one lesson that we can learn from abroad. That is to aggressively tackle the demand for prostitution by criminalising the purchase of sex. The law should treat prostitution in much the same way as it treats rape. Both are generally an act male violence against helpless women.
Sweden changed its law on prostitution in 1999 - it is now illegal to buy sex in Sweden.
The law helps on two fronts. It allows the police legal measure to go after the men who are fuelling the demand for illegal trafficking. It also helps to encourage a wider cultural change among men who don’t see the harm in paying for sex. Moreover the idea of sex for sale only fosters the attitude that all women are 'up for sex'. It's quite possible to see how the idea of 'women on demand' leads to increased incidence of rape. Sweden's law has been largely successful at reducing the demand for prostitution and for human trafficking. The slave trade was abolished 200 years ago. Something that was seen as a cultural norm back then now seems barbaric. It requires another cultural shift before today's human trafficking and prostitution is seen by everyone as being equally barbaric. Adopting the Swedish law would go some what to achieving that. Let's hope that it's not another 200 years before we can look back on human trafficking and prostitution as we now do the slave trade.
Mary Honeyball is a Labour MEP, and serves as a member of the European Parliament's Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee
I'm sorry, but what a typical comment by a woman!
Why don't we class porn as incitement to rape? Obviously all these perverted men perpetuate prostitution & the porn industry.
I happen to know two "professional" ladies, both are respectable middle class mother's as far as their families are concerned & before anyone jumps on me "no" I haven't availed myself of their services!
They each make at least £300 a day, far more than slogging their guts out in an office & almost as much as a MEP!
Whilst I do realise a proportion of prostitutes are drug atticts or forced into it, but not all.
Surely the best this to do is go after the pimps, traffickers & drug dealers, but it's far easier to go after after the men using their services.
Finally I see there in no mention of male prostitutes at all.
Posted by: Steve Day | Monday, 28 January 2008 at 08:37 PM
I do not support men who pay for sex with women. But I am even more opposed to pointless campaigns that will not work. I certainly hope that the women who sell sex are NOT somehow empowered, or that they are gaining. But how does the rest of this article follow?
It's thought by whom that 90 per cent of prostitutes are drug addicts? More to the point, so what? Since when does being a drug addict rob you of all rational self control? How are these women's lives, as awful as they are, improved by forcing them to mug people for a fix rather than providing sexual services? Most have suffered some form of physical or mental violence? What is Mental violence I wonder? Are women really so weak that a pimp calling them rude names will force them out to work on the street? I am told that most women face some form of physical or mental violence in their life times. I don't believe it, but what is different here?
If some 85 per cent of women working in brothels are thought to be from abroad, many speak little English and most are trafficked here illegally, then P T Barnham is right and there is a sucker born every minute. The police do raid brothels. They have not found any real significant number of trafficked women in this country. It is a myth and an urban legend.
Nor do I see how anyone can claim that most women trafficked into the UK have a vast debt to pay back to those who brought them here - a debt so large they will never pay it back. Air tickets are not that expensive and even illegals rarely pay more than 20,000 pounds to come to the UK. I don't know how that works out in prostitute's wages, but I expect it would be a few month's heroin supplies for your average addict and so it shouldn't take that long to pay off. They are not, in any sense, therefore, slaves and they still have ample scope for any free choice. More to the point, this has nothing to do with prostitution. After all if they had been trafficked here to shell peas they would still have to shell a lot of peas. People trafficking is a crime already. So is extortion and intimidation. We don't need new laws for those laws to be properly enforced.
A statement like "Prostitution is never a choice women make freely" is not even wrong. It is not even close enough to the real world to be wrong. Many women do make this choice - as they choose to become heroin addicts or travel illegally to the UK. Just because it is criminal does not mean it is not chosen.
Yet again the claim is repeated without evidence - "Such is the demand that every year hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the UK to work as prostitutes." There is simply no reason to think this is true - why aren't the police arresting them? Why aren't the shelters full of them? The number of trafficked women in Britain can be safely said to be negligible.
"The problem never goes away though, it just moves somewhere else."
So how about stop trying to push water up hill? Or perhaps try the Saudi solution? Look, I'd love to see the end of prostitution, but what do you really think you can achieve?
"The law should treat prostitution in much the same way as it treats rape. Both are generally an act male violence against helpless women."
Statements like this are priceless. Prostitutes are not helpless and a voluntary commercial transaction - although immoral, is not violence. What violence there is in Prostitution, and there is too much, is already illegal. Doing a good job of ending that too aren't you?
"It's quite possible to see how the idea of 'women on demand' leads to increased incidence of rape."
It is "quite possible" to see something without it being true. It is, in fact, highly likely that prostitution reduces the incidence of rape.
"It requires another cultural shift before today's human trafficking and prostitution is seen by everyone as being equally barbaric."
If trafficking is the problem ban that. Of course everyone knows trafficking is not a big problem but slavery serves as a useful way to exploit and push your own pet agenda isn't it?
One thing I can say with certainty, in 200 years we may not have trafficking but we will still have prostitution. The two have nothing in common with each other.
Posted by: Benjamin Kirby | Tuesday, 29 January 2008 at 04:10 PM
i`m an italian transexual prostitute,unfortunately society discriminate girls like us so we feel safe indoors working as prostitutes and feel appreciated by men that pay us for sex.it`s hard to get a normal job,because people can be very cruel.
our clients appreciate us and treat us with respect.
this is crazy that government wants to criminalize the clients.Clients are normal people,have good jobs and very intelligent.the government should be after the pimps.they are the ones doing the crime.
Posted by: gloria | Wednesday, 06 February 2008 at 12:20 AM
What tosh!
Speaking as a sex worker, O.K. prostitute if you prefer, I work indoors and am quite comfortable with what I do. I work for a company and meet many women who do the same. True, some are drug takers, but few are desperate addicts and almost all say they chose to do this rather than earn their living another way.
Most women who work in brothels are not foreign, some are and yes some are here illegally, but to claim that most are trafficked and imply that they are slaves is utter rubbish. Like everyone, we hear about trafficked women, but I have never met one, I suppose that is the nature of the act, they must be kept out of site, but I have yet to see any credible evidence that there are thousands of them hidden away. Clients I have spoken to about this, say they would tell the police if they suspected a woman was trafficked. does the general public really believe that a man who visits prostitutes must be a monster who has no regard or feelings. This is daft, of course we meet idiots from time to time, thank goodness we work inside and have security on call, but most are polite and a surprisingly large number mostly want to talk. We often joke that we are the unofficial social service.
Some of your statistics may apply to those women who work on the street, but certainly not to all sex workers. To pretend that they do is as good as lying.
Those women who are in a bad situation need help not to have well meaning fools sweep them out of site and into an even worse situation.
Posted by: Melissa | Sunday, 24 February 2008 at 12:18 AM
This from an article by Petra Ostergren about her discussions with Swedish sexworkers;
"The new law which prohibits the act of buying sexual services is severely criticized by sexworkers. They find the law paradoxical, illogical and discriminatory. It further obstructs their work and exposes them to stress and danger.
The women I have spoken to say that the reasoning behind the law does not makes sense to them. How can the politicians claim that only the clients are being punished and that they are being protected? The effect of the is law mostly negative for the sexworker. Some point out that even if a few men might get fined, the majority will continue buying sexual services as usual - and as usual it is women and sexworkers who will be the most adversely affected.
As a result of the new legislation, the sexworkers say it is now harder for them to assess the clients. The clients are more stressed and scared and negotiation outdoors must be done in a more rapid manner. The likelihood of ending up with a dangerous client is thereby greater.
Due to the law, sexworkers feel hunted by the police, social workers, media and sometimes even anti-prostitution activists on the streets. They find this unacceptable. One sexworker commented that no other vocational group would accept that the police "patrolled their workplace".
Another consequence is that the sexworkers are now more apprehensive about seeking help from the police when they have had problems with an abusive customer. They do not want to be forced to report the client.
Since the number of sexworkers on the streets has decreased and they are more scared, previous informal networks amongst the sexworkers have weakened. The result is that they are no longer able to warn each other about dangerous clients or give each other the same support.
Women also report that another consequence of the law is lower prices on the streets since there are less customers and more competition. This means that women in more desperate need of money will engage in unsafe sex and sexual activity they usually would not perform. This in turn leads to poorer self-esteem and exposure to infection. Other women who have turned to the Internet to advertise claim a positive effect insofar as they have been able to raise their prices. But note that this only benefits some sexworkers. The more vulnerable sexworkers seem to be the ones most negatively affected by the law.
Women working on the streets in some bigger cities claim that there is now a greater percentage of "perverted" customers and that the "nice and kind" customers have disappeared. A "perverted" customer is someone who demands more violent forms of sex, sex with faeces and urine and who is more prone to humiliate, degrade and violate the sexworker. He also more often refuses to use condoms. Since there are fewer customers on the streets many women who sell sex in order to finance a drug habit can no longer refuse these customers, as they were previously able to. These women say the "kind" customers have either turned to the Internet to find sexual services or have been arrested by the police. On the contrary, the "perverted" customers know what to do to not be arrested and fined - they just have to deny it since there is rarely hard evidence."
"Official reports (also from Petras article);
All of the reports address the problems emerging after the new law was introduced. The National Police Board writes that the sexworkers that are still in street prostitution have a tough time. This, they explain, is because customers are fewer, prices are lower and competition harder for the women. This leads to the sex workers selling sex without protection of condoms for a higher rate, and it leads to them having to accept more customers than before (since the prices are lower). The respondents in the National Board of Health and Welfare's study (of which none are sexworkers themselves) believe female sexworkers now experience more difficulties and are more exposed then before. The buyers are "worse" and more dangerous, and the women who cannot stop or move their business are dependent on these more dangerous men, since they cannot afford to turn them down as before. Even the buyers that were interviewed believe that the law mostly affected the already socially marginalised women. According to the National Police Board, the healthcare system has worries about declining health among sex workers and spreading sexually transmitted disease.
The National Police Board has also found the law an obstacle to prosecuting profiteers who exploit the sexual labour of others. Earlier legal cases against such men could sometimes be supported by the testimonies of sex-buyers. But these men are no longer willing to assist, since they themselves are now guilty of committing a crime. The Police Board report also points out that sexworkers have fallen into a difficult, constructed, in-between position with regard to the new law. The female sex worker sells sex, but this is not a criminal act. However, because purchasing sexual services is now a crime, the sexworker can be made to appear as a witness in the trial process. She therefore has neither the rights of the accused or the victim. The Police Board report also discusses the fact that sexworkers are subject to an invasive searches and questioning, so that evidence against the clients might be obtained in flagranti."
It is clear the law in Sweden is just making life much harder and more dangerous for the most vulnerable women. This law may be "well-meaning" as another poster said, but it's effects are devastating to those it was meant to protect.
[Prostitution is never a choice women make freely.] - How on Earth can you expect your argument to be taken seriously when voicing obviously untrue absolutes like this?
[Such is the demand that every year hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the UK to work as prostitutes.] - Well we hear a lot of claims like this, but see little hard evidence. I cannot say this is untrue, but neither can I say it is true, because no one has yet brought forward any credible evidence to support such statements.
'Gender equality'? But you want to criminalise men and not women if both agree to the same act? This hardly seems like equality. Look, no doubt there are many women in really desperate situations, but the arguments you put to bring in this law are utterly irrational, based on little or no evidence and flatly deny the truth.
Posted by: SteveMD | Sunday, 24 February 2008 at 12:58 AM
To declare men who visiting prostitutes as 'rapists' is nonsense.
I agree to what is told here by others - the majority of prostitutes are not 'drug addicted victims of slave labor'. They have choosen their profession in their own. They are working for money, just as all other people do (except of those who are unemployed).
To secure that no slave labor happens is also a task of our government. Why is it not possible to license prostitution?
Licensed prostitution could be audited and contolled and there would be no more place for sex trafficking - this would be an even better way than to declare all men who are visiting prostitutes as 'rapists'.
But licensed prostitution would mean, to legalize prostitution and to accept prostitution as a profession - but for some type of people it is probably more comfortable to say 'men who are visiting prostitutes are rapists' than to accept reality.
Also there is another way of trafficking about which nobody cares. How much male workers are trafficked from foreign countries to work for less than minimum wages, especially in the construction industry? Is this not just another type of 'slave labor', 'trafficking' and even 'rape'?
Posted by: Bernard Gauckel | Monday, 05 May 2008 at 06:42 PM
It starts with "Those who support men who pay for sex with women would often have us believe that the women who sell sex are somehow empowered"....
And we suddenly see the flaw. What about men who pay for sex with men? Has she seen the adverts for rent? Muscles, hair, hung...."XVWE, Active Top only!!!" and the guys lining up to get the fantasy buggering they so desire.
This tired old feminist argument simply does not want to deal with the real issue. Paid for sex is normally about sex; not power, not rape, nope just POSS (Plain old simple sex).
The rest is just rubbish.
Posted by: DarkDumpty | Monday, 05 May 2008 at 07:41 PM
All human sexual relationships are transactional - so all women charge for sex, and all men pay for it, in one way or another. If a man has no statue, power, money etc he can't get a girlfriend - he wins the lottery and hey presto! The bimbos are knocking the door down.
Bottom line - prostitution is without emotion (women are so emotional they can't deal with this) and prostitution (like porn) is a threat to the sexual power women have over men: why would a man bother with an olg crone of a wife when he can play with a pretty young east european eh?
Prostitution is great! And it's far cheaper than marriage too!
By the way, the Swedes have never had any respect for individual rights, being like little blonde robots following what daddy government says - that's why they were sterlising little children in sweden til the late 70s if their parents were 'undesirable' (you know, ill, right wing, alcoholics...). Why don't these old harriden feminazis buzz off to sweden and join their hag sisters in a sponsored moan or something - leave us guys alone with some pretty women (couldn't be envy, all this, could it? Have you ever looked at a feminist!!!!!!)
Posted by: Mikey Mike mike | Monday, 05 May 2008 at 08:44 PM
May I ask if you, and your supporters of a law against purchasing sexual services, have fully understood and investigated the consequences of such a proposal with regards to the prostitute? Have you taken into account the logical progression of the sort of things that make up a fairly typical punt? Let me guide you through some of them, bearing in mind that the prostitute performs a vital role in enabling a punter to commit a criminal offence :-
1. A punter Emails/Phones a prostitute and amongst other things agrees a price and a date & time – logically the prostitute is conspiring with the punter to assist in the committing of a criminal offence.
2. A punter hands the prostitute, in whatever way they both deem to be appropriate, an amount of money – logically the prostitute has assisted the punter in committing a criminal offence.
3. During and after the supply of sexual services the prostitute is in possession of the major piece of evidence of a criminal offence, to whit the money.
What do you propose should be done about the 2 offences committed by the prostitute (1 & 2 above)? What do you propose should be done about the evidence of a criminal offence, to whit the money?
Posted by: SaSfan | Wednesday, 14 May 2008 at 12:55 AM
"It's thought that 90 per cent of prostitutes are drug addicts..."; "Some 85 per cent of women working in brothels are thought to be from abroad..." There seem to be a lot of unverified suppositions here - no-one has accurate figures, least of all the government!
I can tell you, from my own personal experience, that the prostitutes whose company I've enjoyed over the years have been clean, intelligent, articulate people who do what they do from their own free will - not drug addicts, not trafficked slaves!
Ms Honeyball spouts threadbare, ignorant feminist dogma that's completely out of touch with reality. Go look in the potato fields of Lincolnshire and the cockle beds of Lancashire! You'll find many desperate, exploited workers there for sure but there aren't so many mealy-mouthed politicians devoting column inches to their salvation!
Posted by: Max Gentle | Friday, 17 April 2009 at 11:46 PM
Ms Honeyball makes many claims regarding prostitutes that have been discredited. In her misandrist attempts to slander punters she puts down prostitutes far worst. As a regular punter for five years I have never come across a child prostitute, I've never come a cross a trafficked sex slave. I've only come across a couple of girls who where drug addicts, who I avoided for my good health. Protitution is not a crime and most prostitutes are ordinary women that choose to make a good living rather than work for minimum wage. They don't get counted because they don't come to the attention of the Police, drug agencies or help groups.
Posted by: WykeTyke[alias] | Friday, 17 April 2009 at 11:55 PM
there are many women who are "trafficked" to work on farms picking potatoes,should eating potatoes be made illegal also?
labour told lies to invade iraq,the great big sex trafficking con is a lie to justify criminalising indoor paid sex.
conviction rate for rape is just 6%,the govt should be doing more to catch rapists rather than criminalising indoor paid sex
Posted by: peter schevt | Saturday, 18 April 2009 at 10:58 PM