Is sex working ever 'acceptable'

Trafficking in human beings and forcing them to do any kind of work is wrong. But the fact that people are trafficked for domestic and agricultural labour doesn't lead to an insistence that anyone working on a farm or as a cleaner must be a victim of trafficking and, if s/he claims to have taken this job of his/her own free will, a deluded liar.

"OP, I found this speech on Radio 4 to be really thought provoking, and it addresses your original question. It's written fron an insiders P.O.V. and is searingly honest.".... but DIShonest in that it includes unsubstantiated data. (14 the average age - what a load of bollocks!) I have an insider's POV too but I'm evidently living in cloud cuckooland

"Further to my confusion about why you have posted this tea picking article"

Not all trafficking is for sex. That's my point.

And like I already said I believe UK laws are adequate.

There is a part of the law in all UK jurisdictions I would like to see changed- sexworkers who work together are committing the crime of running a brothel (and even in Sweden as well). They don't even need to be working at the same time either to be guilty. Working at different times at the same place is enough to warrant a raid (which has happened in Edinburgh and Soho).

"I bet sex traffickers describe themselves as sex workers,"

People who sell sexual services describe themselves as sex workers.

Just to clarify my post of 16:21:17:

my phrase "other parasites in prostitution" does not refer to prostitutes.

neverthebride wrote - "I think she's an adult woman who's educated and informed and who am I (or anyone else for that matter) to say that she can't make the decision about what she does with her own body?."

Women who say they voluntarily make an informed choice to be prostitutes are used by pimps, sex traffickers and punters in their attempts to legitimise, legalise, justify and perpetuate all forms of prostitution worldwide.

Are you planning on discussing it with her? Obviously, you can either support and legitimise her prostitution, ignore it, or try to persuade her to stop.

Most "happy hookers" in the UK who I have encountered, prioritise their flexible work/life balance and high income above all other considerations - an "I'm all right, Jack attitude". You would probably be wasting your time, if you decide to try to question the way she earns money.

OP, I found this speech on Radio 4 to be really thought provoking, and it addresses your original question. It's written fron an insiders P.O.V. and is searingly honest.

Further to my confusion about why you have posted this tea picking article. Of the children of the tea pickers, who are trafficked 'The reality is slavery, the reality is abuse, the reality is sexual exploitation, the reality is endless slavery' according to the article. Of the 452,679 incidents of trafficking during that period, only 0.6% led to a conviction.

SO are you posting this because you think that 99.4% of those children are liars, and were never enslaved, and the trafficking rate is 0.6% like the conviction rate?

Or are you posting it because you believe that low conviction rates are a reason to increase resources and improve laws to catch traffickers, not evidence that trafficking does not really exist?

I bet sex traffickers describe themselves as sex workers, not as sex traffickers. To do so would only follow the precedent set by pimps and people who "manage escort agencies". Perhaps that makes finding and prosecuting them more difficult?

I think it is no accident that pimps, traffickers and other parasites in prostitution love the replacement of the word "prostitute" with "sex worker", because it gives them somewhere to hide.

If sex worker was a term that could only be used by/about people who accept money for having their body sexually penetrated, it might make the exploiters easier to find and convict.

sahisej wrote - "btw women are found guilty of sex trafficking as well. One of the 5 convicted in this link was a woman"

Is your "women do it too" argument supposed to surprise or shock feminists or excuse the actions of sex traffickers?

What can people gain by greatly exaggerating the extent of sex-trafficking?

Well, we've gone from imaginary to exaggerated in the space of one thread- so at least our pbu acknowledges it exists. That's progress

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/slush-fund/

Moran is rolling in it.

And the "commonsense thing to do" is to have the funding put into her own personal bank account of course.

What can people gain by greatly exaggerating the extent of sex-trafficking? Government funding. And lots of it.

btw women are found guilty of sex trafficking as well. One of the 5 convicted in this link was a woman:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/07/five-convicted-trafficking-hungarian-women-sexual-exploitation

It certainly doesn't exist in the thousands some claim it to be. I think we can all agree the issue has been greatly exaggerated by the media.

Here's another link, the Guardian actually observe where such trafficking estimate figures come from.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated

"For example, four months ago, a court in England convicted five people of sex trafficking."

There you go. There is already a law to deal with trafficking and it is enforced. We don't need any additional laws to criminalize consenting adults.

"So let's just ignore street workers and call them unrepresentative."

I didn't see anyone say they should be ignored. But the "75% of sexworkers start as children" is completely false.

All we know from the 2004 study that stat originated is that a tiny number have started under the age of 18 but none of them were indoor escorts. And the "75%" figure is just nonsense.

And like I said there is already a law to deal with having sexual contact with minors.

xposts

So we can ignore the "there's no such thing as sex trafficking posts".

Great, let's move on.

I don't understand this continuous insistence from certain quarters that sex trafficking does not exist.

Do these people never read the news?

Are they only interested in the UK? And if so - do they never read the news?????

There have been many recent high profile cases where groups of men have gone to prison for - Oh Look! - sex trafficking.

FFS.

Sex traffickers are found and convicted not only in the USA and other foreign countries. It also occurs in the UK.

For example, four months ago, a court in England convicted five people of sex trafficking.

sahisej wrote - "So why can't we find all these traffickers? Is it because they don't exist we need to give the rescue industry yet more funding?"

Sex trafficking exists, police find and arrest sex traffickers, then courts try and convict the sex traffickers to terms of imprisonment. (Some sex traffickers even plead guilty).

For example :

Sex trafficking convictions in Oklahoma

Oh those pesky street-workers!

How dare they have such awful lives and smear the wonderful practice of loving, caring, deprived (of their rights) men buying sex.

Those street workers are terrible, they aren't proper sex workers at all! They are not empowered by their work, don't have magic powers that immediately detects if a punter wishes them harm and they don't earn £150 an hour.

All they do is skew everything and don't show the true picture. The true picture being one that an extremely organised cabal of sex workers* are only too happy to discuss every time anyone dares to say that buying sex is a bad thing.

So let's just ignore them and call them unrepresentative. That will solve everything. Admittedly social justice is usually about the needs of the most disadvantaged, but when the disadvantaged are making you look bad, it's better not to acknowledge them.

*Supposedly. Some are pimps, others have never actually had sex for money, some are academics who think men buying sex is thrillingly transgressive.

The article about the tea picking only said one person was threatened to be sold into prostitution. Noone in the tea picking article has been trafficked for sex.

Are you talking about this link?

www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails