France may make it illegal to pay for sex

[JessinAvalon]

Guardian article here:

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/13/france-illegal-pay-sex

About bloody time!

France has been moving this way for some time - I hope they really do it. I used to live in Lyon and there was a big problem with women who had been trafficked from Eastern Europe. There was very little attempt made to hide the activities - the women were identifiable because they all wore long black coats. There were turf wars and the whole thing was of course controlled by organised criminals. IIRC the same schema existed in Paris too.

I used to work near the area concerned and it was awful seeing these women.

I hope this really happens.

Beachcomber

Beachcomber: I also wanted to say how brilliant your posts on the pornography threads have been. I've just caught up with them all and watched the chan. 4 documenary. I'm still reeling and feeling sick and angry. I can't get Felicity out of my head. Your posts say all I think so thanks.

Gosh, thank you jenny. I always think the same when I see your posts actually. You have a way with words and tend to cut to the chase - no messing about. Nice to see you, haven't seen you around a lot recently. I say that but I don't always post a lot. I go through phases.

As you can no doubt tell, I feel really strongly about both pornography and prostitution. Always have but feminism/feminists helped me put words onto why I hated them so much.

Forgot to say, the C4 documentary shook me too. I post on porn threads because I think it is important to do so, but they do really get to me. I hate thinking that right now, as we are posting, somewhere, a woman is being put through that .

I scared the crap out of myself the other day by saying, I'll google porn, click on the first result and then close my eyes and click on whatever on the page. I posted about it on the 'convince me thread'. I was shocked and shaken TBH even though I thought I knew what I might see. It was worse though, it was actual torture that was being filmed as entertainment.

Sorry to offload like this but your comments about Felicity sort of brought it back. I can't get the poor woman I saw out of my head. I hope to god she is ok but I can't help thinking she probably isn't.

It is just all so fucked up.

I second jenny, Bc - you've been posting up a storm lately and it's certainly helped me get my own thoughts in order. I read your post on the "convince me" thread and thought you were pretty brave to even try that internet experiment. Hideous stuff.

I'd like Spain (where I live) to think about their approach to prostitution. It is essentially legal here, but - no surprise - well over 90% of all prostitutes currently working in Spain are from Eastern Europe. I don't now the stats about whether or not they've been trafficked, but I'm willing to bet many of them have been.
There's a brothel just round the corner from us. I always feel strange when I walk past it. And now, increasingly angry.

Agree, the Bois de Boulogne is a fucking grim place. It used to be one of the few places in France that wasn't under mafia control for prostitution. I don't know if it still is.

I saw a documentary a while ago about it and there was a woman there who used to sing to keep herself warm/keep her spirits up. She had an amazing voice - think Amy Winehouse. But she was a crack addict selling sex in the Bois de Boulogne to make ends meet. That documentary still haunts me.

Thank you Immaculada.

It was probably really stupid to look up porn the way I did. I sort of did it thinking about what sort of thing a teenager could end up looking at.

I'm pretty cynical but I was very shaken by what I saw. I knew it existed but I didn't think it would be on a mainstream site, and so easy to stumble across. It was horrific.

Interesting to compare burqa thread with this one. Always some tosser happy to control what is/is not permitted for women's bodies. (I think that applies to both pro and anti burqa)

I just read this on the internet and thought, oo, I'll look on the feminism thread I bet someone else has seen it and been interested too.

Very good news. Hope it happens - I read in a book about how they already have done this in Sweden and how they have the fewest victims of trafficking in the EU and the number of women involved in prostitution has fallen. Can't be coincidental though that that kind of law is passed in a country where the number of women in parliament was at about 47 per cent, compared to our miserable 20-ish per cent in UK.

Yes thirded ( :) ) here Beachcomber - I thought you were great on that thread.

Dh used to live in a converted church in Sheffield in the red light district. The local girls used the grounds to service clients. It was absolutely fucking horrible listening to them talking to their clients. He was really :( about it - just awful, poor women.

Thank you Unrulysun. I'm really touched by what you are all saying. It really is a team effort though, and all the voices count and are heard.

If I were alone it what I say it would be easy to discount. I breathe a sigh of relief every time one of you posts to back up the feminist POV I express.

Thankfully am not alone and take heart from all the incisive comments and views expressed on MN.

I also want to say a massive thank you to dittany for doing what she does here. Respect.

Thanks Beachcomber . I know exactly what you mean about feeling relieved when someone comes along to support feminist POVs in support of your own. The regulars are great at that, especially in the face of some pretty dreadful provocation by people who seem not to be able to resist the urge to attack women's rights and feminists.

I don't post as much I'd like to, though I do post under another name sometimes. Family and work have been very time consuming lately, but anything to do with porn and prostitution (and religion often) pulls me in as I feel constantly sick and sad about them. It is all going on around us, women and children are being abused as we type: it's just wrong. There's a young woman whose kids are in our local school and she is always on my mind. She is a drug addict and a local prostitute, well known in the area and I've seen disgusting men with her around here at odd times in the day (I work at home). I want to kill them: she is a drugged out mother of several children, she is so, so thin and looks so young. They must know/be able to see that and yet they still have sex with her. How could they?

Good! Now we need to try and get our government to do the same thing

LOL steamed,

but this thread has cheered me up a bit.

Might we be encouraged to hope in view of the current plan to review all DV cases? There is the faintest glimmer...but there again, they just cut funding for Poppy project (specialist aid for trafficked women). Maybe it depends how much it costs; money is much more important than women's lives as I'm sure we will all come to appreciate after a few years of call me Dave.
Just re read my previous which is badly written and therefore could be thought to support the 'right' to be prostituted. Which I don't.

Won't a complete ban just drive prostitution further underground?

LOTM

It would appear not.

Sorry to sound moronic, I don't know a lot about prostitution in the UK but isn't the act of selling yourself legal but the act of BUYING sex illegal? Isn't that the scheme that Sweden have?

We don't have that law yet, LOTM.

It has now been made illegal for pay for sex from someone who is being coerced but afaik no prosecutions have been made since that came into force a year ago.

Sweden have had their model in place for around ten years, I think.

I'm sure the "cashier" in brothels always make a run for it first because it's the money handling part that's illegal? (and I mean further back than 12 months...)?

Yes LOTM. Living off "immoral earnings" it's called and yes, it is illegal.

Soliciting is illegal in the UK. As is kerb-crawling.

But buying sex (if there is no evidence that the person is being coerced into selling) is still legal.

Sweden have basically switched it round so the buyers of sex are targeted by the law and the prostitutes by the social and health services.

The results suggest that not only are there are far fewer prostitutes in Sweden and no trafficking, but fewer men are now actively seeking to buy sex. The policy doesn't seem to have driven prostitution "underground". It seems to be driving it out of Sweden altogether.