Poppy Project funding taken away and given to ... Salvation Army

[slhilly]

£450k core funding taken from a woman-led non-judgemental organisation and now being handed to an organisation that is not women-led and is evangelical. Because being preached at is just what a trafficked woman needs.

More here and here

You can donate to the Poppy Project here (I have no links to them)

I saw a representative from the Poppy Project interviews on TV this week.

She was very complimentary about the work of the Salvation Army in this area.

Her concerns focussed on the whole new structure of charitable services in this area (the new(?) co-ordination role), and obviously the removal of funding from the charity she represented (though this does not necessarily mean the end of it's activities.

Question: why - when the Poppy Appeal, Poppy Day, Poppy Breaks etc are so widely recognised as RBL - did this project choose the same name?

Thanks for posting this. I have donated. In fairness to the salvation army, I don't think they preach to the people they help (homeless people, people searching for missing relatives etc). But it is an appalling decision on the goverment's part. This government hates women and children.

It is the future of commissioning - the larger organisations will gobble up everything and the smaller charities will go to the wall. Then the larger ones will find they don't have the specialist expertise and so new community organisations will arise to meet the needs which the commissioned orgs aren't managing and it is SUCH A WASTE OF MONEY AND EFFORT.

TPL, thanks for donating. The Sally Army do indeed preach to the people they help. But more, the Christian ethos permeates what they do. I personally think that's pretty unhelpful in dealing with sex trafficking in particular, given the weirdness of evangelical views on sex.

I thought that the Poppy project was controversial, I am sure I remember a thread on here that they had funded a report that when reviewed was a bit dodgy......will google in a minute.....

Not really a surprise.

The Big Brothel research was appallingly performed - using no structured and recognised methodology. Using 'Standpoint' methodology doesn't really do the trick when public money is being employed.

The critisisms of the eventual report were too much to easily address - although Julie Bindel did give it a try.

The piss-poor work performed in performing the research was pointed-out by numerous academics (sexinthepublicsquare.org/files/u1/AcademicResponseBigBrothelSept2008.pdf) and the public and the government have every right to expect that if it is going to coungh-up vast amounts of public money for research, then that research should be of a decent quality.

Unfortunately the research was rendered meaningless by simple laziness. The Poppy Project got the bullet, not because of some vast patriarchal conspiracy, but because it produced rubbish research.

"For example, the absurd research methodology from the equalities' office research, which involved over-interpreting advertisements in local papers on a single day to link services of foreign women advertised there to spurious, over-inflated trafficking figures of 10,000 (p 10); the research report Big Brothel, produced by the Poppy Project, which receives government funding, expressed horror at the prices being offered without pointing out this was at only one venue or that that prices ranged up to £250. Staggeringly, its researchers estimated numbers of workers by telephoning numbers advertised in London newspapers. Such calling results in massive over-counting as sex workers work from different flats on different weeks or days."
(Belinda Press-Gordon - The Guardian 16th October 2009
(www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/law-jacquismith_

Not really a surprise.

The Big Brothel research was appallingly performed - using no structured and recognised methodology. Using 'Standpoint' methodology doesn't really do the trick when public money is being employed.

The critisisms of the eventual report were too much to easily address - although Julie Bindel did give it a try.

The piss-poor work performed in performing the research was pointed-out by numerous academics (sexinthepublicsquare.org/files/u1/AcademicResponseBigBrothelSept2008.pdf) and the public and the government have every right to expect that if it is going to coungh-up vast amounts of public money for research, then that research should be of a decent quality.

Unfortunately the research was rendered meaningless by simple laziness. The Poppy Project got the bullet, not because of some vast patriarchal conspiracy, but because it produced rubbish research.

"For example, the absurd research methodology from the equalities' office research, which involved over-interpreting advertisements in local papers on a single day to link services of foreign women advertised there to spurious, over-inflated trafficking figures of 10,000 (p 10); the research report Big Brothel, produced by the Poppy Project, which receives government funding, expressed horror at the prices being offered without pointing out this was at only one venue or that that prices ranged up to £250. Staggeringly, its researchers estimated numbers of workers by telephoning numbers advertised in London newspapers. Such calling results in massive over-counting as sex workers work from different flats on different weeks or days."
(Belinda Press-Gordon - The Guardian 16th October 2009
(www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/16/law-jacquismith_

Completely agree with Reality.

The government hasn't stopped commissioning the Poppy Project to do research, has it? It's stopped funding the Poppy Project to actually work with trafficked women. Arguments about numbers aside, we know these women exist, not least because the Home Office has just given one such woman substantial (but of course utterly inadequate because no amount of money could ever be enough) damages for repatriating her to her place of origin, where she was re-trafficked and abused horrifically. Front page of today's Guardian.

I was so angry to hear this news. Slhilly is right. It's not about their research (I confess I know nothing about the Big Brothel research that Orsinian is talking about - I'll look it up). It's about actual hands on work with trafficked women. Giving them a safe place to stay. Helping them to get back on their feet. Protecting them.

Why, why, why would you take money from an organisation that had successfully been doing that for a decade and give it to an evangelical religious organisation?

It beggars belief

What are BDSMers?

"£450k core funding taken from a woman-led non-judgemental organisation and now being handed to an organisation that is not women-led..."

I'm not sure where the "not women-led" bit comes from. The SA has had gender equality in leadership since it was founded in the 19th century. The current general (leader of the whole SA around the world) is a woman. The SA's co-founder, Catherine Booth, was actually pretty radical for her day in her response to what we would now call women's issues. I'm not necessarily saying that the SA is perfect or that switching the funding was the right idea (I don't know enough to say) but at least get the facts straight.

If I recall correctly the SA is the largest provider of social services in the UK after the government, so its not like they started doing this kind of work last week.

Many women are trafficked to the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation by people who supposedly work for religious charities. These women find it hard enough to talk about what they have been through as it is. It doesn't take any specialist knowledge of trafficking to realise that being passed into the care of another religious group is likely to inhibit the ability of someone who has been trafficked in this way to make a full disclosure of their trauma and to make them very untrusting of the people supposed to help them.

That this does not seem to have occured to either the government or SA displays at best a wilful ignorance of the issues surounding trafficking.

God is more important than people. Next time you see someone post on MN that this is a Christian country remember this.

The current world-wide leader of The Salvation Army is a woman. They have also been working in the field of human trafficking for years. And they are not a supposed religious charity, they ARE a religious charity, with decades of helping people (of all faiths and none) behind them. And the people who work for the SA do it for almost nothing, so money given to them mainly goes to good work, not salaries/'administration'

This is jobrien under a new name BTW....

Thistledew, I'd be interested in sources for your post (not necessarily disputing it...just curious).

Another factor to bear in mind is that the SA is an international organisation with a presence in over a hundred countries (124 according to wiki), which may give them an advantage in dealing with what is basically a transnational issue. And the SA already works closely with UK social services. I know for a fact that in our local area they refer people to the SA. Again I'm not saying that transferring the funding was the right idea. It just feels like there is a lot of knee-jerk prejudice against the SA on this thread (for example the comment about it being a cult....where on earth did that come from).

PS I wonder how many people on this thread realise the number of major UK charities which have or originally had a Christian ethos, or still manage perfectly well to provide a service to everyone? Off the top of my head I can think of the Samaritans, Oxfam, Barnardo's and Action for Children, not to mention literally thousands of local initiatives and organisations. For example just about every church I know provides space to some community group or other free or for a small fee to cover costs.

Ok, while I'm here I'm going to take time to address some issues raised by the 'SA is a cult' poster.

"They give a percentage of income and have to evangelise".

SA members are encouraged to give a proportion of their income to the work of SA. I've never heard anyone state how much that should be. Nor have I ever seen any hint that the SA keeps track of a particular individual's giving, except to claim Gift Aid, or that it puts anyone on the spot about it. There is a tendency in some evangelical circles to advocate 'tithing' ie giving a tenth of one's income to church and charity, but this is a voluntary thing in mainstream evangelicalism.

"and live by a very strict code of behaviour which is sexist and homophobic".

Sexist? As far as I can see the SA has complete gender equality at all levels, with every office open to women. As I've already said, its current international head is a woman. It does take the traditional evangelical line on gay sexuality however.

"and that the only way to Heaven was through the SA"

That isn't remotely in line with mainstream SA teaching. The SA has been involved with ecumenism from very early on and individual SA congregations are usually active in local 'Churches Together' organisations etc. Most SA people would say that Christianity is the only path to salvation, but I've never met any who would say that the SA is.

"that a murderer who found SA woudl go to heaven while a devout Catholic for eg who lived a blameless life would not".

See above. Our local SA has attended plenty of joint events with Catholics in the context of Churches Together etc, and I know from experience that they make a point of praying for the wellbeing and Christian work of ALL the churches in their neighbourhood regularly. I come from a Catholic background myself and have always got the impression that the mainstream SA concensus is that Catholics are fellow Christians, even if there are areas of disagreement between the two traditions.

I'm new to mumsnet so be kind; but thought those of you who posted on this thread might be interested in an update? I've just joined mumsnet and was looking through the posts on this section. I work for a project that supports young women, so we have some links with agencies who Salvation Army subcontracted out to.

I've heard that Poppy project continue to do amazing work with some of the most traumatised victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and work very closely with the MET. They can work with women who are too frightened / traumatised / wary to disclose any information via the NRM system (which is the official 'referral' system.

The Salvation Army funding was used to provide funding for a number of regional accomodation providers around England and Wales; (sorry, i don't know how many); all of whom had previous experience working with adult men and women who have been trafficked or exploited in some way. A few of these are Salvation Army run safe houses, but definitely not all (the one nearest us isn't).
Some are for women, some are for men. As I understand it all of the men or women housed in these safe houses have to be willing to enter via the NRM system; but can be victims of any kind of trafficking, such as forced labour, domestic servitude, etc.
The feedback from my work contact is that the system has actually got better, there are more spaces available for those who need accomodation, and they don't have to drive all the way down to London (although my contact said she would still try to get a very traumatised victim into the Poppy Project because they are so good at what they do) Sorry, i don't know any more, and the info is second hand, the work contact I mentioned gave the above information in a meeting I was in yesterday, and told us to pass it on to any of our contacts, so I'm not breaking any protocol.

The Salvation Army are NOT sexist in their official policy. The fact that highly evangelical/extreme Christians and other highly religious people are likely to live a more patriarchal life (men go to work, women stay at home, women expected to dress modestly etc.) is their choice- it's not like they live in a culture where that is the norm, in fact many SA members are beyond the norms for restrictive rules even within Christianity- and it certainly provides a moral framework to oppose rape, violence against women, prostitution, porn and the like.