Harassment of children in legal red light zone in Holbeck

[LaserShark]

I’ve just read an article posted in a feminist group I’m part of on FB. It’s a Daily Mail article, detailing the harassment of young children in Holbeck where the legal red light zone is. Men offering parents money to rape their children. Most shockingly, a grandmother pushing a buggy with a four month old baby was offered money for an hour alone with the baby.

I can’t get the article out of my head. I don’t live a million miles away (thankfully not close) and it makes the these depraved men seem so much more real. I can’t understand how anyone could defend this legal zone - there has been a murder, rapes, sexual assault and it sounds like a free for all for all kinds of terrible men with monstrous appetites. And neither the council nor the police seem willing to help or even acknowledge the festering horror they have created, or allowed to exist openly. Somehow they have empowered these sick, twisted fuckers to feel able to ask to rape children in broad daylight; so pornsick and warped that they imagine this to be reasonable or likely or simply get a thrill from the violation of frightening and upsetting women and children by voicing their hideous thoughts. What is happening and why is no one acting to stop it?

Helena it was actually a long time ago, even before family/child tax credit. If you had to sign on you got the dole and about £12 per child, and that was it.
It wasn't meant to be superior, just responding to a previous poster who was trying to suggest that working class women would freely choose prostitution to working minimum wage jobs. Well, not this one, or the women I knew.

Exactly Helena. noeefingidea , do you have ANY idea of what women on the new Universal Credit system have to go through??

Sanctions for not being able to take a job due to childcare responsibilities, their debts being taken at source at a rate TEN TIMES more than on previous benefits, if they are paid anything other than calendar monthly (as many low paid workers are) there are many months they will not receive any tops ups (that used to be under tax credits) on UC, they will have to find hundreds or even thousands upfront for childcare that used to be reimbursed to those on a low income, in order to even start work?? All of the above bringing their income so low that they have no choice.

It's NOT a free 'choice' for many women in this position, it is a HOBSON'S CHOICE - CAUSED BY AN INADEQUATE, CUT (see 2015b budget), "SAFETY NET" that no longer functions as such.

Those of us who have experienced the realities of prostitution, please listen to us, I beg you.

Before any legislation, Women need a safety net, a basic income guaranteed so we do not fall through all the the cracks and loopholes I have personally experienced that are written into Universal Credit. I never had to resort to this before UC, and I have no addiction problems, no partner, no previous issues. This is the real issue. Women are being forced to go out there in degrading and dangerous situations, just to pay rent and feed their Children.

I'll never understand why people are so reluctant to listen to the voices of those who have experience of the industry. The reality is somewhere in the middle. Help us.

@noeffingidea Apt user name btw

People are being sanctioned for going to funerals At least one i know of was sanctioned for doing jury service.

I worked in a sex chatline office in the early 2000s for two years I had the choice of that or workfare and that was before UC.

You really dont have any idea.

And these kinds of attitudes are why baby boomers get such a bad rap.

An employer has to OFFER YOU THE JOB FIRST. The two offers i had on the table nearly 18 years ago was

a. a workfare stint at a soup factory working for JSA

b. a full time night job 5pm to 3am as well as Sat 10am to 6pm in a sex chatline office for £12"000 a year (this was early 2001)

I chose the latter.

No wonder many working class women feel so alienated from feminism.

I understand all that themachinestops
I know it's not a free choice. I was responding to a previous poster who was suggesting that women would prefer sex work to a minimum wage job. I think that's a myth, thats all, a dangerous myth thats been spread to young women (such as uni students) as an easy way to earn money, easier than working minimum wage (or sub minimum wage which is what I had to do). I feel a lot of younger women are being groomed to see sex work as an acceptable 'career choice'
When I made my post the post about UC wasn't there. I am truly sorry if any posters are being put into that position, of course it isn't right. I don't believe hardly any women would freely choose any form of 'sex work', at least if they're in full posession of the facts and not the glamourised version that people like the happy hooker like to portray. I hope things improve for you (if this applies to you personally).

But on Universal Credit, it's NOT the choice between minimum wage jobs and prostitution. It's both.

It's the fact that some of those women already working said minimum wage jobs and juggling extortionate childcare and rent costs to do so, DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER CHOICE BECAUSE OF THE BROKEN UC SYSTEM, than to resort to sex work to survive. Not to mention those mother's who cannot work due to Caring responsibilities or peronal illness and health.

Please help us.

Help us by standing against a system designed and implemented by those who have no idea what it is like to juggle two minimum wage , insecure jobs with dependent Children , and still be unable to meet high rent and basic living costs, and are having to resort to these extreme and demeaning measures just to live.

An old post of mine from someone elses guest post thread from two and a half years ago.

HelenaDove Sat 09-Jul-16 00:41:53

I took sex chatline work back in 2001 after being on New Deal/workfare i had a choice I had already done workfare in a charity shop and for my local council for my JSA Then those bastards at Reed/Pelcombe wanted me to do 3 months in a soup factory for my JSA The only PAID job i was being offered was in a sex chatline office so these were the only 2 choices i had therefore i took the chatline job.

Had i got to the sex chatline office after signing off and discovered there was more to it than i had been told at the interview i cant honestly say that i would have said no and gone back to the Job Centre to sign on knowing for a fact that more workfare was awaiting me.

So you see Sarcasticon its a bit more convoluted than women just being forced to take a sex job.

As it turned out i was treated with a bloody sight more respect there than i ever got from workfare providers.

Im on the fence with this I want sex workers to have rights and be protected.

But because i was faced with fuck all chioce FIFTEEN YEARS AGO i could certainly see it happening again now.

@noeffingidea Women on UC are ALREADY in a minimum wage job just like you were.

You posted that you were earning LESS than minimum wage.

Well if you were doing this NOW you would be getting asked to attend a mandatory meeting asking you what YOU are going to do to get paid more wages!!

Helena I'm not getting into an argument. I was addressing a point a previous poster made, and cross posted. As for your point about baby boomers, please don't make assumptions about our lives. We're not a homogenous mass you know. And yes, I do know about sanctions, unfortunately.

noeffingidea was answering a previous point and talking about a choice she made. She wasn't judging other people for doing sex work.

I could have written her post. I've been homeless and slept rough in the winter when the only other choice would have been to do sex work and if put into the same position I'll do it again.

Well yes Helena I could address your point at 19.40, but it would be giving out too much personal information.

ok fair enough.................its a crap situation all round really Especially for women.

Where the f* are the journalists? A documentary about how UC forces women into the sex trade could win awards and topple a government. Shedding light on West Yorkshire Police shenanigans could also make a Journalist famous. These are obvious, big stories, just waiting to be told.

This book has recently been published, and I can not praise it enough.

If you are wanting to truly understand and examine the increasingly important debates about sex work/prostitution, the law, carceral feminism, decriminlisation, the Nordic Model, borders and labour rights: start here:

www.versobooks.com/books/2752-revolting-prostitutes

As the authors state: 'caring for each other is political work.'

Thank you!

If we are approaching a situation in which the alternatives to being prostituted are potentially even more harmful and dehumanising than being prostituted this is not an argument in favour of 'sex work' it's an argument in favour of throwing out this Victorian government and its indefensibly cruel and incompetent policies.

Pragmatically speaking of course alternatives need to be in place for women with no other means of support. The Nordic model does involve support with exit strategies although it's hard to see how that would work in the absence of a functioning welfare state.

However, reading the abstract, it does not seem to focus on how UC forces women into prostitution, but on how to make prostitution safer. Which is something entirely different.

The Nordic Model harms sex workers and puts them at greater risk - I can appreciate how (some) feminists will applaud clients being policed, but in reality it sex workers are forced to taking greater risks (because clients don't want to be identified).

This book really is ground breaking. I had the opportunity to listen to the authors discuss it, and it was revolutionary.

As soon as I read the phrase "carceral feminism" uttered with a straight face, I know the person saying it favours the rights of men to stick their dicks in non consenting women over women's rights to live their lives free from male violence.

Carceral feminism? Bring it on. I'm thoroughly in favour of locking up rapists and domestic abusers and people traffickers and throwing away the fucking key.

Um....maybe read the book...then make an informed comment? Which was what I was suggesting?

What do you believe carceral feminism to be?

www.feministcurrent.com/2013/01/22/new-research-shows-violence-decreases-under-nordic-model-why-the-radio-silence/

nordicmodelnow.org/myths-about-prostitution/myth-amnestys-research-in-norway-has-proved-the-nordic-model-is-harmful-to-sex-workers/

No offense, but considering that we are discussing how women are forced by the broken ‚welfare‘ System to prostitute themselves in order to feed their kids and in order to secure work in another job (which requires them to pay for child care, with money they don‘t have, therefore prostituting themselves...), so, considering this particular topic, don‘t you think proposing a book in this context that obviously considers prostitution a given and does not address the root cause, the abdication of the state‘s responsibilities, is a bit off?

.

Why would anyone support prostituting women over giving them an income another way? Say, via taxation and benefits, for example?

Especially once you know that prostituting women creates human sex trafficking?