Letter to Guardian

[AnxiousAdventurer]

Furious to see that the Director of Amnesty International, Kate Allen, is among those writing to the Guardian to protest the Suzanne Moore article.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/03/05/the-guardian-anti-trans-editorial-feminists-letter-suzanne-moore-transphobia/

The Guardian link is here but doesn;'t show all the signatories: www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/04/differing-perspectives-on-transgender-rights

I belong to Amnesty, and my membership goes towards battling for human rights - I thought. I'm writing to Amnesty suggesting they should think about the rights of those lately branded as "hate groups" and try standing up for free speech rather than a particular ideology. I don't know whether to cancel my membership. I notice the director of Liberty also signed, which I also think is completely inappropriate.

I'm posting this here because other members of Amnesty or Liberty might want to let them know what they think too.

Cancelled my Amnesty direct debit a while ago due to the above.

The entire charity sector stinks to high heaven. I restrict my charitable donations to local causes where I am satisfied that the money is going to the intended target.

Amnesty are another proponent of the myth of the abusive trans widow who weaponises the spousal "veto" (exit clause). They included it in their GRC consultation guidance.

GRA consultation!

Membership cancelled. Complaint written.

Ffs. How can the editor of the NewScientist have fallen?!?

Because they are ignorant? Who are they again?

I ditched my Amnesty DD years back. It's so disappointing when organisations you've looked up to turn sour. I think the NSPCC was the one I minded most.

I see there’s a petition for Suzanne to the guardian/observer - not allowed to link am I?

Petition on change.org

Amnesty International has exposed the persecution of sex workers in Nordic model countries such as Norway. AI stands up for the women who have been evicted from their own homes after the police have identified them as sex workers. The police threaten landlords with pimping offences if they fail to evict. Women have been deported.

If two women choose to work together for safety then they are convicted using pimping offenses. So when you say 'pimping lobby' who do you mean by pimps? Women in their 20s (like the two women convicted in Ireland recently) or their landlords who refuse to evict?

AI exposes the lie that in Nordic model countries sex workers are decriminalized. They are not. Women have been speaking out and AI have been listening. You should listen too because if you deny what has been happening then you are guilty of gaslighting.

New Scientist editor is ex-Guardian.

So when you say 'pimping lobby' who do you mean by pimps?

2015 Guardian
Why is a pimp helping to shape Amnesty’s sex trade policy?
by Kat Banyard
Amnesty’s push to decriminalise brothels and sex-buyers is misguided. A day of action will call for the protection of those exploited by prostitution, not the exploiters
(extract)
"Amnesty International will finalise its new policy on prostitution this month. It follows a vote in August by the organisation’s leadership – in the face of global protests – to push countries to fully decriminalise the sex trade, sex-buying and brothel-keeping included. Not only is Amnesty’s plan, in my view, dangerously misguided, it also relies on evidence from the very people it should be holding to account.

Amnesty’s draft policy cites support from “human rights organisations” for the call to decriminalise brothels. “Most significantly,” it states, “a large number of sex worker organisations and networks, including the Global Network of Sex Work Projects [NSWP], support the decriminalisation of sex work.” Yet in March this year Alejandra Gil, the NSWP’s former vice-president, was jailed for 15 years for sex trafficking.

This isn’t just one unfortunate reference to the group, a singular blip in an otherwise scrupulously sourced document. Amnesty’s draft policy also cites as evidence a report written by the NSWP; a report annexe written by the UNAids “advisory group on HIV and sex work” – which is co-chaired by the NSWP; and a World Health Organisation (WHO) report in which Gil is personally acknowledged as one of the “experts” who helped develop its recommendations. The organisation’s logo is on the report’s front cover, alongside those of the WHO, UNAaids and the United Nations Population Fund.

What this exposes is how staggeringly successful Gil’s group has been in pushing its agenda to legitimise commercial sexual exploitation through some of the world’s top human rights institutions. Known as the “Madam of Sullivan”, Gil is reported to have been at the centre of a pimping operation in Mexico City, sexually exploiting around 200 women. What is crucial to recognise, however, is that Gil didn’t have to hide her vested interests as a pimp in her NSWP role. The group campaigns for pimping and brothel-keeping to be recognised as ordinary work. According to NSWP policy, as a pimp Gil was a “sex worker” whose precise role was a “manager”. So why did UNAids award this group a formal advisory role?

The NSWP, meanwhile, still describes its former vice-president as a “human rights defender”. A woman who said she had been trafficked to Mexico City, and exploited by Gil, told a journalist in Mexico: “Her job was to watch us from the car. She or her son took us to hotels and charged us fees. She kept records. She had a list where she kept records of everything. She even wrote down how long you took.” The lawyer representing Gil’s victims explained to me that she was convicted because “she received trafficked victims” and “deceived to exploit them through the exercise of [prostitution]”. (continues)

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/22/pimp-amnesty-prostitution-policy-sex-trade-decriminalise-brothel-keepers

@jennywhitehorses

I don't know anything about the sex work issue so bear with me. Are you saying that because some women might be punished/evicted as pimps, therefore pimping generally is OK?

I believe women are often involved in perpetrating FGM but that wouldn't be a reason for legalising it would it? Or am I missing the point?

Let me tell you about Kat Banyard. In her recent book Pimp State she quotes from Jim Wells without revealing that 'Mr Wells' is the Protestant Evangelical bigot, a Creationist who has got into trouble with his views on homosexuality and abortion.

She uses his false statistic which says that 127 prostitutes were murdered in the 15 years after legalization in the Netherlands. He used this statistic in the Northern Ireland Assembly to get the Nordic model adopted in Northern Ireland.

The first man who was arrested in NI was arrested along with 3 women sex workers. Only 2 men have been convicted and both for soliciting females who weren't prostitutes. We already have laws against that.

This 127 statistic is false because not all of the women were prostitutes and most of them were killed before legalization not after. So looks like legalization cut murder rate not increased it.

Jim Wells is a far more sinister character than Gil. Gil was not in control of AI policy, she just stated her opinion. She didn't fabricate evidence that women in Norway are targeted by the police. This is the reality. You can't escape from that.

Real scientists don't read New Scientist, it's science-lite (understatement!) & equivalent to Grazia. I'm not shocked about their editor being a stupid wokey blokey bearded type.

What happens in Britain is that if a woman works on her own as a prostitute in her own flat it is not illegal. Some women though prefer to work with another, for many reasons, including safety. That is illegal though. The police can raid the flat, take all their money and arrest them for running a brothel.

I don't have a problem with genuine pimps getting arrested, whether they are male or female. When you have 2 or 3 women though who are all sex workers and choosing to work together for safety then I do have a problem. They are not pimps but they are prosecuted using the same laws as pimps.

When the Nordic model was introduced in the Irish Republic this issue was raised. Frances Fitzgerald, then Justice minister, refused to stop the prosecution of young women as pimps, and indeed doubled the penalty.

As a result young women have been convicted, such as the 2 Romanian women in their 20s that have been in the news recently. The Nordic model is supposed to decriminalize prostitutes, but it doesn't.

In addition, in Norway and Sweden too the police force an eviction of a sex worker from her own home. So it is obvious that they are dishonest when they say that they think prostitutes are victims. You don't treat victims like that. We don't do that in Britain and I hope we never will. That's nasty. People have a right to defend themselves against accusations.

Nordic Model Now:
"Founded in March 2016, Nordic Model Now! is a secular, feminist, grassroots women’s group based in the UK that is campaigning for the abolition of prostitution and related practices (such as lap-dancing, pornography and surrogacy). While abortion is not the focus of our campaign, as feminists we recognise women’s human right to safe, legal abortion services.

What we are calling for
The introduction and effective implementation of the Nordic Model approach to prostitution.
The clearing of criminal records for soliciting to sell sex.
The legislation against procuring, pimping and sex trafficking to be strengthened and brought into line with our obligations under CEDAW and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (known as the Palermo Protocol).
The eradication of all the factors that push people into prostitution, including the entrenched inequality between the sexes, the impoverishment of mothers, the inadequate support for “looked after” children, student fees, low pay, zero-hour contracts, benefit cuts and sanctions, and so on.
The UK government to ratify the 1949 UN Convention on the Suppression of the Trafficking in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others."

nordicmodelnow.org/

I can't see any other links - don't want to promote this ''pape though but there are ads on London Underground now actually calling for prostitution to be legalised. The images used are more explicit than the 'beach body' ads that the mayor had taken down a few years back.

Just search for 'Campaign calling for decriminalisation of sex work adorns London tube' and you will see the visuals.

Am amazed that the editor of New Scientist (!) signed it.

I've complained to DH that last few months that since there was a change in style there's less and less in it and a lot more sort of opinion pieces. We've both been reading it since our sixth form days - but I'm starting to wonder if we should continue.

So honestly less of a suprise to me than it would have been few years ago.

Let me tell you about Kat Banyard. In her recent book Pimp State she quotes from Jim Wells without revealing that 'Mr Wells' is the Protestant Evangelical bigot, a Creationist who has got into trouble with his views on homosexuality and abortion.

Let me tell you about this writer! She quoted a bad person one time!

Woke logic. 🙄

This 127 statistic is false because not all of the women were prostitutes and most of them were killed before legalization not after. So looks like legalization cut murder rate not increased it.

if you're going to accuse someone else of using misleading statistics you better a) have sources for YOUR statistics and b) not spout mindblowing inanities like "most of them were killed before legalization not after. So looks like legalization cut murder rate" without providing so much as a timeframe!

In the Northern Ireland Assembly Jim Wells questioned Laura Lee the (now deceased) Northern Ireland sex worker. He presented her with his false statistic and asked her to respond to it. Nobody knows how to respond to a false statistic they haven't heard before but later she researched it and put the facts in a letter to the Belfast Telegraph.

This is what Jim Wells said to her
"You quite rightly pointed out the tragedy of Petite Jasmine. That is a very sad case, and we are aware of it. It happened in Sweden, and, since 1998, it is the only example of a prostitute in Sweden being killed. In Holland in the same period — of course, as you know, prostitution in Holland has been entirely legalised and is controlled — there have been 127 murders of prostitutes. Given those statistics, why would prostitutes be safer if you made it totally legal?"

This is Laura's reply in the Belfast Telegraph
"Mr Wells seems determined to avoid discussing the real issues and, instead, talks of these 127 murders of sex workers in the Netherlands. Given his obsession with this 127 statistic, I'd like to clarify: the statistic relates to 118 murders that occurred between 1985 and 2012 being investigated by a police cold case team in the Netherlands. In 25 of the cases, the victims were not sex workers, or it is not known if they were sex workers or not. Most of the sex worker victims were working illegally and outdoors, not indoors. Eighty-six of the murders took place before October 1, 2000 (i.e. before prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands)."

So 86 were murdered between 1985 and 2000. 32 were murdered between 2000 and 2012. 86 divided by 15 is about 6 per year. 32 divided by 12 is about 3. So it looks as if legalization has halved the number of murders but this is not a good data set.

I cancelled my Liberty subscription last year, after their wholesale support of Self ID.

And, I might add, there were no murders of prostitutes in Sweden since the 1980s. So the Nordic model has not cut the murder rate in Sweden. You have to compare what was happening in a country before the change in the law to what happened in the same country after the change in the law. Both the Netherlands and Sweden changed their laws in about 2000. There is a third model, the New Zealand model, which many prefer to legalization. My prefered 'model' is to just stop arresting women for working together for safety.

"My gender is mine to define" says the placard.

Yes love, that's as maybe, but your sex isn't.

As for the editor of New Scientist as a signatory. Well, we know New cientist is pop science, but back in the day it did have some credibility - now, not so much.