Julie Bindel on prostitution.

[Ariana12]

Ive just seen this on X. It's really powerful. https://x.com/bindelj/status/1783523754464723239?t=eiapJpNU7TrWBbEYOMbsMw&s=19

I’m so sorry, Kitty 🧡

There are lots of women sex workers and I don't think there is one reason or cause. For the women I knew it was mainly that they needed the money, either single mothers or mother's with a feckless husband others with alcohol or drug issues. Others were groomed. All the reasons are sad. One woman was very much regarding it as a business. Her children were at a very expensive school and she said her girls would have opportunities to make a good living without sex work. She made good money and had audited books for the tax man, she bought her house for cash and planned on getting out of the business when she had enough money saved. I hope she managed to do it.

I thought the drama about the Yorkshire ripper showed how a very ordinary housewife could get drawn into it because of money issues. It was very sad.

Who the hell thinks it's a good idea to post an article like that when there's a poster on the first page of this very thread WHO SAID IT HAPPENED TO HER?

How insensitive and disrespectful does a person have to be to not realise how cruel they are?

If you have evidence of this happening I hope you have passed it onto the police?

I hope you would, “Christina”.

Nobody is saying that no woman or girl has been forced into prostitution. People are forced to earn money for other people in many different ways. It's called modern slavery. About half of modern slaves are men.

When it comes to trafficking, there are two meanings of the word. If a woman is coerced or deceived, that is one meaning. If she hasn't been coerced or deceived she may still be thought of as trafficked under the other meaning. If someone organizes the movement of people then it can be said they have been trafficked.

There are lots of Chinese women in Britain today who come here because they want to earn a lot of money in a short time. They go back to China and use that money to invest in their future. That might be starting a business or paying for further education.

There are no bars on their windows, they all have smartphones. They don't want to be rescued. In fact, 'rescue' would mean being deported back to China where they could face big problems. Have you worked with women in these circumstances?

People Trafficked to have sex, for money, from which other people profit, is the subject under discussion. Those people who are "whataboutering " are welcome to discuss the other reasons why people move around the globe, but i shall not be engaging with such disingenuous posting.

Re first paragraph I have been told the same about influential men. One I know was true as a prostitute was murdered and men who had been cruising the vice area that night were advised in a TV announcement to come forward before police came knocking on their door. This very famous, wealthy man, came in and made a statement.

I used to see him on TV and think people just don't know.

Thankfully somebody did

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg8791y4xxo

Proposed Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill. https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/proposals-for-bills/proposed-prostitution-offences-and-support-scotland-bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg8791y4xxo
news just in that will surprise no one except perhaps our visitor

It's not "whataboutering" to say that people are confused about the meaning of the word 'trafficked'. When the police try to find women in Britain from China or Brazil who have been coerced or deceived they have a difficult time finding any. Yet nearly all of these women have had their travel organized by someone else.

As it says in another Guardian article by the same author as the one mentioned by Christinapple
"And, from the outset, that word was a problem. On a strict definition, eventually expressed in international law by the 2000 Palermo protocol, sex trafficking involves the use of force, fraud or coercion to transport an unwilling victim into sexual exploitation. This image of sex slavery soon provoked real public anxiety.

But a much looser definition, subsequently adopted by the UK's 2003 Sexual Offences Act, uses the word to describe the movement of all sex workers, including willing professionals who are simply travelling in search of a better income. This wider meaning has injected public debate with confusion and disproportionate anxiety."

It's important to understand this because otherwise we end up with laws that are counterproductive and harm women.

Julie Bindel has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Nordic Model for many years. She would have been delighted when it was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2015 and in the Irish Republic in 2017. Earlier this year we had the review of the Nordic Model law in Ireland.

It hasn't reduced the amount of prostitution in Ireland. The interim review (2022) and the review for Northern Ireland (2019) say the same thing. There are just as many prostitutes in Ireland today but their lives have been made more difficult and dangerous. Julie Bindel may be popular on Mumsnet but she isn't popular with sex workers in Ireland.

Isn't it interesting, how language informs thought. Those who like to believe that there is such a thing as a "sex industry " talk about prostitutes and sex workers. Those of us who believe that "sex work" is exploitation, talk about prostituted people and exploitation

Exactly what I felt. 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

N. Ireland introduced the "Nordic Model" in 2015. Want to guess how many clients they have managed to convict in the past decade? One.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-67802849

The Crown Office has warned that Ash Regan's proposal of the same law for Scotland will also be unenforceable. Police Scotland have also raised concerns over the cost to attempt to enforce it and such budget does not exist (it will be hundreds of thousands of pounds every few years which will need taken out of something else).

"THE Crown Office have warned that Ash Regan’s proposed bill to outlaw the purchase of sex would be unenforceable.

Scotland’s prosecution service said police officers would face “evidential barriers” to the proposed legislation.

N. Ireland and ROI Governments have accepted they have failed to reduce the demand for sexual services.

The COPFS also rejected Regan’s claims that sex workers would not need to be dragged to court to testify against people with whom they had had consensual sex, in order to secure convictions."

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25481086.crown-office-warns-ash-regans-sex-work-bill-unenforceable/

Sweden, the first country to introduce the Nordic Model, has also found it difficult to enforce. Evidence of paying for sex is difficult to come by in the first place and convictions can only be obtained by dragging sex workers into court and getting them to testify against their clients (which they don't want to do). Sweden convicted 2 clients in the first 2,000 arrests.

https://hivlawcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FinalReport-RisksRightsHealth-EN.pdf p38 or see image

Forgot the image. This is from a UN HIV and the Law commission's report on Sweden's Nordic Model.

That is a depressing read. I wonder how many prostitutes/prostituted women were involved in writing the rules. I think I can guess.

Yes.

Not unsurprised there's a big overlap between supporting prostitution and AGPs; I'm sure they can't imagine anything more gender-affirming than being kerb crawled.

Well yes, it is true that if you push the sheep to the edge of a cliff you get resistance.

Sick people know how to force others into traps like that. You think this is a good thing?

"Anger as Holyrood group backed by Magdalene laundries organisation"

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25575754.fury-holyrood-group-backed-magdalene-laundries-organisation/ (paywalled, partial screenshot attached)

Well well well, look who Ash Regan has the support of. Article from last night.

A Holyrood group supporting her bill is backed by the Religious Sisters of Charity who are known for being involved in the running of Ireland's Magdalene laundries.

The Magdalene laundries for over 2 centuries would punish women for having sex outside marriage by imprisoning them in church-run workhouses where they carried out unpaid labour.

Ironic for Ash Regan to talk about supporting "women's rights".

Funny how the main opponents to the Nordic Model are human rights orgs, health and HIV orgs, anti-trafficking orgs and sex worker orgs (Amnesty Int, W.H.O., Human Rights Watch, Freedom United, Royal College of Nursing, UNAIDs, STOPAIDs, HIV Scotland, Scot-Pep to name a few). And the main supporters of the Nordic Model are religious ones. She has the support of the Christian Institute too.

IMHO I think this is why N.Ireland and ROI have the Nordic Model and Scotland has so far fought off multiple attempts (and hopefully this one too). Religion has a lot more power over in Ireland. As quoted in the article "Legislative approaches towards sex work should be driven by evidence, not by religious doctrine". In a previous post I mentioned N. Ireland has convicted 1 client in 10 years and both Govs have admitted the nordic model as not "reduced demand".

For the nordic model to work, there has to be a willingness for the police and prosecution services to actually apply the model. It is quite easy for the front line services to sabotage the intentions.

That isn't enough. Sweden, ROI and N. Ireland are very passionate about the law (more recently Sweden have gone even further and criminalised custom onlyfans content), have had the law for 10-25 years and have admitted it is very difficult to enforce and that it does not "reduce demand" which is often used as the main selling point. The Crown Office have warned the Nordic Model would be unenforceable in Scotland and Police Scotland, although sympathetic behind the intent of the bill raised concerns over the vast expense.

A report on Sweden by UN HIV and the Law has revealed sex workers do not see themselves as victims and are "almost always" unwilling to testify against their clients. Sweden spends a lot of money trying to enforce the law (it comes out of Social Work budget) and Swedish police spend a lot of time effectively stalking the homes of sex workers to wait for men going in. But without the sex worker being dragged into court and testifying convictions cannot happen. The Nordic Model also means sex workers are less likely to carry condoms as these are used as evidence (one reason why health orgs do not favour this law), and sex workers and clients just need to take a few extra precautions like not mention sex or payment when making a booking and delete all messages after.

Unless you want CCTV in everyone's homes and every street corner which the police and Gov will sit and watch 24/7 to watch for consenting adults handing over money it just isn't possible to enforce.

The police in England do not have the resources and no one wants to pay for them.

I do remember some women from the local uni organising a meeting with local prostitutes about these sort of changes to the law. They couldn't understand why they not only got no support but got quite a bit of abuse. They meant well but it just wasn't welcomed.

The people who wanted the Nordic Model in Ireland don't seem to think that the police are the problem. There's a newspaper article in the Irish Independent that came out just before the long-awaited review of the 2017 law change that brought the Nordic Model to Ireland.

The headline is "Gardaí may need more powers to arrest men paying for sex, as review of anti-prostitution law ready ‘within weeks’". Underneath the headline is a photo of the Minister for Justice, the ex-Minister for Justice who is now working for Ruhama, and the CEO of Ruhama. All three of them holding Ruhama documents.

Ruhama is an NGO founded by two orders of nuns, both of whom had run Magdalene Laundries. They think that the police should have more powers so that more men can be convicted for paying for sex. They knew ahead of publication that the review was going to say that the Nordic Model isn't working.

It can't work as things are. It might work if the police had more powers, so they seem to believe. I doubt if the people of Ireland want to give the police more powers and presumably more money to try to stop men fornicating.
Gardaí may need more powers to arrest men paying for sex, as review of anti-prostitution law ready ‘within weeks’ | Irish Independent