One London borough wants to End Demand: Clients of sex workers beware

Posted on | May 16, 2012 | No Comments

One of us took these photos of a parked van while having a drink in Brixton, in the London borough of Lambeth (where Waterloo Station is). Buy Sex – Pay the Price is the message, with a man’s silhouette as a sort of parody of the cliché prostitute silhouette. Notice that this naughty client is smoking.

According to the sign, the consequences of getting caught buying sex are:

- be arrested
- be convicted
- receive an anti-social behaviour order
- lose your job
- lose respect from family and friends

However: No borough can unilaterally criminalise something just because they want to; they have to follow official law. Several laws prohibit particular client behaviours in the UK: paying for sex with someone found to be controlled for another person’s gain, kerb-crawling and soliciting women for (sex) business. Perhaps the campaign means Lambeth police will be more aggressive in pursuing these laws. Another of us wrote about the more drastic version of the legislation about gain when it was being considered, but all arguments still apply to the watered-down version we are stuck with.

The way the advert is worded implies that End Demand has been imposed in a single London borough – and presumably some people will believe it, or feel too worried to do something they want to that is not actually illegal - pay for sex with an independent worker, for example, or tip a stripper or lap-dancer. This is what social-purity campaigns do: make at least some people feel worried and guilty so that they repress themselves. The advertisements were funded by Lambeth council’s Violence Against Women campaign, described in this press release.

Social Purity campaigns were linked to gender equality a hundred years ago, too – with a good deal more cause: women didn’t have the vote. That social purity as an ideal should be back in crude form in cosmopolitan Lambeth might derive from the abolitionist presence of Eaves Housing for Women, where the Poppy Project is sheltered, in the borough. Or will this idea spread to other boroughs?

Originally posted at The Naked Anthropologist (Laura Agustín)

Category: analysis
Tags: demand > gender

Tower Hamlets strippers speak up and organise!

Posted on | April 19, 2012 | No Comments

On 18 April 2012, a public talk was organised in Tower Hamlets by the GMB London Entertainment branch and the Equity Thames Variety branch. The meeting was supported by SERTUC LGBT network and chaired by Linda Keitz from GLATUC and member of the SERTUC women rights committee.

John McDonnell Labour MP was invited to speak and expressed solidarity to the workers. He highlighted the double standard and the double morality between the pressure to close the adult venues because of nudity and all the companies who make immoral profit over people’s health and safety. He pointed out how the Olympics are used to cleanse East London of sex establishments while no word is said against the immoral practices of multinational companies who are using the Olympics to expand their profit and exploit workers.

Edie Lamort from Equity talked about her experience working in office jobs before becoming a dancer and the contradiction she sees in having to justify herself as a stripper while she was suffering worse exploitation as an office worker but nobody cared for her at that time about her working conditions. She explained that her job allowed her to study and support herself while expressing herself in an artistic way as a performer.

Vera Rodriguez from GMB said: “Nobody should tell us how to make a living. We want to save our job. It’s a real job that brings us an income in a time of recession.” She added: “We’re part of the community. We need to be united to improve our working conditions and stop having to justify ourselves. I’m not here for pity or compassion. I’m here to demand rights as a worker.”

Clare Roderick talked about the different jobs she did and the different clubs she worked in Tower Hamlets and Hackney. She opposed the fees and the commission the workers have to pay to work and expressed the need for communities to co-exist with each other.

Montana, a dancer in Tower Hamlets opposed the concept of objectification, explaining that while working “this is the time when I decide to be beautiful and sexy”. She argued that most violence against women happens in marriage but that nobody tries to ban marriage like strip clubs. She questions also how religions can be perceived as offensive to women and again nobody tries to ban freedom of religion. She opposed the ban on strip clubs saying: “the ban will force us to work in unsafe environment”. She added: “What is the difference if I use my body working as an actress in a theatre, on stage or in a strip club? In capitalism we all have to work and sell ourselves. I want to fight capitalism for all work, but meanwhile I need to work.”

Keith Henderson, GMB organiser, said that he was very proud to organise sex workers and that GMB is ready to make a legal challenge in Parliament to change the law.

Many interventions came from the audience about how to improve the working conditions, and what type of actions and organising could take place to oppose the ban and improve workers’ lives. The public talk appeared as a good start to better organise in the borough to oppose the prohibitionist measures. Many workers left their contact to the trade union organisers who promised to have a new meeting soon to decide the next actions and strategy.

Overall, it was a successful event, well attended, with the hope and energy to change things for the better.

Category: praxis
Tags: dancer > tower hamlets

CAMPAIGN ORGANISING MEETING: Moratorium on Sex Work arrests during the Olympics

Posted on | March 6, 2012 | No Comments

WHAT: x:talk is calling for a moratorium on sex worker arrests up to and during the Olympics. And we’d like you to join us! We are meeting to discuss the

Below we outline our case for a moratorium and why crackdowns on brothels and sex workers are bad for sex workers and their rights.

WHEN: 10:30AM- 3P30PM. Tuesday 13 March

WHERE: Centre for Possible Studies

21 Gloucester Place

LONDON

(nearest tube: Marble Arch)

CONTACT: Ava Caradonna via email: xtalk.classes@gmail.com

10:30 – Introduction: Overview of Campaign

12PM – Workshop: The Details of the campaign:
>> Defining the aims & objectives: short/medium/long term
>> Structuring the campaign – for example, do we call for a meeting with Police/Home Secretary/Mayor of London; as xtalk/a committee?
>> Developing key messages and slogans for materials 1PM – Lunch

2PM – Workshop: Building the Campaign

>> Mapping exercise >> who are our allies >> who else do we need to approach

>> who are our existing contacts?

>> are there any meetings/conferences, etc that we should try to get to?

>> What tools can we use : eg. motions in labour branches/union branches,

>> Summary/ next steps: next meeting time; any working groups to set up, e

Category: events & news

Briefing Paper| Sex Work and the Olympics: The Case for a Moratorium

Posted on | March 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

1. x:talk and its supporters are calling for a moratorium on arrests of sex workers in London with immediate effect until the end of the Olympic Games.

2. Governments, charity organisations and campaign groups have argued that large sporting events lead to an increase in trafficking for prostitution. These claims, often repeated by the media, are usually based on misinformation, poor data and a tendency to sensationalise. There is no evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking for prostitution.

3. These claims can lead to anti-trafficking policies and policing practices that target sex workers. In London, anti-trafficking practices have resulted in raids on brothels, closures and arbitrary arrests of people working in the sex industry. This creates a climate of fear among workers, leaving them less likely to report crimes against them and more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. This is an inadequate response to sex work and to trafficking.

4. x:talk is aware of “clean up efforts” already underway in London, particularly east London, in the run up to the Olympics. These include multiple raids and closure of premises. We anticipate that until the end of the Olympic games there will be a continued rise in the numbers of raids, arrests and level of harassment of sex workers.

5. A series of violent robberies on brothels by a gang in December in Barking & Dagenham demonstrates the effect that this climate of fear can have on the safety of sex workers. The effect of raids on brothels and closures in the area had eroded relations between sex workers and the Police with the result that the sex workers targeted by the gang were unwilling to report the attacks for fear of arrest. The gang were able to attack at least three venues in December 2011.

6. In light of this, x:talk and its supporters are calling on the Mayor of London and London Metropolitan Police to suspend arrests and convictions of sex workers under the criminal laws laid out in Appendix 1.

About x:talk

x:talk is a sex worker led co-operative based in London. It runs English language classes that are free to workers from all areas of the sex industry. x:talk approaches language teaching as knowledge sharing between equals and regards the ability to communicate as a fundamental tool for sex workers to work in safer conditions, to organise and to socialise with each other

APPENDIX 1: OFFENCES TO BE INCLUDED UNDER MORATORIUM

Suspension of offences that refer directly to sex workers:

Soliciting (this should include soliciting penalties: rehabilitation orders and Anti-Social Behavioural Orders), s.1 (1) Street Offences Act, s.16, s.17 Policing and Crime Act 2009, s.1 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Keeping a brothel, where the person deemed to be “keeping a brothel” is one or more of the people selling sexual services. Effectively, this means we are calling for a suspension of any arrests of sex workers who work collectively.

Soliciting

S. 1 (1) of the Street Offences Act 1959 makes loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution an offence. Section 16 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 amended s.1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 inserting the requirement that soliciting be “persistent”, defined as occurring twice within a three-month period.

A logical corollary of the suspension of laws relating to persistent soliciting would be the suspension of any new rehabilitation orders, as defined by s.17 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, and Anti-Social Behavioural Orders, as defined by s.1 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, that may follow breach of a rehabilitation order.

Keeping a brothel

S.33A of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, as inserted by s. 55(1) and (2) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, creates an offence of keeping, managing, acting or assisting in the management of a brothel to which people resort for practices involving prostitution (whether or not also for other practices). Prostitution is defined by section 51(2) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as follows: a person (A) who, on at least one occasion and whether or not compelled to do so, offers or provides sexual services to another person in return for payment or a promise of payment to A or a third person.

S.33A therefore covers premises where two or more people provide sexual services at the same time. Where one or more person (who may or may not be offering sexual services) are found to be keeping, managing, acting or assisting in the management of that brothel they will be charged under s.33A. The required level of control over the brothel includes activities varies, but will be satisfied where there is evidence of a person seeing customers onto the premises, handling payments from customers, paying bills, placing advertisements in local papers (R v Alexsander Sochaki (2010) EWCA Crim 2708). However, we draw attention to the recent case of Claire Finch, who was unanimously acquitted of brothel keeping.[5] Finch had accepted that she worked collectively from her own home providing sexual services and gave evidence it would be too dangerous for her to work alone. Finch’s barrister, relying on evidence that there had been numerous serious violent attacks on solitary street sex workers in Bedfordshire in recent years. successfully argued that Finch was entitled to rely on the defence of necessity.

Suspension of arrests of sex workers, administrative detainment and / or removal, during the enforcement of offences relating to third parties:

Sections 52-53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 make it an offence to cause, incite or control a prostitute for gain. Section 54 defines gain as ‘any financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods or services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount, or the goodwill of any person which is or appears likely, in time, to bring financial advantage.’

Causing, inciting, controlling for gain

These offences, particularly s.53 controlling a prostitute for gain, are often the basis of raids and will be accompanied by the arrest of sex workers for immigration offences.

During the enforcement of these offences we are calling for a suspension of all arrests of sex workers, including arrests and deportation procedures for immigration offences.

Suspension of the closure of premises:

S.21 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, which allows the closure of premises for up to three months where the police have reasonable suspicion that prostitution related offences (as defined by ss.52-53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003) are being committed.

Brothel keeping charges make it an offence keep, manage or assist in the management of a brothel and for a landlord or tenant to let or permit their premises for the purposes of prostitution: s.33A-36 Sexual Offences Act 1956. Those keeping a brothel, landlords and tenants might be informed that if the behaviour does not desist, and the premises close, they will be liable for prosecution.

Closure Notices and Orders

A Freedom of Information request issued by x:talk to the MET has revealed that in four of the five London Olympic boroughs only one closure order and notice has been applied for pursuant to s.21 of the Policing and Crime Act. However, the FOI states that “this response does not mean that no premises were closed, instead it confirms that no premises were closed in these four boroughs as a result of a notice issued under Section 21, Schedule 2 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 … premises usually respond to requests from Police to close and often other legitimate means of closing them are adopted, such as consultation with the landlord & follow through action resulting from that. Barriers to use of closure notices include civil court fees and consultation process.”

We therefore call for a suspension of police efforts to serve notices and close premises where they suspect prostitution offences are being carried out, whether in the pursuance of a closure order / notice under s.21 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, ss.33A-36 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, or any other legal measure.However, it is important to note that our call for suspension does not apply to premises where child related prostitution or pornography offences are suspected (ss.47-50 Sexual Offences Act 2003). Our call relates solely to premises where prostitution offences under s.52-53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 are suspected.

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), (2011) What’s the Cost of a Rumour? A Guide to Sorting Out the Myths and Facts about Sporting Events and Trafficking. www.gaatw.org/publications/What’s_the_Cost_of_a_Rumour-GAATW2011.pdf

x:talk (2010), Human rights, Sex Work and the Challenge of Trafficking

Owen Bowcott, “Call for change in law to protect prostitutes from violent crime”, Guardian6/01/12,www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/16/change-law-prostitutes-crime-violent

Crown Prosecution Service guidance for enforcement of s.53: “In investigating cases of controlling prostitution, the police may raid and disrupt brothels where local police policy previously had been one of toleration of off street prostitution.” www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prostitution_and_exploitation_of_prostitution/

Ibid 3, Owen Bancroft, Guardian 6/01/12

Quote from Metropolitan Police: “a notice has been served to the registered owner of the venue in Victoria Road under the auspices of section 33a of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. The notice formally notified the recipient that they were liable to prosecution should the premises in Victoria Road remain in use as a brothel.”

Category: analysis
Tags: law > London > Olympics > sex work > trafficking

Review: Siddharth Kara. Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

Posted on | February 19, 2012 | 1 Comment

Siddharth Kara. Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

Reviewed by Laura Agustín (The Naked Anthropologist)
Published on H-LatAm 14 February 2012

A Man of Moral Sentiments

Siddharth Kara’s Sex Trafficking is not a scholarly book. Neither based on methodological research nor reflecting knowledge of literature that could give context to the author’s experience, this reads like the diary of a poverty tourist or the bildungsroman of an unsophisticated man of moral sentiments demonstrating his pain at unfathomable injustices. This places Kara in the tradition of colonial writers who believed that they were called to testify to the suffering of those not lucky enough to be born into comfortable Western society.

Scholarship is virtually absent from his works cited, whether on migration, trafficking, slavery, feminism, sexualities, criminology, gender, informal-sector labor, or the sex industry and prostitution. Apparently unaware of over ten years of difficult debates, hundreds of scholarly articles, and investigative journalism, Kara is an MBA on a mission, using statistical sleight of hand to solve the problem of slavery. Because the book is touted by campaigners as presenting hard data and incisive analysis, H-Net requested this review.

A travelogue in six chapters is bracketed by arguments both high-minded and businesslike. Kara mentions his moral awakening while volunteering at a refugee camp, his business career, and his sporadic travels since 2000,
interviewing 150 “victims” (term unexplained) and a variety of other people located by what he calls “word of mouth.” Because many people did not trust him, he could not enter most businesses and found it easier to interview victims in shelters. Chapter headings are regional, but my guess is his stays in most regions were brief (scholars in the field will recognize his contacts as predictable), with India a seeming exception. Kara does not acknowledge these inevitable biases given his lack of method.

Category: analysis
Tags: research > slavery > trafficking

Activist Briefing: Trafficking and the Olympics

Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

When: 10:30 AM THURSDAY 26 JANUARY

Where: Centre for Possible Studies (nearest tube: marble Arch)

Contact: Xanthe Whittaker – 07901 335 613

Email: xanthew@gmail.com

Overview: Global Alliance Against Traffick of Women (GAATW) have produced a fantastic report, What is the Cost of a Rumour, that debunks the myth that large sporting events generate an increase in trafficking. In London, in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, we know that this logic has affected sex workers and their workplaces – we have seen raids and brothel closures as a result of this perceived threat and that is likely to continue and increase in the lead-up to the Olympics.

As sex worker rights activists/migrants rights activists/feminists we need to know the facts so we can the myths and have the confidence to argue against these ideas that lead to policies and practices that make our working lives harder and will leave a legacy that seeks to justify practices like raids, closures and rehabilitation orders.

Presenter: Julie Ham (GAATW) – Julie coordinated this research examining the impact of ‘demand’-based discourses on the rights of sex workers. She is based in Canada and has worked for GAATW since 2007. She holds a Masters degree in social work, and Bachelor degrees in psychology and social work, with an emphasis on anti-oppressive practice. She has worked with community-based research projects and community-based organisations in Canada working with and for women in sex work, immigrant and refugee populations, women substance users, low-income populations, and anti-violence organisations.

Admission: ALL WELCOME

More information: What’s the Cost of a Rumour report

>>>PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY<<<

Category: analysis, events & news

Symposium: ‘Deviant’ Policy Paradigm: Sex as Work; Entertainment and Leisure

Posted on | January 17, 2012 | No Comments

12.30 – 16.00 Wednesday 8th February 2012
Venue: Room 248, Grove Building, Swansea University

Learn about the findings from an ESRC funded project on lap dancing

- Initial findings April 2011 and Visual Summary Findings

- Dancers Talk about Working Conditions

- Special Reports from Leeds Social Science Institute

Chair: Dr Tracey Sagar

Confirmed contributors:

Dr Teela Sanders, Leeds University
Rosie Campbell, Leeds University
Debbie Jones, Swansea University
Dr Nick Mai, London Metropolitan University
Louise Clark, Gibran UK
Emma Harris, Gibran UK
Nicola Evans, Cardiff and Vale UHB Service Planning

The symposium is free, and supported by the Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology and the School of Law in association with the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice

To book a place please phone 01792 602037 or e-mail t.l.m.sanders@leeds.ac.uk

Category: events & news, Uncategorized

LSHTM: The Olympics and Trafficking: Myths and Evidence

Posted on | January 17, 2012 | No Comments

Date: Wednesday 25 January 2012
Time: 5:45 pm
Venue: John Snow, LSHTM, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK
Type of event: Presentation
Speaker(s): Julie Ham, GAATW, Marlise Richter, International Centre for Reproductive Health, Ghent University, Joanna Busza, LSHTM
Chair(s): tbc

Abstract: In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games, concerns have been raised about the possibility of an increase in trafficking for sexual exploitation linked to the event. Similar rumours were circulated prior to other international sporting events, including the World Cup in Germany and South Africa, the Olympics in Athens and Vancouver, and the US Super Bowl. Yet once the fans go home, the media loses interest, and little is heard about the consistent lack of evidence for any rise in sex trafficking. Recent research demonstrates that anti-trafficking measures put into place in a range of countries have proved irrelevant, or harmful in cases where sex workers become increasingly criminalised and unable to access health and social programmes. As the 2012 Olympics come to London, this seminar will review the international evidence on trafficking, sex work and sports events, consider public health implications, and ask to what extent police and local authorities here in the UK are basing their policies on evidence.

Discussion Panel: Nivedita Prasad, Ban Ying Counseling and Coordination Center against Trafficking, Berlin Catherine Stephens, International Union of Sex Workers, London Georgina Perry, Open Doors, NHS Service for Newham, Hackney & Tower Hamlets

Refreshments will be made available at the end of the presentation.

Admission: Free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

Contact: Joanna Busza
Email: Joanna.Busza@lshtm.ac.uk
More information: www.gaatw.org/publications/WhatstheCostofaRumour.11.15.2011.pdf

www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/events/2012/01/the-olympics-and-trafficking-myths-and-evidence

Category: analysis, events & news

Protected: Teaching and Organising Board

Posted on | January 16, 2012 | Enter your password to view comments.

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Category: events & news
Tags: collective > organising

ESRC Festival of Social Sciences: Migrants in the Sex Industry

Posted on | December 6, 2011 | No Comments

x:talk was invited to present our research, Human Rights, Sex Work and the Challenge of Trafficking