Prostitution
Prostitution Inevitable?
The ‘oldest oppression’ is often described as inevitable and unstoppable, so the best we can do is ‘manage’ it. But the reason for its very existence – men’s demand – can actually easily be eradicated, essentially over night:
The Cost of the Sex Trade
‘The sex trade is costing us a fortune’ Claire, formerly in prostitution. It costs us a fortune in terms of both the human cost and financial cost to the state. This compares starkly to the cost of shutting it down:
Abuse prior to entry
50% were homeless
45% sexually abused as children
Abuse in the sex trade
20-40% globally of those selling sex started as adolescents
up to 50% of women in prostitution started when under 18
95% of women in street prostitution are Class A drug users
70% have PTSD on a par with a torture victim
Women in prostitution with children likely to be separated from them
Mortality rate up to 12 times higher than average
Women in prostitution up to 18 times more likely to be murdered
‘Women in prostitution 10 times more likely to be murdered than a soldier’
90% of women want to escape prostitution across the globe
The Financial Cost of the Sex Trade
Cost to Women in the Industry: Long term negative impact on earnings over a lifetime (p20)
France – Prostitution costs the state €1.3 billion/year
UK – Prostitution costs the State £2 billion/year (p20)
Leeds – Prostitution ‘zone’ costs £200,000/year (p24)
Leeds – Campaigners estimate the zones costs more than £400,000/year
The Cost of Ending Prostitution
Ending the sex trade – getting women out and eliminating demand, is hugely cost effective. It is infinitely cheaper than enabling prostitution. The above infographic still probably doesn’t cover the full cost of prostitution (the organised crime, county lines, drugs, corruption of democracy etc).
Ipswich -Eradicating Street Prostitution: £7,000 per woman per year
France €2.35 million seized within 4 years from pimps, reallocated to victims
UK – APPG Prostitution 2:1 Return on Investment in exit support & ending demand
The Wider Impact
Prostitution isn’t just about those in prostitution – it affects us all:
Sex buyers more likely to rape women (prostituted or otherwise)
Sex buyers have increased criminal/violence tendencies against women
Acceptance of prostitution correlates to assessment of sexual harassment
How to Deal with Prostitution
The sex trade lobby claim the best way to manage the industry and reduce any harm is to legitimise pimps as business men. Those who have escaped the industry and their advocates state pimps and punters must be criminalised whilst all those selling sex are supported out. Here we look at the two different approaches:
Legitimising Pimps
The sex trade lobby states prostitution ‘is just work’, ‘stigma kills’ and any harm can be made minimal through regulation. It calls not just for those who sell sex to be decriminalised but for pimps and punters too. This either takes the form of ‘full decriminalisation’ or ‘legalisation’. See if you can spot the difference in this report! Either way, the following are the (entirely predictable) consequences:
Globally
Evidence across the globe shows that legitimising the sex trade makes it more harmful, not less, with increases in abuse, trafficking, child rape prostitution & much more:
Legalising prostitution increases trafficking
Study across 150 countries
Legitimising prostitution increases trafficking
EU report
Why legalising increases abuse
Economic theory and the sex trade
Sex Trafficking harder to prevent when prostitution legitimised
Myths of Prostitution (interviews with survivors)
Country-by-Country
Australia
Some states have ‘legalised’, some ‘decriminalised’ prostitution
Overview: How legitimising the sex trade has failed
Book: ‘Making Sex Work’ in Australia
Simone Watson (survivor/campaigner) explains the harms of the Australian system
Germany
Prostitution Legalised (pimps/punters decriminalised, state makes money from it).
Previously Decriminalised (pimps/punters decriminalised, state made no money from it) :
Deaths with 1/2 million in state brothels
Yearly murders/Attempted murders
Review of Murders of Women in Prostitution
The truth about Germany’s Mega Brothel
Germany – a key destination for traffickers
Germany – Exploitation and Trafficking
German sex trade – an overview
90% of the prostituted are migrant women
Holland
Prostitution legalised
Brothels ‘A failed social experiment’: Mayor of Amsterdam
Holland to criminalise men who buy trafficked women
Holland moves to end sex trade entirely
Ipswich pre 2006
Penalise the prostituted/legitimise the industry
Both approaches tried. 5 women murdered by serial killer
Leeds
Prostitution allowed in a ‘managed zone’, in Holbeck
Holbeck: A case study of hell
Women selling sex criminalised, not punters
Leeds shuts the ‘Managed Zone’ after 6 years of failure [2021]
Nevada
Prostitution Legalised
A hub for sex trafficking & murder
New Zealand
Prostitution ‘fully decriminalised’ (ie pimps & punters decriminalised, not just those who sell sex, with little state control)
A destination for trafficking & child rape prostitution
Indigenous women and children the target for traffickers
How Law has increased harm for the prostituted
Analysis of Child sex trafficking in New Zealand
Survivor speaks out against decriminalising pimps
Prime Minister ‘Law hasn’t worked’ [2012]
Switzerland
Prostitution legalised 80 years ago, this includes ‘drive thru’ brothels
The Brutal Reality of 80 years of legalisation
UK
Although pimping, brothel keeping and kerb crawling are illegal, this is essentially ignored with brothels, ‘saunas’, ‘massage parlous’ and escort agencies openly operating UK-wide. Lap dancing (an entry point to prostitution) is fully legitimised as is ‘sugaring’, webcamming and other branches of the industry:
UK – a ‘trafficking hub’ for Romanian women
Most women in lap dancing then sell sex (Home Office, 2019 p27)
Exit & Prevent
Many human rights advocates understand prostitution as inherently and overwhelmingly harmful. So they advocate for ending the demand for prostitution (surprisingly easily achieved), criminalising pimps and supporting all who sell sex out (at least 90% of women selling sex would leave immediately if they could). This is the ‘Nordic Model’. When properly implemented, this has been hugely successful:
The ‘Johns’
Apparently it’s not pimps or punters that kill, drive women to suicide or lead to dissociation & PTSD. No, it’s stigma. Apparently decriminalising pimps and punters ends stigma. But sex buyers in countries that have done this have appalling attitudes towards the women they buy. Legitimising the sex trade does just that – legitimises the sex trade, ie the pimps, the punters, the traffickers & their attitudes, not the women who are bought and sold
Sex Buyers during Covid
Sex Trade Advocates
Shockingly, ‘sex worker unions’, human rights groups, academics, funders and even ‘sex work’ outreach groups, anti-trafficking NGOs and ‘Marxists’ are falling over themselves to support the sex trade:
‘Sex Worker Unions’ – full of Pimps
Intenational ‘Sex Worker’ Union (NSWP): Led by Pimp and convicted Sex Trafficker
NSWP Mexico: Chairwoman jailed for sex trafficking
‘Sex Worker’ Unions: Full of pimps, not the prostituted
Australia: ‘Erotic Services Provider Union’: Led by a convicted pimp
France: ‘Sex Workers’ group (STRASS): ‘a handful of members’
Germany: Sex Worker Union (BesD): Represents 0.01% of those who sell sex
Holland: ‘Sex Worker’ Group (Red Thread): Led by academics who minimise harm
Spain: ‘Sex Worker’ Group (Ambit Dona): None of it members had been in prostitution
UK International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW): Run by a pimp
‘Sex Workers’ in other Unions?
Not only are those selling sex not represented by ‘sex worker unions’, they do not join mainstream unions either. That is because joining a union makes it even harder to do the one think they really want – get out
Germany: Trade Union: Membership opened to prostituted – a handful joined
Germany: 1 million in prostitution, 1% registered with Trade Unions
Spain: Existing Trade Union: Membership opened to prostituted – not one joined
Survivor, Hushke Mau: ‘Join a Union & it is impossible to get out of this ‘job”
‘Sex Worker Unions’ – Advocate for Pimps
International [NSWP]: Claims their sex trafficker leader is ‘human rights defender’
Sex Worker’ Unions: Murders ignored in places where pimps decriminalised
Sex Worker’ Unions: Uses domestic violence murder to claim ‘stigma kills’
‘Sex Worker’ groups: No support for wiping criminal records for the prostituted
German: Sex Worker support group (SUBWAY): ‘Goal is not to get people out of prostitution’
India: ‘Sex Worker’ NGO (SANGRAM): Cut off from US funding for enabling pimps
New Zealand: (NZPC): Lies & misinformation given to those who sell sex
Survivor speaks out against ‘Sex Worker Unions’
Other Unions
The ‘Sex Worker Unions’ (run by and for pimps) have been busy advocating other unions to support them (ie pimps) and to themselves then lobby for pimps to be decriminalised. Clever, eh?
UK: Junior Doctors: Policy is to lobby BMA to support decriminalising pimps
UK: Nurses Union: Now advocates for decriminalising pimps
UK: GMB, ASLEF, TUC Union: Tactics used by the pimp lobby to ‘woo’ Trade Unions
‘Human Rights’ Advocates
The 2021 list of NGOs and individuals taken in by the pimp lobby
UN Aids/UN Women: Adopts policies of known pimp and (since jailed) sex trafficker
UN: Calls for decriminalising pimps & punters
WHO: ‘decriminalise pimps & punters to reduce spread of HIV’
#MeToo and #TimesUp: ‘Survivor’s Agenda’ views pimps as business men
Amnesty International: Policies dictated by UK’s largest pimp
Global Fund for Women: pro prostitution*
CARE International: appears to endorse prostitution*
Human Rights Watch: wants to decriminalise pimps*
Open Society Initiative: Staunchly pro-decriminalising pimps*
*from Julie Bindel’s ‘The Pimping of Prostitution’ Chap 7
Political Institutions
EU: European Commission – States can add prostitution ‘revenue’ to GDP
Holland: Government founded & funds ‘Red Thread’, a pro pimp NGO
UK: Governments and others: In Denial
UK: Government: Chair of enquiry into prostitution is a sex buyer
UK: Move to introduce Nordic Model defeated after intense lobby by pimp lobby
UK: Lib Dems Party Policy Pro-pimp/porn/sex trafficking & Anti-age verification
UK: Scottish Lib Dems: Vote (in 2019) by 2:1 to continue pimp decriminalisation policy
UK: Green Party Policy: Pro porn/prostitution
UK: Caroline Lucas Green Party Leader: Until 2016, against decriminalising pimps
USA: Green Party: Pimps/punters criminalised & prostituted supported out
Germany: Green party: Wants prostitution available ‘on prescription’
Politics – from the Left to the Liberals
The founding philosophies of the Left (Marx) and Liberals (John Stuart Mill) are fundamentally opposed to prostitution, yet today’s Left (socialists, anti capitalists, anarchists, Marxists) and Liberals avidly support ‘the oldest oppression’:
Trafficking rises exponential after collapse in Socialism
Survivors’ open letter to the Left’s love of ‘sex work’
Anti-capitalist but not when it comes to pimps
Prostitution – where anarchists went wrong
Prostitution replacing Welfare?
Pimp lobby – same tactics as Slave Trade
Bank Rollers
George Soros: ‘Bankrolling’ the pimp lobby *
Bill & Melinda Gates:eg $1 million to Indian ‘sex worker union’ *
New Zealand State: Funds pro pimp ‘Prostitute Collective’
56 NGOS have funded £8million to pro prostitution projects. Top funders*:
-Ford Foundation: giving, on average, grants of £100,000
-American Jewish World Service: providing £1/2million per year
-Mama Cash
-Open Society Initiative
Child ‘Sex Workers’
The sex trade lobby has done such a good job that not only does it define children who are raped by men for money as ‘sex workers’, but so do those it has lobbied.
‘Sex Worker’ Unions: Advocate for child ‘sex work’
Unicef: Uses term ‘child sex worker’
UN Advisor: Advocates for teen prostitution
Europe: ‘Sex Worker’ network (TAMPEP): Calls pimped teenagers ‘sex workers’
German: Sex Worker support group (SUBWAY): Underage boys are ‘sex workers’ who ‘turn tricks’
New Zealand Prostitute Collective (NZPC): Prostituted children are ‘workers’ ‘selling a service’
New Zealand Govt: Children are ‘sex workers’, minimal penalties for their buyers
New Zealand Govt: Thinks glamourisation of prostitution does not encourage girls to enter it
UK: Lib Dems: Policy until 2017 was to allow 16 years olds to make porn, still opposes any porn age restrictions
The Sex Trade & Covid
Clearly selling sex puts you at high risk of Covid (and multiple other risks). Where the sex trade has been legitimised, it is those still desperately selling sex who are criminalised for ‘rule breaking’. Meanwhile, ‘Sex Worker Unions’ have led the call for the industry to re-open, even during the midst of the pandemic, instead of demanding women are helped out of a totally unviable industry:
Pornogander
The sex trade lobby misrepresents the industry, stifle those who oppose it (especially survivors) whilst promoting the industry’s agenda. The mass media (and social media) then acts as little more than its mouth piece. Survivors invariably testify that media normalising and glamorisation of the sex trade plays a significant role in the ‘choice’ to enter it:
What Sex as Work means
Germany: Woman sued for not giving punter orgasm
Germany: Green party wants prostitution available ‘on prescription’
Australia/Denmark: Men can access prostitution on the public health system
Towns cannot say no to a brothel in countries that legitimise prostitution
The Myth of Unionisation
Porn/Sex Trade pornogander in schools
Lib Dem suggests ‘sex work’ at school career days
Leicester University ‘promotes’ prostitution to its students
Forms of Prostitution
There might be many different forms of ‘selling sex’ but the entire industry plays by the same rule book & the harm done to those who sell and to the rest of society is the same:
Indoor Prostitution
No safer than street prostitution
Webcamming
Myths & Harms of online Sex ‘Work’
Online Fans – an experiment in online grooming
‘High Class’ Escorts
It’s often stated that ‘high class’ escorts can make a fortune with little risk. Really? (don’t forget, the men who buy them will be particularly entitled ‘Harvey Weinsteins’)
‘Sugaring’
Home Office Report: Sex is almost always part of the exchange P10
‘Rooms for Sex’
UK – men take full advantage of the pandemic