P4P News

As miserable Norway rings in the new year it will introduce a nasty new law making the purchase  of sex a criminal act, threatening even to put Norwegians who buy sex abroad behind bars.

We think buying sex is unacceptable because it favours human trafficking and forced prostitution, man hating Deputy Justice Minister Astri Aas-Hansen told AFP.

Prostitute support organisations estimate the country of just 4.6 million people has about 3,000 sex workers.

The new law is modelled on similar legislation in Sweden but Norway will go even further than its Scandinavian neighbour however, making it illegal for Norwegian citizens and residents to purchase sexual favours even abroad, although Aas-Hansen insists catching johns in foreign countries is not a priority for Norwegian police.

Prostitutes' customers could be slapped with fines proportionate to their revenues, be sentenced to up to six months in prison, or both.

Bjoerg Norli of the Pro prostitute support centre says The women are waiting to see what will happen. They have not decided yet whether they will leave or stop selling sex or continue and establish indoors, she told AFP.

When the centre-left coalition government said in July 2007 that it was planning to draft the law, it drew protests from support groups like Pro who claimed it would make sex workers more reliant on pimps to get customers and would force them to work in more secluded places, making them more vulnerable to rape and attack by clients.

Russia

This year Humanitarian Action decided to hold our actions on the streets, in St. Petersburg, Irkutsk and Chelyabinsk...one of the leading Moscow newspaper published an article on the protection of the rights of sex workers!

Amsterdam, Netherlands

A small quiet street action in the red light area of Amsterdam. 200 printed tags with if you are here to look, then do it with respect were attached to bridges, fences, and bicycles in the area. Flowers were laid at the statue of Belle in honour of strong, sexy, smart sex workers everywhere.

Skopje, Macedonia

Yesterday we had one successful campaign. We started with street action with symbolically opening red umbrellas at the open area where Sex Workers joined us. We are very happy because this year, there were much more people than last year. Most of the people were SW. One hour after that we had exhibition, with video projection and promotion of the song "Sex workers Army" which we accepted as the hymn of Sex Workers.

Vienna, Austria

Austrian press publishes a press release from Sophie - support organisation for sex workers - outlining the importance of 17 December and the need for recognising rights for sex workers.

Also coverage that Scarlet Aliance organised a public event to draw attention to the issue of violence against sex workers.

USA

In San Francisco: Hall of Justice, there was a 5pm vigil, procession + memorial

Sex Workers marched in Washington which made the Washington Post

Italy

The Italian Government have been asked to create a Parliamentary Forum for sex workers in the country to discuss and approve their Charter of Rights.

Member of European Parliament Vittorio Agnoletto made the call while addressing the national demonstration of Sex workers in Italy who came together in Rome on 13th December to protest against the proposed bill outlawing street prostitution in the country. The so-called Carfagna Bill was prepared by Ms. Mara Carfagna, the Minister for Equal Opportunities.

Labour's Take on Britain

Police estimate that they will close up to 1,200 brothels and prosecute 300 men a year under new laws designed to crack down on prostitution. The figures are contained in official Home Office impact assessments produced to accompany the Policing and Crime Reduction Bill, due to be debated by MPs in the new year.

The Bill allows officers to close brothels and leave them sealed for up to three months. Previously, a 'loophole' meant officers could stage a raid and make arrests but were powerless to close down the establishment.

Estimates published yesterday suggested that between 780 and 1,200 closure orders would be served each year.

Critics say the policy will drive prostitution further underground and leave women more vulnerable to abuse.

Dear Mr Healey,

What we now seem to have in our country, is HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE and COLLECTIVE TYRANNY from this Labour government. I refer to the proposed law relating to prostitution in the forthcoming Policing and Crime Bill Section 13.

This government seems NOW to be LITTLE BETTER than the tyrants and despots around the world in my humble opinion. I hope they still have the decency to subject themselves to the ballot box and do that as soon as possible too, so we voters can get them OUT whilst we still have democracy, or some semblance of it, given the laws which are now being imposed regardless of public opinion. Considering all this I cannot help but wonder just exactly how far they would go in the future. I note that Mr Straw is currently trying to dilute what pathetic human rights law we already have; he talks now of responsibilities and loyalty. Well let me tell you Mr. Healey, I feel NO particular obligation to be loyal to a country and/or its government whilst they continue to impose these kind of laws on its people, nor would I blame anyone else for such a position. This IS NOT the country I was born a citizen of. New Labour have seen to that with their repressive unfair laws and their cameras all over the place, and their constant observation of everyone everywhere they go, making us all the MOST WATCHED people IN THE WORLD with ONE CAMERA for every TWELVE people. Not to mention the powers the councils up and down the country have been given to use and ABUSE.

But this AWFUL law as proposed below is UNFAIR and UNWANTED by the public; perhaps this law is possibly even ILLEGAL too. It certainly isn't JUSTICE is it Mr Healey ? I hope the first to be caught by it are Labour politicians who might well think they are ABOVE it all. How can it be fair and just to prosecute someone if they acted in good faith ? IE they have no reason whatsoever to believe that someone is being controlled ? The person should at least HAVE TO be shown to KNOW about it. If they KNEW about it, and still used the services of someone forced into this, then the issue is a completely different one. Completely.

How too, can the government tell people what they can and cannot do elsewhere in the world, when they are subject to the laws of another country ? Which laws should they obey then ? If, (or more likely WHEN) I move to Spain, is the UK government still able to tell me what I can do whilst I am there ? Or is it the Spanish government who have that right ?

What is the definition of "controlled" and "gain" anyway ?

As said I don't use such services myself. However there may come a time when I might want to, for whatever reason and its irrelevant if I do or not anyway. This NASTY law should never be allowed to be imposed on a free people. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOW GOING TOO FAR MR HEALEY.

Just legalise it and licence it. That's what the MAJORITY actually want to happen. Democracy anyone ? Of of course New Nanny knows best doesn't it Mr Healey ?

The people who SHOULD BE IN JAIL in my opinion are those who want to impose this on us. You Mr Healey may think such an opinion to be a bit extreme, however it is only like this law, along with the one to be imposed in January which prohibits a new class of visual images from possession. I have tried, in my complaints to be as respectful as possible. But believe me Mr. Healey, it is getting more and more difficult; nowadays I have to choose my words very carefully.

Shame on our repressive narrow minded, prudish controlling Labour government of TYRANNY Mr Healey. It seems completely obsessed with people's sexuality and wants to make criminals out of just about everyone unless they fit into New Nanny's straight jacket. I guess the religion of top politicians and others in authority has a lot to do with this. Well it SHOULDN'T.

PLEASE CALL AN ELECTION RIGHT AWAY. Let the people decide if they want MORE of this repression. I don't suppose the government will though. I bet they hang on right to the end.

I now hope they NEVER get elected again. I'd sooner have had the Conservatives in power for EVER, than to have experienced some of the stunts this government have pulled.

Just to think I voted Labour last time. Shame on me for that too.

A former prostitute told how it had become too dangerous to work Edinburgh's streets as new figures showed an increasing number of attacks on the city's sex workers.

The 39-year-old said she had quit after being held at knife point and sexually assaulted, and blamed new kerb-crawling laws for increasing violence.

Ten prostitutes were raped in Edinburgh between January and September this year, more than double the number of rapes reported in 2006 – the year before the new legislation was introduced.

Figures released by support charity Scot-Pep to coincide with the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers revealed the number of reported attacks on prostitutes almost doubled between 2006 and 2007, from 66 to 126, while there were 92 attacks in the first nine months of this year alone.

Ruth Morgan Thomas, project manager for the charity, said there was not a night goes by where support workers in Leith did not hear of an attack taking place: There has been a dramatic increase in attacks since the kerb-crawling legislation came into force.

The legislation has, to a certain extent, been successful in that some men have chosen not to seek to purchase sex in public places.

However, we have not invested significantly in the alternatives and what we are left with now is women who have to work longer hours and take more risks.

The reality is that men who are not put off by the thought of having a conviction for seeking to purchase sex are more likely to be those men who are prepared to rape or assault women.

The relevant section about paid for sex from the recently published Policing and Crime bill:

Section 13: Paying for sexual services of a controlled prostitute: England and Wales

After section 53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 insert

53A Paying for sexual services of a prostitute controlled for gain

(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—

(a) A makes or promises payment for the sexual services of a prostitute (B), and

(b) any of B's activities relating to the provision of those services are intentionally controlled for gain by a third person (C).

(2) The following are irrelevant—

(a) where in the world the sexual services are to be provided and whether those services are provided,

(b)  whether A is, or ought to be, aware that any of B's activities are controlled for gain.

(3) An activity is “controlled for gain” by C if it is controlled by C for or in the expectation of gain for C or another person (apart from A or B).

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.”

UK courts are being prepared to handle Jacqui's Smith's version of justice

The Policing and Crime bill was published yesterday.

The legislation will require sex workers who are repeatedly caught soliciting to attend compulsory rehabilitation classes, but will remove the "stigmatising" term common prostitute 184 years after it was put on the statute book by the Vagrancy Act 1824.

The Home Office minister Vernon Coaker acknowledged that the bill's most controversial proposal, to criminalise men who pay for sex with exploited women, will prove legally fraught and will require the courts to clarify it.

The main source of contention is the new power to criminalise men who buy sex from women who have been trafficked or otherwise exploited. The wording of the bill introduces a strict liability test, under which a person who pays for the sexual services of a prostitute controlled for gain by a third person is liable for prosecution. It says it will be irrelevant where in the world the sexual service is to be provided, or whether the man is aware that the woman is being controlled for gain.

The police have already warned this will be difficult to enforce, but Coaker said yesterday that it would be for the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to thrash out exactly how the law will work.

The Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth has questioned the potential effectiveness of Government proposals to tighten the law on prostitution.

Under planned changes, people who pay for sex where the person who is paid is controlled for gain would be committing a criminal offence.

Bishop Kenneth Stevenson said in the House of Lords: Like many measures in the field of prostitution, this is a worthy intention but one that gives rise to problems of enforcement.

I do not accept the argument that it is wrong in principle to penalise in law payment for sex, but I wonder whether the law can discriminate between tolerable and intolerable transactions as finely as this proposal suggests.

Can it be proved either that the person paid is being controlled or that the client has knowingly or culpably taken advantage of a victim of trafficking?

It is reported that a similar law in Finland has been singularly ineffective, and many are pressing for the adoption of the Swedish law that applies to all payments regardless of the circumstances.

For 20 years police and other agencies agreed to turn an official blind eye to sex being sold on the street in one small part of Leith in Edinburgh, with few complaints from anyone, except for a minority who opposed on moral grounds.

The decision in 2001 to end that – in the face of opposition from new residents moving into a regenerated old red light area – has been followed by legislation. New laws prohibiting kerb crawling were introduced last year, in an effort to drive the sex trade out of residential areas.

The combined effect, though, has been far from beneficial to anyone.

Complaints about prostitutes plying their trade near homes in Leith are shooting up again. Police appealed to residents last week to look out for drivers trawling for prostitutes.

The streets are also far more dangerous for the sex workers themselves, with reports of attacks almost doubling to 126 last year, compared to the previous 12 months, including 55 assaults and 17 rapes or sexual assaults.

The new vice laws, introduced last October, have outlawed kerb crawling, making it an offence to "loiter" in a vehicle, in a bid to target the men trawling the streets for sex.

This has led to more than 30 arrests, with the number falling sharply after an initial drive in the first ten weeks. Police have also charged 19 women with soliciting offences in Leith.

But that has not been enough to stop complaints about kerb crawlers rising dramatically. It is clear that criminalising prostitutes, or those who frequent them, is not halting the trade.

As well as returning to Leith in larger numbers in recent months, the street workers have been plying their trade in new areas, including Craigentinny and Castle Terrace.

Ruth Morgan Thomas, project manager with the prostitutes support group Scot-Pep, says that, ideally, street prostitutes prefer to work in places that are well lit, covered by CCTV and away from residential areas.

But now some women are resorting to handing out mobile numbers to potential clients in order to set up illicit meetings, leaving them vulnerable as they meet men in more isolated spots.

Ms Morgan Thomas believes that bringing back the tolerance zone is the best solution: A managed area creates a safer environment where women can work together and protect one another. A managed area for prostitutes would improve personal safety, she says, as well as enable the establishment of a drop-in service to help women access medical, education and employment services.

MSP Margo MacDonald backs the idea of bringing back a managed zone for prostitutes within Edinburgh.

She says: The idea is that street prostitution is managed for both prostitutes and the wider community. We have had one before. Every so often there would be a bit of a wrinkle or problem that needed to be smoothed out, but it looked out for the safety and wellbeing of people affected by the sex trade. It was proven that this could work. There were complaints, but those could be overcome.

Despite the potential difficulties in agreeing a suitable area, probably on an industrial estate away from homes, the independent Lothians MSP believes re-establishing a tolerance zone is the only sensible answer: I would like to see a duty of care exercised towards prostitutes. I would like to see the general public not being alarmed or offended by people trying to sell sex .

UK courts are being prepared to handle Jacqui's Smith's version of justice

New laws on prostitution could be unenforceable warn Commander Allan Gibson of the Metropolitan Police.

In a major setback for the Government's plans, Commander Allan Gibson, of the Metropolitan Police's Human Trafficking Unit, questioned how effective such a crack down could be.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced last month that men would be committing a crime if they paid for sex with a woman who has been trafficked into the UK or is working for a pimp, even if they did not know she had been forced into prostitution.

The measure was criticised by prostitutes, who argued it will force the trade even deeper underground.

In evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Gibson said: Speaking personally, I think that is going to be very difficult to enforce. Gibson told the committee that it was very difficult even for police to estimate the numbers of women trafficked into the UK for prostitution or precisely which ones were working against their will.

Over the past two years, his unit has dealt with 54 cases, and had a further 157 cases referred to it by other branches of the Met, he said.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz told minister for women Harriet Harman: (Commander Gibson) says it is very difficult to enforce a situation where a man is expected to ask a prostitute whether or not she has been trafficked and even if he gets a negative answer he is still to be prosecuted. The police themselves... feel that the new proposals are unenforceable.

But Ms Hateman said: We have to address the demand side because this trade wouldn't be happening if men weren't buying sex...The men who are handing over the money that makes these women vulnerable have got to be made answerable for what they are doing to create this trade."

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said later: Yet again, the Home Secretary's rhetoric is defied by reality. The Government wants to rush through new criminal laws without any consideration as to whether they will work. In the meantime, it neglects the basics of law enforcement - funding for the Met's human trafficking unit has been slashed, whilst the conviction rate for trafficking for sexual exploitation has plummeted. [Because it is mostly mythical and has been massively exaggerated as propaganda for the government's man hating policies]

Banks join benefit cheats, lap-dancing clubs and drinkers at the top of a list of targets for legislative action to be unveiled today.

Gordon Brown has made unfairness to men the theme of the second Queen's Speech of his premiership.

Companies will be free to discriminate in favour of women and black job candidates under a proposed Inequality Bill. The move allows employers to give preferential treatment as long as applicants are equally qualified. It is designed to boost the proportion of female and ethnic staff, as well as thrusting more of them into senior posts.

Measures to toughen laws against benefit fraud, ban alcohol promotions and reclassify lap-dancing clubs as sex encounter establishments were trailed yesterday.

Plans by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, for a new Bill of Rights have been shelved.

The Prime Minister said in a document previewing the Queen's Speech yesterday. So as Government takes action, we expect people to play their part in return, with clear consequences for those who do not.

The speech will also announce a Crime Bill changing prostitution and drink laws. There will be proposals to criminalise men who pay for sex with trafficked women. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has made clear the bill would include a strict liability offence of paying for sex with a trafficked or pimped woman which means that ignorance will be no defence for those accused. The Conservatives have already indicated they are likely to oppose this, making tackling prostitution one of the more unlikely flashpoints in politics over the coming months. [Saying that I didn't notice the Paying for sex provision in any of the Home Office press releases accompanying the Queen's Speech.]

Pbr on the Melon Farmer's forum notes the absence of a Bill to prohibit non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse ... perhaps the first bit of good news in government policy for quite a while now.

Norway's Parliament voted for changes in the legislation on prostitution, in effect criminalizing the purchase of sexual activity or a sexual act, the Ministry of Injustice and Police have announced.

Under the revised General Civil Penal Code 202a unanimously approved in November, any person (who) engages in or aids and abets another person to engage in sexual activity or commit a sexual act on making or agreeing payment shall be liable to fines or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.

At the same time, any person (who) engages in sexual activity or a sexual act on such payment being agreed or made by another person, or in the manner previously described causes someone to carry out with herself or himself acts corresponding to sexual activity is also meted the same penalty.

If the sexual activity or sexual act is carried out in a particularly offensive manner and no penalty may be imposed pursuant to other provisions, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year.

Section 202a is expected to be implemented on January 1, 2009 and will be also applicable to acts committed abroad by any Norwegian national. The provision applies to any person, regardless of citizenship, living in Norway.