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The Government has rejected a Labour MPs attempt to pass law criminalising men for buying sex
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26th June 2021
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| See parliamentary debate transcript from theyworkforyou.com
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There is a steady stream of mostly Labour politicians who put forward law proposals to criminalise men for buying sex. A private members bill from Labour MP Diana Johnson titled the Sexual Exploitation Bill sought to criminalise buying sex ran
out of parliamentary time this year and has therefore been abandoned. The latest attempt this week was by another miserable Labour MP, Sarah Champion. She sought add a clause criminalising men for buying sex to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and
Courts Bill. But the Conservative Government have bravely rejected the clause explaining that similar legislation in other countries has tended towards making sex workers lives more dangerous. Victoria Atkins The Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State for the Home Department explained in her speech: I am grateful to the hon. Lady [Sarah Champion] for putting the case for new clauses 76 to 82 on behalf of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North [Diana
Johnson], who in the last Parliament had a ten-minute rule Bill on the issue. The Government's long-standing policy towards sex work and prostitution has been focused on tackling the harm and exploitation that can be associated
with prostitution, as well as ensuring that those wishing to exit sex work are appropriately supported. These six new clauses seek to make significant changes to the legislative regime governing prostitution and sex work. In summary, they would impose
what is known as the sex buyer law, or Nordic model, which would criminalise the buying but not the selling of sexual services, the profiting by third parties from sexual services and the advertising of sexual services. Under
English and Welsh law currently, the buying and selling of sexual services are not necessarily unlawful in themselves. In other jurisdictions where the buying of sex has been criminalised, such as France, Northern Ireland and Sweden, there has been no
conclusive evidence to show that the criminalisation of the demand for sex has either led to a significant decrease in the demand for sexual services or improved the conditions in which sex workers operate. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that
criminalising the purchasing of sexual services worsens the conditions in which prostitutes and sex workers operate. It may change the profile of buyers of sexual services, distilling the demand down only to those willing to break the law to purchase
such acts and forcing prostitutes and sex workers to engage in forms of prostitution associated with higher levels of harm. In the absence of unequivocal evidence, the Government have therefore maintained their line that we are focusing on trying to exit
people and trying to reduce the harm and exploitation that they face.
Atkins then pointed out there are already laws against any sex work involving trafficking and Sarah Champion went on to withdraw her proposed clause.
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Home Affairs Committee call Brooke Magnanti to speak about the dangers to sex workers after criminalising men who buy sex
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11th May 2016
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| See article from
theguardian.com |
The criminalisation of payment for sex would dissuade sex workers from reporting violence against them, Brooke Magnanti, the former London call girl better known by her alias Belle de Jour, has told a group of MPs. Appearing before a home affairs
select committee hearing on prostitution and the sex industry, Magnanti said: If you criminalise buying sex, the prostitute knows she becomes the evidence. Police will be instantly suspicious, they ask to see your
papers, examine your premises. She might be coerced by police into giving evidence against other people.
Magnanti said MPs needed to focus on the root causes driving people into sex work: Things
like migration policy and the social safety net. You have people who are marginally in the black going into red because of the bedroom tax, and the failure of the social system to catch them.
Magnanti appeared alongside Paris Lees , a
journalist and equality campaigner who has also previously been a sex worker. Both were critical of the witnesses the select committee had called to question as part of the inquiry. Of the four sex workers you've spoken [to] face to face, three of us
aren't doing it any more, Magnanti told the committee's chair, Keith Vaz The committee is nominally looking into the way prostitution is dealt with in legislation, and in particular whether the balance in the burden of criminality should shift
to those who pay for sex, but the selection of those participating in the debate suggest that the committee is biased towards criminalising men who buy sex. |
21st January 2009 | |
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Paying for Sex criminalisation bill received 2nd Reading in the House of Commons See article from
publications.parliament.uk |
28th February 2008 | |
| Straw withdraws prostitution clauses from Criminal Injustice Bill
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Presumably this deadline also explains Salter & Lepper's concerns that any Lords amendments to the Dangerous Pictures causes of the Criminal Injustice Bill won't be contested in
the Commons See full article from the Times
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Jack Straw dropped measures to overhaul the law on prostitution yesterday to ensure that a Bill that prevents prison officers from striking is law by May.
It means that the Government has also abandoned a plan to scrap the term “common
prostitute” from the statute book — 184 years after it was first used in the Vagrancy Act 1824.
He withdrew the clauses to ensure that the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which re-imposes a ban on prison officers going on strike, is passed
by May 8. The deadline is crucial because the Prison Officers' Association withdraws from a voluntary no-strike agreement on that day. If the union were to take strike action it would cause chaos in the overcrowded jails of England and Wales.
The
clauses in the Bill that the Government dropped would have meant that women who were persistently found loitering for prostitution would be given a rehabilitation order. Offenders would have had to attend at least three meetings of a rehabilitation
course or face arrest and detention for up to 72 hours before being brought before a court.
The compulsory rehabilitation was to apply to those who were convicted of loitering or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution and would have been an
alternative to a fine, which is widely seen as counter-productive because it forces prostitutes back on to the street to earn money to pay it.
The clause to remove the term “common prostitute” from the statute book came after a consultation that
showed the phrase was regarded as stigmatising and offensive.
John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes & Harlington, welcomed the move. He said: I hope it signals a future approach towards prostitution underlined by welfare measures rather
than criminalisation, putting the needs and safety of prostitutes above the desire for moral condemnation. Update: Why Not the Dangerous Pictures Clauses
1st March 2008 Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat) noted the dropping of the prostitution clauses with a pointed criticism of the Dangerous Pictures clauses:
I also make a plea to the
Government that they think again about the extreme porn clauses. They would benefit enormously from pre-legislative scrutiny, which would enable us to discuss them in a far more considered and necessarily sensitive atmosphere before they were brought on
to the Floor of the House.
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27th December 2007 | | |
To Harriet Harman's batty suggestions
| Thanks to Shaun on the Melon Farmers
Forum
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I asked my MP about Harriet Harman's suggestion
He kindly replied: I am aware of the reaction that Harriet Harman's proposal has provoked, and this will have to be taken into account when/if any decisions are taken
on possible legislative change.
It seems as if this one isn't as popular with the public as some might have expected.
I wonder why?
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25th December 2007 | | |
Doubting government legislation criminalising buying sex
| Thanks to Harvey on
the Melon Farmers Forum
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Re the Criminal Injustice amendment to ban the buying of sex in designated zones: It is not a piece of legislation yet. Just a few batty amendments from a few batty MPs. And Harriet Harman, who isn't the responsible minister, attempting to create
a policy where none existed before. For me, the telling point is that Coaker and his colleagues have not associated themselves with Harman's suggestion. In fact the department was fairly quick off the blocks to pour cold water on it (in the friendliest
way).
The thing is that none of these ideas are new. The CJIB amendments would apply some odd version of a control order to people buying sex in designated areas. Total batshit, and the police would not be in favour in the slightest. Designating
"areas of safety" would have the effect of making the non-designated areas into "red light zones". That idea has been thought through before and rejected.
The department knows there are only three choices:
a) Do
nothing and leave the current hotch-potch of legality/illegality in place.
b) Criminalise the trade in sexual services.
c) License and regulate the trade in sexual services.
The department is studiously not saying what their
prefered approach is, which is, as I've said, telling. About 12 months ago there was a similar fact finding visit to the US to look at the implementation of a "Megan's Law" for notifying the public as to the whereabouts of sex offenders. At
that time, the Home Office, including the Home Sec. was saying that they did intend to copy the US and have a "Sarah's Law" in the UK. The fact finding visit would simply be a means of determining HOW to implement it. There was lots of press
trumpetting and N of the W headlines raising expectations that lists of paedos would be pasted up outside your local Town Hall. But I think the junior minister who went to the US must have seen just how badly Megan's Law works at actually protecting
anybody, because in the event we have had no such law here in the UK and the whole thing has disappeared from view.
If anything, Harman's pronouncement, and the odd set of amendments from these publicity hungry MPs suggest to me that the
government is looking at anything but a suggestion like Harman's. Most rational heads seem to think that the experiment in Sweden has done little if anything to protect sex workers and that since the law change, prostitution in Sweden is just as
widespread but not as visible.
We will see as this thing unfolds, but my money is on; a) Do nothing.
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23rd December 2007 | |
| Melon Farmers comment on criminalising paying for sex
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Thanks to Alan You may be interested to know that some modest efforts have been made to treat prostitutes like any other workers: attempt to defend/improve their working conditions by organizing them in a trade union.
The union which has attempted to do so is the TGWU (now merged into Unite). A leading full-time official is none other than Jack Dromey, hubby of Harriet Harman. Do they ever talk at breakfast?
It's bizarre to see the career trajectory of
Harman, who started off as a (rather good) civil liberties lawyer. Thanks to MichaelG on the Melon Farmers Forum Wow! Didn't expect such a reaction from Daily Mail readers, but it certainly does show just
how much Harman has lost the plot. I found the following comment very moving:
"I am disabled and I buy sex through an escort agency. If this was to be made illegal, what would I, and others like me, do to be able to
have sex? This is the only way! Aren't my needs the same as anyone else? It's just that, in general, the females of this country, aren't interested in you if you are disabled. Or, perhaps, this, if made into law, is just another way of hitting the
disabled community".
Yes, the government who claim to introduce laws to 'protect' the more vulnerable members of our society aims a huge legislative kick at the MOST vulnerable and shamefully under-assisted minority group in the
country. Well done, Harriet, I hope you're really fucking proud of yourself. I assume our prisons will now be equipped with wheelchair access facilities for the forthcoming surge of disabled criminals whose only crime has been wanting to experience
sexual intimacy with someone? I am absolutely DISGUSTED with this rotten, vindictive government... From the Observer see
New Puritans, please stop being priggish about sex by Jasper Gerard ...But having unleashed a society which reveres sex and
denigrates thought, the government seems to think it can undo all the carnage by passing a law: as if by divine miracle, we can become born-again Puritans.
Cromwell's apparent heir is Harriet Harman. Her latest campaign is to outlaw prostitution.
Has she not learnt that any attempt to use parliamentary instruments to stop people having sex has mildly less chance of success than a law against rain? And even if she could stop men paying for sex, I wish the other New Puritans luck stopping young
women providing it for free.
Let me concede that often one feels like siding with the New Puritans. Looking at a provincial high street on Saturday night, I imagine my own daughter in a few years' time and want to weep. The horror is multiplied
by a million when I think of sex-trafficked women being brutalised in towns across Britain.
But surely government has tested to destruction the fantasy that you can change society by banning stuff. Isn't the real problem with trafficked
prostitutes that, first, we have virtually no border police so smugglers can operate with impunity, and, second, because prostitution is already underground, it can't be regulated? If the ban is simply about 'sending a message', then Harman should
realise it is a message that will be ignored, as with hunting.
And, for all the hideous vulgarity of modern life, would we really rather return to an England where young women committed suicide out of shame or visited back-street abortionists?
Between Cromwell and Assess My Breasts, is there not a third way?
Education changes people; censoriousness just irritates them. Try to take away their figgy pudding and people rebel, eventually. The Lord Protector learnt that the hard way; so, it
seems, will Gordon Brown at the end of this long parliament
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23rd December 2007 | |
| More bollox targeting guys buying sex
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From Hansard
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The usual Labour nutters have proposed a typically mean minded amendment to the Criminal Injustice Bill currently passing through parliament. Fiona Mactaggart Barry Gardiner Denis MacShane
To move the following Clause:
- A local authority may designate any part of its area as a zone of safety.
- A chief officer of police may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, designate any area as a zone of safety.
- The Secretary of
State may approve a designation under subsection (2) if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the incidence of prostitution in the proposed zone has contributed to an increase in criminality in the locality.
- It, in a zone of
safety, a person (A):
(a) intentionally obtains for himself the sexual services of another person (B), and (b) before obtaining those services, has made or promised payment for those services to B or a third person, or knows that another person
has made or promised such a payment, the local authority or the chief officer of police may apply to a magistrates' court for an order forbidding A from doing those things again anywhere. - In subsection (4)(b) “payment” means any
financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods and services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount.
- The Secretary of State may by regulations made such supplementary
provision about orders under subsection (4) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
- Regulations under subsection (6) are to be made by statutory instrument and are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either
House of Parliament.
- A person who is the subject of an order under subsection (4) and who fails to comply with the terms of that order is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the
standard scale or to a community punishment order or to both.'.
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21st December 2007 | |
| UK's Harriet Hardman proposes jail for buying sex
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From the Telegraph see full article
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UK men who use prostitutes could soon face a fine or even jail under new plans to make it illegal to pay for sex.
Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman, who is also women's minister, confirmed the Government is studying the law in Sweden, where
prostitution was recently made illegal.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today Programme , Harman said she supported criminalising men who use prostitutes as a means of tackling the rising problem of sex trafficking.
She went on: I think
we do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it. That is what they've done in Sweden. My own personal view is that's what we
need to do as a next step. Do we think it's right in the 21st century that women should be in a sex trade or do we think it's exploitation and should be banned? Just because something has always gone on, it doesn't mean you just wring your hands and say
there's nothing we can do about it.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and junior women's minister Barbara Follett are due to visit Sweden and Amsterdam to examine the systems there.
And a powerful group of Labour MPs have tabled an
amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which comes before Parliament in the New Year, giving local councils the power to declare certain areas no-go zones for prostitution. Men who paid for sex with prostitutes within the zones would be
liable for prosecution.
The amendment is being sponsored by former Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart, along with senior Labour backbenchers Denis MacShane and Barry Gardiner.
The English Collective of Prostitutes attacked Harman's
support for the Swedish system and urged her to look at New Zealand's system of legalising brothels instead.
Spokeswoman Cari Mitchell said: The 1999 law introduced in Sweden which criminalised men who buy sex, who on conviction face six
months in jail, has forced prostitution further underground, made women more vulnerable to violence, driven women into the hands of pimps and made it harder for the police to prosecute violent men and traffickers.
Ministers are visiting Sweden
and Amsterdam but New Zealand's experience of decriminalising prostitution, where women are now more able to come forward and report violence, is being ignored. Liberal Democrat spokesman David Howarth said a ban was not the answer, arguing
that it could put women in more danger: Evidence from Sweden in making prostitution illegal has shown that it doesn't help in reducing human trafficking. It, in fact, increases violence against women and makes the practice of prostitution far more
risky for all involved. Outlawing prostitution completely will mean that men will be far less likely to come forward to help with prosecutions for fear of criminalisation themselves.
Alan Gordon, vice chairman of the Police Federation, also
spoke out against further criminalisation: A move towards legalising state-run facilities would certainly be something which could be examined, as they could possibly eradicate underground prostitution and therefore have a knock-on effect on human
trafficking. Comment: Colossal Hostility From freeworld on the Melon Farmers Forum Have you seen the colossal
hostility on the Daily Mail comments site re Hormone's "criminal to pay for sex proposals". It
shows how totally out of touch this ban everything regime are now-no wonder they are going into opinion poll meltdown.
At least every police state law seems to be another nail in their coffin.
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