Could trade unions for sex workers save the day? October 30, 2008

December 17 is the international day to end violence against sex workers

Imagine being told, as a child, how Mary Magdalene, Esmeralda from the Notre-Dame de Paris and Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman joined a trade union, and asked for better rights. Pretty Woman didn’t want to work for week-long shifts. Esmeralda wished to get paid in advance by clients. And Roxanne only turned off the red light because her licence application hadn’t gone through yet. Fortunately, this is not the stuff of tales, and reality is different.

In the midst of a government crackdown on street prostitution, many eggheads are busy uncovering the mystery of how to stop exploitation within the sex industry. Some argue it is essential to tackle demand by criminalising the clientele, others believe decriminalising the industry and regulating it could provide an answer.

One group that the British government isn’t always keen on consulting when legislating are sex workers. Perhaps this is not surprising, as their field is regarded a criminal activity. Despite the volte-face, sex workers were not battered and organised themselves in proto-Trade Unions, the most successful and powerful of which is the International Union of Sex Workers.

One could say it is tragically ironic that the oldest profession on earth has not reached any of the touchstones that have been so hardly fought for by everyone else: a minimum wage, a pension scheme, health and safety guarantees, not to mention a contract envisioning maternity leave, and so on.

Like many other movements, it all started in San Francisco in the 70s. A woman called Margo St. James founded the prostitutes’ rights movement and provided a manifesto in the book A vindication of the rights of whores, and a point of reference in the organisation COYOTE – acronym for “Call off your tired old ethics”. Since then many organisations of this sort have blossomed, calling for the need to decriminalise sex work “so that women can work as independent business women, controlling our own working conditions”, as the spokesperson of the US PROStitute Collective has put it.

Cari Mitchell has been on the frontline for the past thirty years as spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP). She is brash and confrontational and the lines on her face give away the energies she has lost in the long battle for recognition. Currently she is campaigning against Harriet Harman’s plans to ban kerb crawling: “street workers are not going to be helped by a change in the law towards criminalisation, we know for a fact that it will drive prostitutes underground. That’s what happened in Sweden”.

“We want autonomy and self-determination. We believe sex workers should decide how they want to work, and for this reason we oppose legalisation as it gives power to the police and government forces, whereas we aim at empowering the women.”

The ECP is a labour organisation, its motto is “for prostitutes, against prostitution”. She argues their aims are not entirely different from the government’s: “safety is our priority. We want protection”.

The International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) on the other hand, is membership based, and aims to function as a trade union. Ana Lopes, a migrant sex worker from Portugal formed it in 2000 having come to the conclusion that “a lot of problems in the sex industry are not related to the work itself but are about the conditions in which the work is done and the amount of power the worker has”.

 In 2002, the GMB – with more than 600,000 members, one of Britain’s largest trade unions – unanimously recognised sex work as a valid form of labour and accepted the International Union of Sex Workers under its wing, after the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) put forward a motion.

Catherine Stephenson is the spokesperson for the UK branch of the IUSW established specifically for workers from the sex and adult entertainment industry. It is interesting to find out that anyone can join anonymously, regardless of immigration or taxation status.

In total there are two branches: the GMB branch for sex workers has less than 100, “although we are in the process of recruiting more”, says Catherine, and the International Union of Sex Workers groups more than 250 members. They come from the whole range of professions sheltered by the umbrella of the sex industry. They are strippers, prostitutes, lap-dancers, go-go dancers, burlesque performers, escorts, dominatrices, peepshow workers, phone sex operators, brothel workers, porn stars, and the list goes on.

 “Generally Trade Union membership in this country has declined in the past 15 years. There’s an interesting parallel to be drawn between the sex industry and mini cab driving. There are a lot of migrant workers involved and it’s a very low capital industry. The mini cab branch has expanded quite a lot- there are now thousands of members- because if you join it you get a discount on insurance that saves you something like 400 pounds. Your membership it £100, so you make £300 the day you sign. It’s a no brainer”. That’s what IUSW is looking at doing. “It’s difficult to persuade people who are not politicized, without providing certain incentives. In our case it’s even more difficult, because the way the law is makes the industry very isolated”.

 “Right now we are representing a woman that was unfairly dismissed from a phone sex line. She was pregnant”. When asked what sort of help they would be able to provide to a trafficked woman she quickly responds: “for now we only provide free legal advice. That is all we can do without any funding. In contrast the Poppy Project receives £5 million”.

The IUSW also supports x:talk, a project aimed at teaching English to migrant sex workers. “Most of them don’t have legal status in the UK. Many have endured challenging and difficult situations, including migration debts.”, says Camille Barbagallo, who has worked on the project. She sees it as a way to empower these women and prevent exploitation from bosses or clients.

 

GMB staff also advises members on what they are entitled to expect at their place of work by carrying out health and safety inspections.  They are also known to accompany members to a meeting with the person who employs them or runs the place where they work.

Their greatest issue is that of stigma. “Until our work is recognised as actual work, we cannot plan of the rest: funding and the need for us to be covered by employment law”. This would be a great step ahead, as it would introduce the minimum wage standard.

The Poppy Project report has revealed that a determined client can manage to have a full-sex session with a prostitute for £15 in London. The same agencies that provide this, offer sessions of unprotected sex.

“The problem is that the industry is completely unregulated”, Catherine persists.

Teresa McKay of UNITE the Union joined the cause as a result of the Ipswich murders. At that time she was working there as branch secretary, and witnessed the shock of the town on a first hand basis. Since then she has collaborated on campaigns with IUSW and the Safety First Coalition

She thinks Trade Unions are the best and only solution to monitor the working environments of the sex industry. “I don’t think you’ll ever find anyone who would turn around and say: “oh yes, we’ve got to have prostitution”. It is just about recognising that it is right here within our society, just as the need for abortion is within our society. It is not a decision they take lightly but for whatever reason they take it, as life is full of unpleasant situations”.

 

If you want to get involved in IUSW, contact branch_secretary@iusw.org

Or call: 07946897770

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Rachel West, spokesperson of the US PROStitute Collective Sex Work: writings by women in the industry, p.279

“Disabled people will be the first to be affected by the law” October 30, 2008

Home Office plans to tackle demand for prostitutes by criminalizing clients are likely to affect disabled people who pay for sex, UK Sex workers have said.

“The way they want to change the law is to make it illegal to pay for sex. Disabled people will be the first to be affected by the law”, says Tuppy Owens, founder of the TLC Trust – a voluntary body that provides opportunities, advice and support to disabled men and women to find appropriate sexual and therapeutic services.

“Most clients will continue to see sex workers, but if you are blind, you cannot see if you are being watched, and if you employ someone to push your wheelchair, it is probably against the contract to be engaged in illegal acts! Disabled people have little privacy or chance to be naughty.”

In a letter to the Home Office, Alan Taylor, a 35 year old disabled man, has said: “the only sexual pleasure I can have is by paying sex workers for sexual experience (when I can afford it that is), as that is my only option”.

Douglas Fox, a sex worker and campaigner has said: “Many of my clients are disabled. Their carers or their parents make the appointment for them. Some of them are paralysed; others have suffered strokes or are deaf and dumb”.

Alan Campbell, MP is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office is currently leading the government’s initiatives and has responded: “If the client is exchanging sexual favours with someone that is being controlled for gain he will be persecuted – no matter what his condition might be”.

The British Council of Disabled People – a campaigning organisation that strives to achieve full independence and human rights for the disabled- currently has no position on organisations like the TLC Trust. The spokesperson Julie Newman has said: “We are against the perpetuation of the stereotype of Disabled People as sexually infantilised or the passive recipients of actions being done to them”.

The TLC Trust was funded in 2000 and is run by volunteer sex workers, disabled people, academics, health professionals.

Better known as surrogate partners, their practice is not unheard of. In the past both the Australian and the Danish government has come under attack for paying prostitutes to have sex with disabled clients under the ‘Sex, irrespective of disability” campaign.

Belgian care homes also provide prostitutes for disabled residents in order to grant them “the right to their sexuality”.

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 envisions the criminalization of the buying of sex. On the 26th February 2008 disabled members of Outsiders, academics and sex workers decided to demonstrate against this. Around fifty people lined the south side of Westminster bridge, many in wheelchairs. That afternoon, the clauses that would have banned people using sex workers were dropped from the Bill.

“The battle was over but sadly the war was not won” says Tuppy Owens, “as the Home Office is planning to find other ways to pursue this strategy”. 

The ID database might threaten sex workers’ livelihoods October 29, 2008

Concerns have risen within the sex workers community of how the identification techniques employed by the police force are going to affect them in the backdrop of a government crackdown on street sex work.

Dr. Anne Killett from the University of East Anglia worked on the academic evaluation of the Ipswich street prostitution strategy, which saw the enforcement of a zero-tolerance policy on kerb-crawlers and women guilty of soliciting. Her team had observed “evidence of street prostitutes seeking other means to pursue their activities”. One of them is keeping in touch with clients through their mobiles.

The Home Office has recently announced their intention to widen the national database of mobile phone numbers.  Catherine Stephens – spokesperson of the International Union of Sex Workers – has said these initiatives could turn out to be a double-edged sword for vulnerable prostitutes, as they could provide both greater protection, but they could also make them feel persecuted.

Michael Parker, spokesperson of the organisation NO2ID, agrees with the last contention: “one of our main concerns is that by forcing everyone to have an identity card we are going to push people who are living in the fringe of the law further and further away from the services that are meant to protect them. Life is going to be harder for them as they will loose the trust in the police and the criminal justice system. Many sex workers have a great deal of problems. If they have mental health problems having suffered from traumatic life experiences, or if they suffer from drug addictions, they will run away from these additional pressures. You may end up in a situation were people become “unpeople” and cease to exists because they are not part of a national database”.

A spokesperson from Sex Workers and Allies Action Network (SWAN UK) said: “If sex workers are expected to carry ID Cards at all times that could obviously threaten their personal security and many could potentially be exposed to blackmail”.

Anne Killett has said that she is “very concerned” about the potential consequences of this strategy.

In the following 18 month the police will be provided with a portable device – known as Mobile Identification at Scene (Midas)- that will take and identify fingerprints in the street. Campaigners have asked for guarantees that fingerprints of non-offenders will not be stored.

 

Untitled May 26, 2008

Sweden’s attempts at abolishing the oldest profession in the world May 20, 2008

Since 1999, prostitution in Sweden is considered a crime and a violence against women. The Swedish Parliament was then composed of nearly 50% women. 

What about male prostitutes?

In five years the number of women sex workers in Sweden has dramatically decreased. According to the Women’s Justice Center, the number of women in street prostitution has been reduced by two-thirds, whereas the number of johns has been reduced by 80%. “Gone too”, the Justice Center successfully claims, “are the renowned Swedish brothels and massage parlours which proliferated during the last three decades of the twentieth century when prostitution in Sweden was legal”. The list seems to be all ticked off: “The number of foreign women being trafficked in Sweden for sex is nil”.

Is everything really so rosy?

The New Zealand’s success story May 18, 2008

On June 23, 2005 the Prostitution Reform Act made prostitution, pimping and the owning of brothels legal. This reform act was designed to safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation. The Act was conducive to public health. For example, among its health and safety requirements there is the compulsory use of condoms. Most importantly, it made an offence for sex workers to be under the age of 18.

According to the just published report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee, the number of sex workers in New Zealand has not increased. A 2007 estimate in five centres – Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hawkes Bay and Nelson- found a total of 2332 sex workers.

• 93% of them cited money as the reason for getting into and staying in the sex trade.
• Fewer than 17 per cent said they are working to support drug or alcohol use
• More than 60% felt that they were more able to refuse to provide commercial sexual services to a particular client since the enactment of the law.
• A significant majority felt that there had been improvements in the incidences of violence occuring in their profession.
• More than 90% feel they have legal rights under the act.      
• 1.3 percent of sex workers were underage

The committee found that the most significant barriers to exiting are loss of income, reluctance to lose the flexible working hours and the “camraderie and sense of belonging of their profession”.

Overall the committee has found that in the five years since the Act has come into force there have been some improvements. The Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel has said that the act has had tangible positive effects.

See this blog post: “Good news on the effects of the New Zealand Prostitution law”

Netherlands: the par excellence Red Light District May 16, 2008

“It breaks down like this-

It’s legal to buy it, it’s legal to own it. And if you’re the proprietor of a hash bar, it’s legal to sell it. Its legal to carry it, but that doesn’t really matter because – get a load of this – if you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it’s illegal for them to search you”.  Pulp Fiction

In the Netherlands sex workers have access to the social security system, may join unions, have to pay income tax and are treated like any other self-employed tradesperson. Health and social services are readily available, but people who work in the sex industry are not required to register or undergo mandatory health checks. Sex workers have to be at least 18 years old. 

This system has worked well so far, but things are about to change. The widespread phenomenon of Human trafficking has led to a revision of the laws in many countries. Last week the Dutch government announced plans to criminalise the visiting of prostitutes that are not officially licensed. Furthermore, authorities will compel prostitutes to be registered in a national database. Previously, only brothels had tobe registered to obtain a license. 

Jack the ripper’s back – Providing a Context May 10, 2008

The Million Woman rise march was meant to be an occasion for women’s groups to come together and share their problem in an atmosphere of complete solidarity and understanding. I shouldn’t have been surprised that in the end, politics came in the way.

As members of the ECP voiced their outrage at Teresa McKay being hushed, questions were raised about the Coalition’s good faith.

Why was Teresa McKay stopped from speaking? Was it really a matter of organisation, or was it pure bigotry?  The ECP made sure her speech was published online for everyone interested to see.

The draft speech can be found in the All women count website (http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20Sex%20Workers/Teresa’sbannedspeech.htm)

A year and a half ago, 5 women were brutally killed in the area surrounding Ipswich in Suffolk, England by Steve Wright, a regular prostitute haunter.  The incident was a grotesque reminiscent of the Yorskhire murders, which also affected prostitutes. These murders received a lot of media attention and raised some issues in regards to the UK law on prostitution and the working conditions of sex workers.

Teresa MCKay wished to revisit these issues and question the government’s response through the reformed Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

·      Health and Safety

·      Representation

·      Poverty and Inequality

·      Employment rights

Two months ago the Coalition didn’t have a policy on it. I spoke to Sabrina Qureshi from the MWR coalition to find out if things had changed, following the events.  They are yet to form any policies, but consultations will start by the end of this month.  A part from the MWR coalition and the various organisations, these problems are for everyone to consider. Prostitution, as any social is, affects everyone in society and the law should not be solely put together by the parliamentary lobbies.