Clause 72
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
11:15 am
Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead, Labour)
I agree absolutely. That is where the emphasis of the Government’s policy should lie, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point. The symposium met as recently as July this year. Lots of people with expertise attended it from all walks of life. To underpin the debate, it advocated the following principles:
“reducing the use of criminal law against women selling sex, specifically prostitution-related law...moving away from the concept of prostitution as a nuisance activity and allowing space for other ways of seeing prostitution....exploring the use of non-criminal law to strengthen protection rights...adopting a rights based framework as a means of promoting inclusion...recognising that women make complex choices and that they weigh up the positives as well as the negatives from being involved in prostitution and in movement across national borders...accepting that the voices of diverse women in prostitution should be integral in determining the way forward...rejecting the concept of ‘child prostitute’ and making an explicit acknowledgement that what such terms refer to are children and young people being abused and sexually exploited...taking a different approach to ‘at risk’ young people that does not categorise them as either innocent victims (‘deserving) or active delinquents (‘undeserving’) and that is able to recognise their coping strategies—of which prostitution may be one—but is also clear that all children and young people exploited through prostitution deserve care and protection...understanding that purchasing sex is a more normalised activity than is generally acknowledged and is not restricted to a deviant minority of men.”