Clause 72
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
10:45 am
Philip Hollobone (Kettering, Conservative)
I shall speak to new clause 8, which would make it an offence under criminal law for a person intentionally to obtain for himself and pay for the sexual services of another person. I tabled the amendment because I have been impressed by the representations that I have received from CARE—Christian Action Research and Education —which is a well-established mainstream Christian charity that provides resources and help with matters of public policy and practical caring initiatives to those in need. In particular, I am grateful to Daniel Boucher and Rachel Davies who have researched the matter in great detail.
I should declare my interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on trafficking of women and children. CARE is a member of the Stop the Traffik coalition, which works in conjunction with an organisation called Chaste—Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking Across Europe. Both CARE and I believe that prostitution must be severely reduced, both because of the harm it does to men and women, and in order to tackle the growing problem of illegal trafficking of women and children into the UK. In his introductory comments to the last Government consultation on prostitution policy in England and Wales, the then Home Secretary said:
“Prostitution can have devastating consequences for the individuals involved and for the wider community. It involves the abuse of children and the serious exploitation of adults — many of whom are trafficked into and around the UK for this purpose.”
The new clause is designed to tackle the demand for prostitution. There is a growing body of support across the country for such a measure. With your permission, Sir Nicholas, I would like to quote in support of the new clause several letters that I have received from leading organisations in the field. Rosslyn Okumu, development manager for the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, writes:
“I am writing in my capacity as development manager for the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, which is a collaborative network of over 45 projects nationwide who work with individuals involved in prostitution to offer support and, where possible, sustainable exit routes... Over the years, NCAP affiliated projects have come into contact with literally thousands of women, men and some children who are involved in/exploited by prostitution. The majority, (more than 95 per cent.), do not wish to be working in prostitution. Most have stories to tell of violence, coercion, drugs and exploitation... With this in mind, our organisation highly commends new clause 8.”
Josephine Wakeling writes from Stratford:
“I am involved with the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, and also with the Josephine Butler Society. I have been working on the streets with women involved in prostitution for 12 years... It is our Government’s duty to protect the vulnerable through law, and that at all costs should ensure that those abusing vulnerability from a place of power will be held to account. I would encourage any legislation which criminalised the demand side”
—as the new clause would—
“as it is the purchasers of commercial sex who remain hidden and fuel this exploitation of women.”
Dave Bagley from Boltan Urban Outreach, writes to tell me:
“During the course of my job, I witness on an almost daily basis, the devastation and abuse caused to sex workers by men who constantly manipulate them in seeking to have their desires fulfilled. We desperately need a justice system in Britain which recognises just how little autonomy so many sex workers have. We need a Bill which criminalises the actions of the perpetrators of this sexual abuse, rather than the women who are caught in an endless cycle of poverty, isolation and despair.”
In his letter, Bill Gallagher, the operations manager at Door of Hope, states:
“We are a Christian Charity who provide outreach and support services to street sex workers. Thank you for proposing the new clause 8 (NC8) which if your colleagues accept will afford significant protection to the vulnerable and exploited women we work with. Thank you for your work.”
Anne Dannerolle from the Hull Lighthouse Project writes:
“I am a trustee and volunteer with the Hull Lighthouse Project and I have been working on the streets with women in prostitution for 12 years. I have been following the progress of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and I would like to thank you for tabling New Clause 8... In 12 years, I have met nearly 400 women on the streets of Hull, and in all that time not a single women has said to me that she wants to be working in prostitution.”
Mrs. Valerie Gore of the Josephine Butler Society was kind enough to write to me to say:
“we are delighted that Parliament is at last discussing possibilities. Thank you for tabling this amendment and taking this important step.”
To tackle the demand for prostitution, the House needs to take into account some very impressive evidence from people who are working day to day with sex workers. At present, prostitution itself is not illegal in the United Kingdom. However, offering prostitution services on the street, loitering or soliciting are illegal under the Street Offences Act 1959, the Sexual Offences Act 1985 and the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as is seeking the services of someone involved in prostitution on the street, known as kerb crawling, under the 1985 Act. Pimping and brothel managing are also against the law under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Therefore, supply of and demand for prostitution on the street is illegal, but the demand for prostitution off-street is not illegal. That is what my new clause would seek to do.
A staggering 80,000 individuals are involved in prostitution in the UK. Some 70 per cent. started out as children or young teenagers. As many as 95 per cent. of those involved in street-based prostitution are believed to use class A drugs. Not so long ago, we had the tragic case of five prostitutes who were murdered in or around Ipswich, all of whom were plying their trade because of their sad addiction to hard drugs. Some 85 per cent. report physical abuse in the family, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate has remarked, with 45 per cent. reporting familial sexual abuse.
A significant number of people involved in prostitution in the UK have been trafficked from other countries to meet growing UK demand. According to some expert sources, most forms of prostitution can be thought of as amounting to trafficking. The UN special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children—that must be one of the longest titles of any UN official—made the following observation:
“For the most part, prostitution as actually practiced in the world usually does satisfy the elements of trafficking. It is rare that one finds a case in which the path to prostitution and/or a person’s experience with prostitution does not involve, at the very least, an abuse of power and/or an abuse of vulnerability. Power and vulnerability in this context must be understood to include disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity and poverty.”
Prostitution is based on an imbalance of power between those who are bought and those who buy. Buying can be done legally in this country. Given that the vast majority of people in prostitution are women, this commodification of women’s bodies serves to deepen gender inequality in our society. The imbalance of power is also seen along racial lines, as many individuals in prostitution are from ethnic or disempowered minorities or, indeed, increasingly from other countries. The Bill is surely a chance for the UK Government to continue to uphold the principles of racial and gender equality as an essential component of human rights.
CARE supports the Government’s welcome campaign, launched in May, to tackle demand for street prostitution by taking tough action on kerb crawling. I, too, commend Her Majesty’s Government for that. However, the law needs to go further than the current offence of kerb crawling, because that has not prevented a doubling in the number of men who have reported purchasing sex in recent years. That is specifically why the new clause, which calls for the demand side of prostitution to be tackled more widely, is needed.
Making all purchases of prostitution services liable to prosecution would be beneficial. It would provide a far more comprehensive basis on which to engage with the demand for commercial sex, which drives the whole industry. By so doing, it would make the law better able to engage with the sad fact that the number of men purchasing sex in the UK has doubled in the 10 years between 1990 and 2000—the latest figures available to me.
Reducing the market for prostitution services overall should in turn reduce the number of women—it is generally women—who are trafficked into the UK for sex. Most trafficked women are set to work not on-street, but offering off-street prostitution services—in other words, in brothels—which are entirely beyond the reach of current demand provisions. It is thought that as many as 81 per cent. of women working in brothels in the UK come from overseas. London and the UK are among the main drivers of the international trafficking market. The new clause would send out a strong signal from Her Majesty’s Government that it is not acceptable to encourage the commodification of the human body and that buying sexual services both degrades and exploits. It would help to build a more humane society by challenging a foundation of the distortion of the way in which men view women and vice versa.
Much attention has been given to the Swedish model of prostitution law. Sweden introduced a law to penalise the purchasers of sex in 1999, and Norway has recently decided to introduce a similar law. Evidence suggests that street prostitution halved after the law was introduced. It certainly makes Sweden far less attractive to pimps and brothel owners and, as a result, has reduced the demand for trafficking. The Swedish Government reported that Sweden now has far less trafficking than neighbouring countries. A European Union study of countries published in 2005 suggests that the number of trafficked people per 100,000 of the population was lower in Sweden than in any other country covered by the study, apart from the Czech Republic.