Sex work: decriminalisation and unionisation is the only way forward

From the Policing and Crime Bill

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

After section 53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (c. 42) 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
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.”

The second reading of the Policing and Crime Bill will be on the 19 January 2009. And rather like Section 62 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 will become law where it will be an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image.

There are parallels that can be made about these sections in both Bills and exposes the very authoritarian nature of NL. Both are sweeping, have loose definitions and also a wide definition of the offence. Who, precisely, are they protecting?

If Jacqui Smith wants to rid the streets of prostitution then where are the alternatives being offered to sex workers? What about the underlying reasons why women end up in sex work? What about offering women real viable social, economic and financial choices (and that includes decriminalising drugs)? And now with the current economic crisis, choices will become limited.

And what of the Swedish model of prostitution (as opposed to, say, looking at what New Zealand have done over decriminalisation….why not Jacqui Smith) ?

For example, sex workers complain that there has been an increase of police on the streets and therefore they feel under pressure to organise a quick transaction, informal networks which sex workers relied on for support have disappeared. Therefore what can be argued is that the health and safety of sex workers has worsened with this pernicious law.

The other question is, when exactly do the police bust the client? During the transaction, during the sex act or when it is all finished? And with this new law sex workers will be expected to appear as a witness in court.  Therefore this law is an utter paradox and contradiction.

The current Bill that is going through parliament will only serve to demonise and push sex workers further onto the margins of society. And why didn’t NL consult with sex workers? NL hasn’t considered the needs of sex workers by listening to their demands instead resorted to paternalism where the stench of Victorian morality is evident.

The Bill will not ‘protect’  sex workers more likely push it under ground and become further clandestine.  I think people should liberate themselves by organising together and working in solidarity and not having the paternalism of the bourgeois court system breathing down their necks, which will only further oppress sex workers.

Don’t mention the ‘N’ Word

The post below has been written by Tony Greenstein and I have republished it from the SU blog as I think it is a very useful contribution to the discussion around Palestine.

Don’t Mention the ‘N’ Word

Israel’s invasion of Gaza is clearly problematic, and not only for those who live there. If you oppose the wanton slaughter of civilians, the deliberate targeting of schools and medical personnel and the sanctions that preceded them, then whatever you do you must not make a comparison with anything that the Nazis may have done before. If you ignore this injunction then you are, according to the European Monitoring Committee’s Definition, anti-semitic.

One of its key definitions, as adopted by the British All-Parliamentary Inquiry into anti-Semitism, is that the ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’ is in itself anti-semitic.

Yet there is a real problem here which the APC prefer to ignore. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Most people associate Jews with the horrors of the Nazi death camps and the holocaust and the establishment of the Israeli state as some kind of recompense for the holocaust. It is therefore unsurprising that when people see pictures of the dead and dying children of Gaza whose schools, instead of being a sanctuary were turned into their graves, ask a simple question. ‘How can Jewish people, of all people, perpetrate these deeds.’

Together with members of Palestine Solidarity Campaign I have spent part of this week leafleting people in the centre of Brighton. The overwhelming majority of people are opposed to the invasion of Gaza and many of them ask the same or similar questions to that above. Is it seriously being suggested that if you oppose the war crimes now being perpetrated against Gaza’s civilian population and you compare what is happening now to what occurred in Europe nearly 7 decades ago, that you are anti-semitic?

This is the topsy turvey logic of those who are determined, and the APC is certainly determined, to cloak opposition to the actions of Israel in the mantle of ‘anti-Semitism’. As Norman Finkelstein notes, ‘A central thesis of my book [Beyond Chutzpah] is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a “new anti-Semitism” is upon us.’

What is being suggested, in a pure piece of sophistry, is that opposition to what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza is in itself anti-semitic and therefore racist. It is an amazing feat of logic that defines opposition to war as a form of racism. It is extremely regrettable that the Jewish community is being associated with the actions of the Israeli state. The decision of the Board of Deputies of British Jews to hold a rally ‘which will be the culmination of five days of intensive advocacy for Israel. The period of activity will reflect the support for Israel felt by the British Jewish community…’ can only be seen as a total indifference to the interests of British Jews.

Indeed it is difficult to imagine a better way in which to increase support for anti-Semitism in Britain than for an organisation which purports to represent British Jewry to organise a rally in support of the massacres of Palestinians in Gaza. Because that is effectively what they and the Chief Rabbi are doing.

It is no surprise that the political party which has come out most strongly in favour of Israel’s invasion of Gaza is the British National Party. Thus adding credence to the old adage that Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin. In an article by the Thurrock wing of the BNP ‘Europe’s Jews Face Marxist Wrath Over Gaza’ we are told that ‘Attacks on Jews in Britain and Europe are rising as the violence in Gaza continues.’ Citing the same source as the All Parliamentary Report into anti-Semitism used, the Board’s Community Security Trust.

An article, ‘”Israel’s Gaza Affair” by BNP Leader Nick Griffin is more circumspect but reaches much the same conclusion. Defeat for Israel ‘would merely inspire and radicalise a whole new generation of Jihadist fanatics’ and as one of the comments underneath explains, Israel is ‘an example to us all because the only thing the Islamic Terrorists understand is FORCE’. It is little wonder that Board Spokesman Ruth Smeed, in the Guardian of 10th April 2008, described the BNP website as ‘one of the most Zionist on the web – it [the BNP] goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’.

The most widely used comparison with the Nazi era is between the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and the Warsaw Ghetto. When I spoke at the demonstration against the invasion of Gaza in Brighton last Saturday, it was my reference to the Warsaw Ghetto which got the warmest reception. One might have thought it obvious that a comparison between the people of Gaza today and the Jews of Nazi occupied Poland was an anti-racist, not an anti-semitic, comparison.

After all, the parallels are obvious. Gaza consists of one and a half million people, sealed off from the outside world and subject to sanctions on all the basic essentials as well as now being subject to the use of overwhelming force, including phosphorous bombs, by an occupier. In fact it was Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai who nearly a year ago said that the Palestinians ‘risked a “shoah”, the Hebrew word for a big disaster – and for the Nazi Holocaust.’ It was Dov Weisglass, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Dov Weisglass, who spoke of putting the Palestinians of Gaza on a diet. Weisglass denied at the time that this meant starvation, but this is undoubtedly what is happening and there can be no doubt that the sick and elderly, young and infirm have indeed died through want of food, water and medicine. Hans Frank, Governor General of Nazi-occupied Poland described his policy towards the Jews as ‘death by hunger.’

The drawing of parallels is just that. It is not an exact comparison nor is it mean to be. But what it does mean is that there are similarities in methodology and ideology. When a young Israeli passed our vigil earlier this week, he screamed out that ‘they’, the Palestinians of Gaza are ‘all animals’. Was the dehumanisation of the Jews not an essential precursor to all that followed?