Women Against Rape and the Green Party

I have found two interesting web sites that have something to say about the Policing and Crime Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill. The first is the Against Rape site. The second is the Green Party site. They say that prostitutes are being further criminalised by these laws.

The Against Rape site makes a number of points on the Policing and Crime Bill on this page. Point number 3 is especially interesting and I have quoted it below.

3. Clauses 16, 17 and 21 will increase violence and exploitation.
Justice and protection for victims of rape and trafficking, and the prevention of these crimes, depend on the ability of survivors to come forward to report. That is the considered view of survivors of rape and other violence, including sex workers. Why is legislation aimed at women in the sex industry ignoring these views? Like the Royal College of Nursing and other members of the Safety First Coalition, we believe that criminalising prostitution forces women underground and into danger. Clauses 16, 17 and 21 are unsafe – women threatened with arrest for loitering or soliciting, forced ‘rehabilitation’, or having their premises raided and earnings seized, are not likely to seek help from the police. We know many who have not reported serious attacks for fear of being arrested; others who reported were told that they were “asking for it” or that “a prostitute can’t be raped”; others still were charged for minor offences such as speeding and petty theft. As a result their attackers were free to rape again and even murder.

The Green Party site talks about the Criminal Justice Bill on this page. Siân Berry, Green Party Mayoral Candidate for London, calls for the complete decriminalisation of sex work. I have quoted the more interesting bits below.

Siân also attacks the new Clause 124 of the Labour government's Criminal Justice Bill, which introduces a new 'order to promote rehabilitation' for the offence of 'loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution.'

She noted that this was effectively re-introducing imprisonment for the offence of soliciting, which was abolished by a Tory government in 1982.

She said, "The government with this Bill is treating prostitution as though it were an illness, and one for which women and men should be punished. Of course we would hope that sex workers who want to get out of the industry, and who need help with that, should find it immediately - and for that the government needs to provide greatly improved funding for, for example, drug addiction treatment programmes. But women and men arrested for soliciting should not be forced into 'treatment' against their will.

"And the government should note that it is often its own policies - inadequate support for women with children, the withdrawal of recourse to public funds for failed asylum-seekers, that is forcing women and men into the industry."

Siân added: "Centuries of criminalisation have not wiped out, or even reduced, the level of prostitution. Instead it has left on our streets, and our consciences, the bodies of many murdered women and men."