There is a press release and two newspaper articles that I have read recently that offer an insight into prostitution in the UK.
1. A press release from the Metropolitan Police about brothel raids last year
2. A Manchester Evening News article about the prosecution of brothel owners two years ago
3. A Belfast Telegraph article about a young woman arrested in Northern Ireland last year
2. A Manchester Evening News article about the prosecution of brothel owners two years ago
3. A Belfast Telegraph article about a young woman arrested in Northern Ireland last year
1. Officers visit numerous addresses in modern slavery operation
Last month in London the Metropolitan Police said they had visited 18 brothels. A total of 46 women were spoken to and offered support. Of those, five were identified as potential victims who displayed indicators of modern slavery. One man was arrested on suspicion of controlling prostitution but released 'under investigation pending further enquiries'.
On the face of it modern slavery seems uncommon in brothels. They didn't discover any slaves for sure, and only 5 out of 46 were thought to be potential victims. One man was arrested but may not even have been charged.
They recognize that other forms of money-making can be equally problematic: 'victims have been found working in construction, domestic servitude, agriculture, cannabis factories and in places you use yourself, such as car washes, barbers and nail bars'.
I can't help wondering if any of these women were arrested and deported. The Met don't say but perhaps they are hiding what they are doing. They say they treat the women as victims but that helps them to deflect criticism. 'Often they do not see themselves as potential victims of sexual exploitation'. Maybe they just want to be left alone.
There is a lot of talk about coercion. 'Physical and mental abuse is common'. What is the evidence for that? It obviously happens sometimes, as in other forms of money making, but is it true that it is common?
2. The married couple behind Sandys Superstars who built a multi-million pound brothel business charging punters £50 for sex
Former escort Sandra Hankin was the 'big cheese' of a business that was known to the police and the local authorities - and made a 'very high profit'. She and her husband ran two brothels, one in Prestwich/Bury (north Manchester) and one in Northenden (south Manchester). The police took no action against them for 14 years because there were no underage girls, no trafficked women, no suggestion of coercion, the business wasn't used as a front for other crime and it did not affect the local community.
The women were all British. "Many bought homes, had saving bank accounts, and were real providers for their families for the first time. All aspects of the women’s health and well being was provided for."
Sandy had worked as an escort. She didn't like that, finding conditions unsafe and unpleasant. She changed to 'parlour' or 'sauna' work. There were problems there too. The owner of the place she was working left, leaving her in charge. She and her husband transformed the place.
"The bedrooms were changed, they implemented rooms with showers, changing rooms and complimentary towels were offered to every woman and client. The rooms were decorated, CCTV was later installed, there were double lock entry doors."
Adrian Burch ran their website. He was prosecuted too.
"For many years he considered Sandys Superstars were working in partnership with the working women, they supported the women that they cared about and he is devastated for them, to see many of the women who have had to leave Sandys Superstars, at least 13, have been attacked as a result of the conditions on them working on the street. He takes extremely seriously the responsibility for them and feels he is no longer able to protect these women."
"The impact on his family has been significant. Officers came into his family home when his 13 year old daughter was asleep, with machine guns as part of an armed raid, and the impact of that day for his daughter has been traumatic and she is receiving her own mental health support."
"Further to observation, they ran the premises as legitimately as expected, the women were of adult age and appropriate to work, the premises looked after their safety, they were often searched by the Manchester City Council and had regular communication with HMRC. Bizarrely, customs officers knew about what was taking place, and they accepted the tax payments. The defendants worked with public health."
Sandra Hankin was said to have benefited by £200,000, Christopher Hankin by £150,000 and Adrian Burch by £110,000 - all three must repay it within three months under the Proceeds of Crime Act. What happens if they can't pay the money? Do they go to prison? They should have been left alone to provide a service to the clients and the sex workers and pay their taxes.
3. Prostitution suspects fined after drugs are found in sex trade raid
Does this woman look like a trafficker? Her name is Andreea Cristina Cojucura. She is a sex worker but has been arrested recently for 'human trafficking and controlling prostitution' in Northern Ireland. She was also arrested for having cocaine. Her cocaine was taken away from her and almost £2,000 in cash. Why is a sex worker being arrested in Nordic model Northern Ireland? I thought that under the Nordic model sex workers are decriminalized.
In other countries terrible things happen when people pretend to want to help 'victims' but in fact harm them. This is from Between Victim and Agent: A Third-Way Feminist Account of Trafficking for Sex Work by Shelley Cavalieri. It is about a brothel raid in Thailand.
"The coalition of organizations effected what they termed a “rescue” of the women in the brothel because of the believed presence of children. What followed was a human rights debacle. Twenty-eight women and girls, most of whom were, by all accounts, adults, were involuntarily detained beyond the period of time that victims of trafficking may be confined under Thai law. They were not arrested or charged with crimes, but detained, according to the authorities, because they had been rescued from a situation of human trafficking. They were deprived of access to their belongings and saved earnings, which were locked inside the inaccessible brothel under police control; they never regained ownership of these possessions. After a lengthy period of time, the government deported many of these women to Burma. All of these actions, which the women experienced as both harmful and alienating, occurred under the guise of rescuing them from the brothel in which they worked.
According to social services workers who interviewed four women who escaped from the brothel as the police arrived, all of the women were ethnic Shan from Burma and were at least nineteen years of age at the time of the raid. Prior to immigrating to Thailand, their status as members of the Burmese Shan indigenous group rendered these women subject to summary detention and rape at any time at the hands of officers of the Burmese junta. Faced with the option of abuse by the authorities in a region of Burma overwhelmed by poverty, many Shan women chose, and continue to choose, to cross the mountains that demarcate the Thai-Burma border and move to a Thai city to work in a brothel. This choice has a certain logic, as forced labor, forced relocations, and food shortages remain an endemic problem in Burma. For many, work in a Thai brothel presented the opportunity to escape the repression of the Burmese junta and to send adequate money home in order to support families, educate children, and maintain households. From the perspective of these women, that they at times paid people to facilitate their passage to Thailand was merely incidental."
