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The Government voted on Tuesday 19 May to protect women in prostitution by accepting a reworked version of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s amendments to key prostitution law reforms in the Policing and Crime Bill.

The final version makes it an offence to buy sexual services from anyone “subjected to force by psychological means and the exploitation of vulnerability.”

While this version of Clause 13 is not as strong as that originally published (where it had proposed to tackle demand for exploitation through prostitution by making it an offence to buy sexual services from anyone “controlled for gain”), campaigners are pleased that the suggested change in wording to the much more limited “subjected to force” was rejected as being too weak by MPs in last night’s debate (see earlier press release below).

The Home Secretary’s proposed amendment, announced on Thursday 14 May, was greeted with great concern by a coalition of organisations(1) which warned that this definition would protect far fewer people and would see the UK fail to meet international human rights law obligations, as well as being too difficult to enforce.

Fiona Mactaggart MP therefore tabled a series of amendments to extend this definition to include “force by psychological means and the exploitation of vulnerability(2)” – using the definition of “force” as enshrined in forced marriage legislation, which recognises psychological control as a form of force.

During last night’s debate on the reforms the amendments received cross-party support from MPs and were accepted by the Government as the Policing and Crime Bill passed to the House of Lords. This has been widely welcome and will ensure that Clause 13 is far more workable.

Voting also saw Conservative MPs rebel against a Conservative-Liberal Democrat amendment which sought to prevent Clause 13 from being a strict liability offence, whereby ignorance that a person is subjected to controlled exploitation through prostitution is no defence. MPs criticised the amendment, saying this would render the offence too weak to have any effect, and it was rejected.

Comment from Eaves director of services Frances Brodrick:

“We are really pleased that our concerns about weakening the offence of paying for sexual services have been taken on board. The latest amendments, championed by a range of MPs from all parties, shore up the legislation to ensure that it protects a greater number of vulnerable people – including British women – exploited through prostitution. This move demonstrates further progress towards tackling the root cause of sexual exploitation, which is demand.”

Notes:

1. Eaves/POPPY Project, OBJECT, The Greater London Domestic Violence Project, Rights of Women, ‘Make a Change’ Project Suffolk County Council, The Change Collective, De Beauvoir Estate TRA and others.
2. Amendments 47 (a), 51 (a), 215 and 216 which were also supported by MPs Lynda Waltho, Sally Keeble and Judy Mallaber

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Home Secretary Backtracks On Promise To Protect Women In Prostitution

(18th May 2009)

Re: decision by Jacqui Smith to amend – and weaken – Clause 13 of the Policing & Crime Bill

Eaves and other campaigners for reform in the areas of prostitution and demand have been dealt a devastating blow by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s decision to amend Clause 13 of the Policing and Crime Bill during its third and final consideration at the House of Commons tomorrow (Tuesday 19 May).

Clause 13 was originally drafted to create an offence of the purchase, or attempted purchase, of sexual services from anyone “controlled for gain by a third party.” However, the Home Secretary now proposes to replace “controlled for gain” with “subjected to force, deception or threats”.

For nine months, the Government has stood by the proposed definition of “controlled for gain”, as a term broad enough to benefit those who are not protected by narrower counter-trafficking legislation, but nonetheless suffer manipulation, control and exploitation through prostitution; for example British women exploited in prostitution.

By substituting ‘controlled for gain’ with ‘subjected to force, deception or threats’, Ms Smith’s amendment is likely to deny justice to British women in particular, to whom trafficking legislation does not typically apply.

The amendment comes as a serious blow to long-awaited reform, especially following the introduction of much stronger legislation in both Norway and Iceland this year, both of whom have fully criminalised the purchase, and attempted purchase, of sexual services, following Sweden’s pioneering lead ten years ago.

In 2006, Finland introduced a ‘half-way’ offence (similar to the Home Secretary’s amendment), which has seen low numbers of prosecutions to date.

Frances Brodrick, director of services at Eaves, which runs the Poppy Project, comments:

“In effect, this amendment reverses the significant progress made towards appropriate legislation over the past 18 months. If anything, we should be following the Nordic model – which recognises the gross human rights violations suffered by many women in prostitution, and takes action accordingly by criminalising all forms of demand – rather than further diluting what was already a comparatively timid legislative step.

“We are extremely disappointed by this backwards move.”

Note

Numerous international and European instruments to which the UK is party require substantial efforts in tackling demand, for example Article 19 of the European Convention on Action Against Human Trafficking which came into UK force in April this year. As demand for prostitution rises , the UK is dramatically failing its basic human rights obligations towards women controlled through prostitution, a failure which serves to widen the gender discrimination gap and takes us further away from an equal society.

For contact details of Eaves / Poppy Project see their directory entry: eaves.htm