Thursday, November 5th at 1.30pm-Falmer House 228
Film Screening- 'The Real Sex Traffic'-
written and directed by Ric Esther Bienstock
-an award winning documentary inside sex trafficking in Eastern Europe. Featuring interviews with trafficked persons and a convicted trafficker
Following the screening we will present an outline of our plans for this term, which will include discussions, debates and fundraising activities
Monday 2 November 2009
Should we believe the hype? To what extent do statistics on human trafficking for sexual exploitation into the UK mirror reality?
A summary of Nick Davies’ article
An article published by the Guardian on Tuesday 20th October 2009 by Nick Davies suggested that current figures of sex trafficking into the UK are highly over exaggerated and misleading. The article, entitled “Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution”, was the product of an investigation led by the Guardian into the results of Operation Pentameter Two (a nationwide investigation into human trafficking conducted in 2007). What was discovered were discrepancies between the number of arrests claimed to have been made and those which in reality took place. The article deemed Pentameter Two a failure on account of not resulting in a single prosecution for trafficking related offences, stating that although five men were convicted of trafficking women into forced prostitution, these were not direct consequences of the operation itself.
Another blow to Pentameter‘s credibility was dealt as Davies illustrated that the definition of trafficking used for the operation was taken from the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Unlike the definition found in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children 2002, this does not deem force or deception prerequisite to the term. This would potentially question ideas of progress on behalf of sex workers’ rights groups considering the effort made by the Human Rights Caucus during the creation of the Protocol in managing to incorporate these elements into the final product.
Davies concludes that the UK Parliament is in the process of passing the Policing and Crime Bill which, when brought into force, will amend among other things the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This will entail including in section 53A the subsection explaining that, whether or not a person making or promising a payment for sexual services of a prostitute is aware of that prostitute being controlled for gain by a third person, is irrelevant. This would add to the already vast repertoire of laws regulating prostitution which arguably serve to do nothing but isolate the sex worker from protection and further place the goal of recognising sex work as a legitimate form of labour, and thus according to sex workers the corresponding rights, out of reach.
Nick Davies’ report left me with a healthy dose of scepticism as to the real scale of sex trafficking in the UK, and made me question as to how far the hype is just being fed to us by politicians and neo abolitionists with vested interests in eradicating prostitution. However, one must be aware of the difficulties in compiling data on human trafficking, as for example much literature on the topic tells us that potential victims may be less likely to come forward due to fears of possible reprisals to them or their families at the hands of their traffickers or members of the network they are associated to.
-Caroline Eriksson
To read Nick Davies’ report follow the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
We at SAHT would like to know your opinion, please don’t hesitate in posting your thoughts on the topic
An article published by the Guardian on Tuesday 20th October 2009 by Nick Davies suggested that current figures of sex trafficking into the UK are highly over exaggerated and misleading. The article, entitled “Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution”, was the product of an investigation led by the Guardian into the results of Operation Pentameter Two (a nationwide investigation into human trafficking conducted in 2007). What was discovered were discrepancies between the number of arrests claimed to have been made and those which in reality took place. The article deemed Pentameter Two a failure on account of not resulting in a single prosecution for trafficking related offences, stating that although five men were convicted of trafficking women into forced prostitution, these were not direct consequences of the operation itself.
Another blow to Pentameter‘s credibility was dealt as Davies illustrated that the definition of trafficking used for the operation was taken from the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Unlike the definition found in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children 2002, this does not deem force or deception prerequisite to the term. This would potentially question ideas of progress on behalf of sex workers’ rights groups considering the effort made by the Human Rights Caucus during the creation of the Protocol in managing to incorporate these elements into the final product.
Davies concludes that the UK Parliament is in the process of passing the Policing and Crime Bill which, when brought into force, will amend among other things the Sexual Offences Act 2003. This will entail including in section 53A the subsection explaining that, whether or not a person making or promising a payment for sexual services of a prostitute is aware of that prostitute being controlled for gain by a third person, is irrelevant. This would add to the already vast repertoire of laws regulating prostitution which arguably serve to do nothing but isolate the sex worker from protection and further place the goal of recognising sex work as a legitimate form of labour, and thus according to sex workers the corresponding rights, out of reach.
Nick Davies’ report left me with a healthy dose of scepticism as to the real scale of sex trafficking in the UK, and made me question as to how far the hype is just being fed to us by politicians and neo abolitionists with vested interests in eradicating prostitution. However, one must be aware of the difficulties in compiling data on human trafficking, as for example much literature on the topic tells us that potential victims may be less likely to come forward due to fears of possible reprisals to them or their families at the hands of their traffickers or members of the network they are associated to.
-Caroline Eriksson
To read Nick Davies’ report follow the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
We at SAHT would like to know your opinion, please don’t hesitate in posting your thoughts on the topic
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