Letters to the Editor The inquiry into ‘Camden Ripper’ Anthony Hardy, held in private, which exonerated the psychiatrists, did not go far enough into Hardy’s previous violence or the authorities’ responsibility for not prosecuting him earlier. Yet he was known to hate women, particularly prostitute women, had a history of extreme violence and hospital staff […]
Street Sheet, (San Francisco) June 2005, p7 You need look no further than the case of serial rapist Jack Bokin to know why the SF Board of Supervisors (BOS) resolution 1564, Mitigating Violence Against Prostitutes should be immediately implemented. Bokin had attacked and violently raped at least three women when Judge Perker Meeks let him […]
In February 2001, we organized an emergency picket to protest against police and immigration raids against 60 immigrant women in Soho, London. The protest got widespread sympathetic media coverage and as a result the raids were publicly condemned and their legality challenged by women’s groups, prominent lawyers, MPs and church people. Many deportations were stopped […]
Anti-social behaviour orders are increasingly being used against prostitutes as a “quick fix” way of clearing women off the streets, campaigners warn.Probation officers and those who work with prostitutes say the orders have effectively brought back jail sentences for offences such as loitering and soliciting, which have been non-imprisonable for more than 10 years. Breaching […]
Evidence shows that criminalization makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence. Prostitute women facing rape, sexual assault and murder are afraid to report for fear of arrest – especially if they have outstanding warrants – or deportation.In one case, a woman who wanted to press charges against a violent rapist was not allowed to do […]
Women working in the sex industry around the world will debate proposed changes to the UK prostitution laws at a conference on Saturday. The event in London is in response to the government’s consultation paper on prostitution, published in July. It launched the UK’s first re-think in decades of how to deal with the issue. […]
British sex workers, facing the biggest shake-up of their profession for nearly 50 years, urged the government on Friday to decriminalise prostitution.Citing the example of New Zealand , which decriminalised the world’s oldest profession last year, they said the move would destigmatise sex work and make prostitutes safer by allowing them to work at home rather than […]
Plans for the biggest overhaul of laws on prostitution for half a century have been put forward by the government. The proposals include licensing brothels and compulsory health checks for prostitutes. Will they really help? We put Cari Mitchell of the English Collective of Prostitutes in the hotseat. How many prostitutes are there in Britain […]
DAVID Blunkett is using the Home Office consultation paper on prostitution, Paying the Price, to promote his own punitive agenda of compulsory health checks and registration with the police (Bold move to legalise brothels, 16 July).The report focuses on the “95 per cent of street workers [who] are drug users” — a statistic we would […]