Morning Star: Labour MP – Sex punters should be criminalised to ‘bust business model of sex trafficking’

A NEW law is needed to “bust the business model of sex trafficking” by “shifting the burden of criminality” from victims to men who pay for sex, a Labour MP told the Commons yesterday.

Britain is a “high-value and low-risk” destination for sex trafficking because the law fails to discourage demand for prostitution, Kingston upon Hull North MP Dame Diana Johnson told MPs.

During a 10-minute rule motion, she argued that a new Bill should decriminalise solicitation but criminalise sex punters – the Nordic model – while providing support services for victims of exploitation.

Dame Diana added that men who pay for sex currently “do so with impunity” and that sexual exploitation is the “most profitable form of modern slavery.”

She said that the vast majority of women and girls discovered in police raids are Romanian, speak no English and are afraid of repercussions in the hands of traffickers and pimps.

The MP also took aim at legal websites where women and girls are “advertised” and booked by anonymous men who later write graphic “reviews” of those who they have paid to have sex with.

The English Collective of Prostitutes said it was among those who briefed MPs against the motion, arguing that such a law would not necessarily result in less trafficking.

The group said it was “disgusted” that a female Labour MP would propose the Bill “at the time of a pandemic which has exacerbated poverty, homelessness and debt.”

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-mp-sex-punters-should-be-criminalised-bust-business-model-sex-trafficking