Victory against change in trafficking law which would have criminalized sex workers and our families and undermine safety.Our efforts are paying off! As you know, US PROStitutes Collective and Sex Workers Outreach Project have been circulating letters, including a model letter to Senators, opposing a change in the law which would remove the need to […]
Pentameter Two, the new initiative against traffickers, far from protecting victims of trafficking is likely to make immigrant sex workers more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Evidence from how anti-trafficking legislation has been implemented until now show that the police, courts and government are using this legislation primarily as an excuse to step up deportations of […]
ON May 15 The Voice (‘Sex Slaves Freed’) reported on the joint police/immigration Operation Pentameter which claims to have freed 19 victims of sex trafficking. But police are reportedly arranging with charities to return some of the women to Malaysia. Deportation is the reality behind the headlines.The Poppy Project, set up to deal with victims […]
Summary The consultation paper says it will consider prevention and investigation of trafficking, and provisions for protection and assistance to victims of trafficking, including increased police powers and immigration legislation. In our experience, far from protecting women from violence, anti-trafficking legislation is being used for immigration control, as an excuse to increase deportations and to prevent women crossing international borders. […]
On 6 October 2005, over 40 police and immigration officers raided 55 flats in the Baker Street area of central London. 70 sex workers were held and questioned, some for up to five hours. Women working as ‘maids’ for the working girls were forced to sign cautions under threat that otherwise the flat would be […]
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 […]
Translation Feminist Review 73 2003, anti-trafficking legislation: protection or deportation Revista Feminista N° 73 LEGISLACIÓN CONTRA EL TRÁFICO DE MUJERES: ¿PROTECCIÓN O DEPORTACIÓN? En noviembre de 2002, bajo el pretexto de proteger a las mujeres de la violencia y la explotación, el gobierno británico introdujo una nueva legislación contra el tráfico de mujeres en el marco […]
DOWNLOAD HERE: Anti- trafficking legislation: protection or deportation
By Jon Silverman In November 2002 the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, told a London conference Britain was facing a growing threat from Balkan crime gangs, who make vast profits by smuggling – whether guns, drugs, or women destined for the sex trade. The following month two Albanian cousins were given long jail sentences for living […]
…”Even other prostitutes are suspicious of claims that the eastern European women are victims of exploitation. Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes said all the Albanian women she had met had claimed to be “working independently” and none had said she was being exploited by criminal racketeers. “There are a number of women […]