UPDATE 02/11/2012: Denis MacShane resigns over false invoices Denis MacShane pleads guilty to expenses fraud. Ex-Labour minister admits making false claims to fund trips, during court hearing Rajeev Syal The former Labour minister Denis MacShane has admitted filing nearly £13,000 of bogus parliamentary expenses. The ex-MP pleaded guilty on Monday to false accounting by entering fake receipts for […]
The “war” with Denis MacShane on Newsnight was not about statistics but about the policies the statistics were invented to justify. New Labour legislation would increase police powers against both sex workers and clients. Now that the figures have been discredited, MacShane calls them ‘futile’.Paxman was not “hostile”; he was Paxman. But MacShane was confronted […]
Nick DaviesThere is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein’s weapons.In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who study the sex trade have been […]
The UK’s biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests […]
Unpublished letterDear Sir or Madam,Nick Davies parallels the lies on trafficking to those on weapons of mass destruction — the same disregard for the truth and for people’s lives to impose a reckless political agenda (“Sex, lies and trafficking — the anatomy of a moral panic” Guardian, 20 October 2009).Yes, the “speculative” claims of academics Kelly and […]
BY RACHEL WESTTaking advantage of the recent turmoil over the huge city budget cuts, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Carmen Chu, have pushed though malicious legislation imposing criminal charges and restrictions on massage parlors. Many are outraged that this costly legislation was prioritized — we want to know why it was, and how much it […]
Protect workers’ safety! Stop the closure of massage parlors! Stop targeting immigrant sex workers!Under the pretence of stopping sex trafficking, Supervisor Carmen Chu and Mayor Newsom want to impose criminal charges and exorbitant fines on massage parlors despite workers’ concerns that it will push the industry underground making them more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. […]
By the English Collective of Prostitutes. Co-ordinators of the SAFETY FIRST COALITION House of Lords, second reading Wednesday 3 June. Using flawed trafficking statistics as justification, the measures target anyone involved in prostitution whether or not there is force or coercion. They would drive prostitution further underground and sex workers into even more danger. In […]
Policing and Crime BillSecond Reading, House of Lords, 3 June 2009Moved By Lord West of SpitheadBaroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: (Lib Dem) The Bill is the 66th criminal justice Bill since 1997. Between them, they have created 3,600 new criminal offences. We feel that the Government have still failed to understand that you cannot solve social problems by […]
Letters in The GuardianIf the Poppy Project is concerned about prostitutes being criminalised, where is it when the law raids, detains and deports women (Letters, 26 May); when mothers working collectively face closure, brothel-keeping charges, imprisonment and separation from their children; or when women driven out of premises risk rape or murder on the street?While […]