Eve Was Shamed by Helena Kennedy

Author:Helena Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

In recognition of the high levels of coercion involved in prostitution, the government has adopted a two-pronged approach by using charities and other welfare-based organisations to deliver ‘soft law’ or social policy responses to divert women and children from prostitution, while reserving the full power of the criminal law for two categories of people: those who persistently return to prostitution and those who exploit individuals in prostitution.

The approach is at first glance a huge leap in the right direction. However, a very persuasive book by Joanna Phoenix and Sarah Oerton called Illegal and Illicit: Sex Regulation and Social Control analyses the hidden currents operating beneath the surface to the detriment of some women and girls. They point out that those who face the full rigour of the new law are women who choose prostitution voluntarily or for economic reasons, women who are poor and who have few options, or women who are forced into the netherworld of sex work and find it very hard to abandon it when a new demand for rent or electricity payment arrives. The Home Office consultation paper Paying the Price neatly demarcates the problem of prostitution into two categories: the problem of ‘victims’ and the problem of ‘offenders.’ Victim status is only conferred under specific conditions – there has to be a third-party coercer and the ‘victim’ must never return to prostitution after being offered help. Women who stay on the game after social work interventions therefore move beyond the pale. They must cooperate with the NGOs and the authorities and behave like good women or they are sacrificed to the criminal justice system.

On an initial reading of Paying the Price, the striking argument is the overwhelming level of victimisation experienced by women and children in prostitution and their need for support in their struggle with drug addiction and debt. It seems we are now living in a society where the prevailing thinking is that poverty is largely the fault of the impoverished. If they do not pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and the help of ‘back to work’ initiatives, they are making a lifestyle choice. Talk of poverty as a driver of human behaviours is out of favour. Victimisation is recognised as a valid excuse for prostitution but poverty is not. Poverty is seen as a lifestyle choice.

Even when women have been groomed into prostitution through abusive relationships, they have been forced to reveal past convictions for soliciting or loitering under the Street Offences Act when applying for jobs and visas or even for volunteering at their children’s schools under DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks. It did not matter that they had been forced into sex work as teenagers. It meant that abused women could never move on from their pasts. A great victory was won in March 2018 in the High Court by a brave woman called Fiona Proudfoot and two other determined women who chose to remain anonymous. They fought a case against this stigmatisation and won a ruling that forcing women to reveal past convictions for prostitution was unlawful.

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