The Pimping of Prostitution by Julie Bindel

Author:Julie Bindel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781349959471
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Amnesty International

In January 2014 I received a call from a person confirming what I had already heard in feminist circles about the development of the new policy on the sex trade at AI. This whistleblower told me that the International Secretariat was about to pass a policy on prostitution and that plan was to introduce it via its London office.

I met the whistleblower later that day and was shown the document. I was told that the draft document had not gone out for consultation, either among AI personnel or its members, and it was about to become official policy. The next day, I exposed AI’s plans in a national newspaper. Within hours, abolitionist groups from all over the world began to organise on social media against AI rubber-stamping a policy on decriminalisation of the sex trade. Meetings were held with national AI offices, and the arguments contained within the leaked document were pulled apart in preparation for a showdown.2

When Kate Allen, then head of AI UK, was quizzed about the leaked document, she was adamant that it was not a draft policy paper but merely a consultation paper that was due to be sent out to all key members of staff across their international offices.

On 4 February 2014, only days after the leak, Allen was invited by mumsnet, a website for parenting advice and support, to take part in a debate on the topic of decriminalisation.3 Both sides of the debate were represented during the live discussion. For example, one question directed to Allen read: “Can Amnesty International, as an organisation, really fail to see that by saying sex is a right that should be able to be purchased, they are one step away from saying that consent does not need to be obtained in ALL sexual situations?”4

Another contributor, an activist in the pro-prostitution US-based organisation COYOTE, asked: “Does criminalisation stop people from buying or selling sex?”, before answering her own question with: “No it doesn’t, as it is a failed system and law enforcement can’t seem to police even one percent of the sex trade, however what criminalisation does do is create the perfect playground for bad cops and predators to rob, rape, threaten, beat, exploit and murder sex workers.”

The final document, which was leaked to me at draft stage in March 2016 and published after the official decision was made to adopt an official position supporting blanket decriminalisation of the sex trade in August 2016, contained several comparisons between lesbian and gay oppression, and anti-abortion policies. For example:Sex workers are at risk of multiple, intersecting forms of criminalisation and penalisation.5 Sex workers who are at risk of criminalisation on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity face criminalisation in some countries under laws against sex work and/or laws against sexual activity between people of the same sex or laws enforcing norms of gender expression such as prohibitions against cross dressing… Women who are sex workers may face additional criminalisation in countries where access to abortion is prohibited by law and/or where sex outside marriage is criminalised.

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