Comments on: Met plans to scrap Trafficking Unit are a Disgrace

By: maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:17:28 +0000

Dear Julie, Thank you very much for this information, which is now on my blog.

By: Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:29:40 +0000

Dear Mary

I need to draw your attention to the fact that Douglas Fox is a pimp. The term ‘sex worker’ is used to include anyone who works in the industry from what I can gather. Fox co-owns an ‘excort agency’ in the north east of England. If you need further information on this please email me.

Best, Julie Bindel

By: maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:35:17 +0000

Dr Petra thanks for your post regarding the campaign I have launched – however, I am a little confused by some of your comments. I have not ignored the comment by the Birkbeck professor Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, who I presume you refer to. I have read the articles that she linked to, taken her comments on board and responded to her.

As a vehement opponent to the legalisation of prostitution and believer in the Swedish model of criminalising the purchase of prostitutes I support programmes, such as the Poppy Project, which aid women exiting prostitution over and above those helping women to subsist whilst working as prostitutes.

I appreciate the excellent work done by organisations to improve the health of female prostitutes, but this is not the purpose of my campaign against the closure of the Met’s anti-trafficking unit.

Human trafficking, the third biggest international crime after arms and drug smuggling, doesn’t just affect female prostitutes but also children and men who are trafficked for among other things the purpose of domestic servitude.

So from my campaigning perspective, as a European politician who can not influence country’s individual health provisions, I can best focus my efforts on stopping women being trafficked into prostitution in the first place. A solution which will also protect them against health problems associated with being a sex worker in the future.

By: Dr Petra Boynton I Blog I Sex and science stuff 12/10/09

Dr Petra Boynton I Blog I Sex and science stuff 12/10/09 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:30:37 +0000

[...] politicians, but often it happens behind closed doors. You can see the whole exercise played out on Honeyball’s blog – and the comments that [...]

By: Douglas fox

Douglas fox — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:06:44 +0000

Mary Honeyball. As I suspected you have taken the research done by predominantly government funded groups like the Poppy project and applied those findings to a whole industry.
As an MEP how can you justify such bias? The research and findings from the Poppy project has been heavily criticised by leading academics. Indeed it is hard to find academics who support the findings of groups like Poppy.
You really must look at the research with an open mind before forming opinions that will have devastating effects on the lives of others.
I strongly urge that you find time to accept invitations from sex worker groups who will be happy to provide research and information that is vital if you are to form a truly unbiased opinion.

By: maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:59:54 +0000

Dr Brooks-Gordon, Thank you very much for your comments. I suspect part of the reason we disagree is that much of the research is contradictory. I have had a great deal of contact with the Poppy Project in London who provide services for prostitutes and trafficked women, and their views are very different from yours. I would also like to point you in the direction of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Report 2000-09 whose findingd tend to bear out what I have said.

By: BTS

BTS — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Ms Honeyball,

I’m slightly confused. You claim to be all for equality on the one hand, whilst on the other suggesting that people with disabilities should gain some sort of special treatment, in terms of the law, when it comes to the sex industry. This is both highly illogical and offensive.

Further, may I point out that your “comments in the blog post still stand” only in the sense that they are nothing more than conjecture and opinion – nothing more, nothing less – and it strikes me as rather presumptious to simply quote yourself when replying to comments posted here.

Sincerely,

BTS

By: Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon

Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:40:30 +0000

Ms Honeyball,
“Few women either enter or stay as prostitutes willingly and most have a drug habit.”
You are wrong on 3 counts with your confused sentence here.
- That few women enter the country willingly is nonsense. Gay sex workers working in Poland find this country much more accepting of their lifestyle and come here willingly. Trans and female workers in Serbia find their is much less state violence here against them. See
http://archive.student.bmj.com/issues/08/12/editorials/434.php
- If you mean that most women who are sex workers have a drug habit, then you are wrong. All the methodologically acceptable work shows that drug use is low in off-street work.
- If you mean that of the female sex workers who enter this country unwillingly, many do not wish to do sex work, then you are also wrong. The Met Police long argued (back as far as the Sex Offences Review Seminars in 1999 at Queen Anne’s Gate) that of the cases they dealt with, many of the women who are brought here know they are going to do sex work and the majority are in sex work in their home state. What they are sometimes misled about the debt they have to pay for travel, or the conditions in which they work. This is a very different thing. Many sex workers in this position, once the debt is paid off, work for themselves.
Now you could be confused yourself, or it is just the way that you have written the sentence that is confused. Or you do not have a good grasp of the scientifically acceptable research in this area. If I were you Ms Honeyball, I would focus on: 1) acquainting yourself with the scientific work in this area, 2) then trying to prevent the misrepresentation of scientific evidence in this area, 3) on building good links with MEPs who have taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the scientific work in this area (Chris Davies is one such MEP who has done so), and most importantly 4) listen to what sex worker groups say here and in Europe.
I would have more respect for your opinion if you had spoken to, and then quoted the German sex worker unions, to state how the World Cup had affected them. Rather than objecting to them plying their trade. If other trade is allowed at all on the streets, then there is no reason why they should not be allowed to meet their clients on the streets.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:10:24 +0000

Thanks for your reply. However, you still seem to be stating that victims of trafficking in the sex industry are drug addicts:
“…in relation to trafficked women I would comment again: “Few women either enter or stay as prostitutes willingly and most have a drug habit. I want every single woman to have the opportunity for a fulfilling life; prostitution most definitely does not provide this.”

Can you say if this is what you meant?

Many thanks,

Catherine

By: maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:27:37 +0000

Catherine, Thank you very much for this. I obviously am not against the work those in the sex industry do with people with disabilities. However, my comments in the blog post still stand