Preventing Violence Against Women: Role of Men

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I want to speak about one specific issue: the need for this country to have a sex buyer law. Sex buyers are a key reason why vulnerable young women are lured by traffickers into Britain to be brutally exploited in the sex trade. They are a key reason why sexual slavery is worth at least £130 million annually in the UK. They are a key reason why in 2016 we must continue our fight against human trafficking. One way to do that would be to criminalise paying for sex. At this stage, I pay tribute to the Minister for all the work she has done in the fight against human trafficking, and I know she continues to work on that and that she will be listening carefully to what I have to say.

Even if they do not agree on many other issues—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I have smiled about such disagreements on more than one occasion—no one of fair mind could fail to be moved by the heartrending accounts of young girls lured to the country by the promise of work in a nail bar or a hairdresser, only to have their passport confiscated by the person who accompanied them through passport control. Often that person is an apparently charming young man who suddenly changes once they reach this country. He takes her to a place where she is effectively imprisoned, and then she is repeatedly, horrendously abused. She is often fed with drugs and often raped by several men until she is broken down. She is then told that to repay the debt she owes for having entered this country, and effectively to gain her freedom, she must service countless other men for an interminable time. I say countless; one anti-trafficking organisation that I know well and does excellent work supporting such victims told me of one girl who decided that she would count the number of men she was forced to service with sex in one day. It was more than 100.

Most men do not pay for sex, but most of those who do pay for sex are men. Many men recognise that transaction—paid-for sex—for what it is: sexual exploitation. Sex buyers are the critical link in the human trafficking chain, so far as these women who are exploited are concerned. If we can break that link, we can do so much to change their situation and the lives of countless other young women who otherwise will continue to be exploited and brought into this country in that way.

Right now, paying for sex in this country is legal. As Alan Caton, a former detective superintendent of Suffolk constabulary, said:

“Sex buyers feel the current law gives them licence to exploit vulnerable women—and they are right.”

We have to remove that licence to exploit. The legality of paying for sex is a crucial factor in whether a country is an appealing destination for sex traffickers. An analysis of up to 150 countries found that reported human trafficking inflows were bigger—much bigger in some cases—in countries where prostitution is legal. Countries such as the Netherlands and Germany which have legalised paid-for prostitution now face the challenge of continued exploitation and high rates of trafficking. A retired police detective from Germany has described the country as a traffickers’ magnet and a

“centre for the sexual exploitation of young women from Eastern Europe, as well as a sphere of activity for organised crime groups from around the world.”

In a moment, I will explain why there is such a contrast between such countries and countries where paid-for prostitution has been criminalised.

Britain needs a sex buyer law: a three-pronged legal framework that criminalises paying for sex, decriminalises selling sex—we have to recognise that these women are victims—and supports those who are exploited through the sex trade to exit. When Stephen Harper’s Government introduced that approach in 2014, Peter MacKay, Canada’s former Justice Minister, explained that those who are paid for sex are decriminalised

“not because it authorizes or allows selling it, but rather because it treats sellers as victims of sexual exploitation, victims who need assistance in leaving prostitution and not punishment for the exploitation they’ve endured”.

Such a law here in the UK would send out a strong message, backed by legislative sanctions, that to exploit a person by trafficking them for sex is totally unacceptable and that those who do so will face consequences.

Sweden was the first country to adopt the sex buyer law in 1999. Under that law, by which it is an offence to buy sex, there have been approximately 3,000 convictions. The message has gone out loud and clear that there is no point trafficking people to Sweden to sell sex. Conversations between traffickers have been intercepted in which they have said, “Don’t bother sex trafficking to Sweden.” An official evaluation of its impact noted in 2010 that,

“according to the National Criminal Police, it is clear that the ban on the purchase of sexual services acts as a barrier to human traffickers and procurers considering establishing themselves in Sweden.”

Norway followed suit by adopting the sex buyer law in 2009. Again, an assessment of the law’s impact, which was commissioned by the Norwegian Government, concluded:

“A reduced market and increased law enforcement posit larger risks for human traffickers. The profit from human trafficking is...reduced due to these factors. The law has thus affected important pull factors and reduced the extent of human trafficking in Norway in comparison to a situation without a law.”

The nation to most recently adopt the sex buyer law was Northern Ireland. Proposed by Lord Morrow in his Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, it entered into force in June 2015. At a parliamentary event that I chaired to mark its introduction, I had the privilege of listening to the powerful testimony of prostitution survivor Mia de Faoite, who had testified before Northern Ireland’s Committee for Justice during their deliberations on the legislation. She very movingly told us that

“prostitution is the systematic stripping of one’s human dignity, and I know that because I have lived and witnessed it.”

Mia spent six years in prostitution on the streets of Dublin. The sex buyer law, she said,

“is about the protection of human dignity”

and

“the protection of freedom”.

As a member of the Modern Slavery Bill Committee in 2014, it was clear to me that to end sexual slavery we must end the demand driving it. That requires adopting a sex buyer law. Although the Modern Slavery Bill did not offer the legislative vehicle for this reform—the Committee did discuss it—it is crucial that we now move quickly to provide one. As I said in Parliament when speaking on that Committee,

“the majority of people who sell themselves for sex are incredibly vulnerable and subject to real exploitation.”

Whether or not they have been trafficked, they are

“often homeless, living in care and suffering from debt, substance abuse or violence. They have often experienced some form of coercion either through trafficking or from a partner, pimp or relative.”––[Official Report, Modern Slavery Public Bill Committee, 4 September 2014; c. 203.]

In adopting this reform, we would bust a business model for pimps and stop Britain being a lucrative destination for sex traffickers.

I welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s current inquiry into prostitution laws. It is possible to obtain a consensus across parties on this issue, and I hope that MPs of all parties will support the proposed sex buyer law and take this opportunity to stand up for vulnerable women from across the UK and, indeed, the world.