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A coalition of women's rights campaigners backed government
plans to criminalise men who go to prostitutes, urging the House of
Lords to pass a proposed new law.
The plans would make it an offence for anyone to buy, or try to
buy, sexual services from a prostitute who has been subjected to
violence, threats or coercion.
Campaigners call clause 13 in the Policing and Crime Bill
revolutionary because it shifts the burden of criminal
responsibility away from prostitutes and onto people who use their
services.
"What we hope with clause 13 is that we will see the traffickers in
the dock and also a couple of the punters too," Catherine Briddick,
Senior Legal Office at the group Rights of Women said.
The proposal has been approved by the House of Commons and needs to
be passed by the Lords before it can become law.
The vote is due towards the end of October or early
November.
The plans are opposed by the English Collective of Prostitutes
which argues the law would force prostitution underground and put
women at greater risk of violence.
Fiona Mactaggart MP, who chairs the Commons All-Party Group on
Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade, said there had also been
some opposition from peers who believed the strict liability
offence was unfair.
"A number of members of the House of Lords whose imaginations put
themselves more easily into the shoes of a buyer of sexual services
than in the shoes of exploited women, do see it as controversial,"
Mactaggart said.
"If we can show them the reality of life for women who have been
exploited in this way I think they will support the clause," she
said.
Campaigners acknowledged that clause 13 would be difficult to
enforce but hoped it would serve to deter people from using
prostitutes in the first place.
"There is a reasonable chance that there will be a substantial
change in behaviour, which will mean women will become less
marketable commodities," said Mactaggart.
She believes the law would change public attitudes to prostitutes
like attitudes to wearing seat belts dramatically changed when the
law came in enforcing them, despite there having been very few
actual prosecutions.
The coalition of groups supporting clause 13 includes leading
women's rights organisations, those working with trafficked women
and children and asylum seekers.
In a statement, they equated prostitution with violence against
women; saying that 71% of prostitutes had been physically attacked,
63% raped and 68% had suffered post traumatic stress disorder.
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