Politics 15 January 2012 Why prostitutes are living in a "climate of fear" Police crackdowns on brothel-keeping mean that sex workers are unwilling to report intimidation and Print HTML The trial of Sheila Farmer, an escort with a malignant brain tumor and diabetes charged with brothel-keeping, collapsed on 4 January after the prosecution failed to bring a witness to testify against her. Farmer, who worked with friends for safety after she was violently raped working alone, is one of hundreds of sex workers who have been arrested since April 2010, when the revised Policing and Crime Act 2009 legislation increased police powers to raid suspected brothels and tightened the law on soliciting clients for the purposes of prostitution. Statistics surrounding sex work prosecutions are slippery but it seems that since April 2010, the CPS has brought 967 prosecutions for soliciting and 261 prosecutions for brothel-keeping. While the Home Office statistics cannot provide a breakdown of the number of sex workers charged with the brothel-keeping offence, the anecdotal evidence from campaign groups, workers themselves, and a trawl-through local newspaper reports since April 2010 suggests that sex worker arrests in general, and prosecutions specifically for brothel-keeping, have significantly risen. In July 2011, the Guardian reported that the number of prosecutions for sex trafficking stood at around 100 a year, resulting in a paltry 40 convictions since the PCA 2009 came into force. A law designed to prosecute those guilty of sexual exploitation and to decriminalise those who sell sex is achieving the opposite. Being arrested for soliciting is obviously detrimental to sex workers. Once charged, not complying with rehabilitation requirements (attending meetings in which workers agree to stop soliciting) can mean prison. But the brothel-keeping offence is just as, if not more, nefarious, because it forces sex workers to operate alone or face arrest. It therefore increases their vulnerability if they do choose to work indoors, and makes street work a seemingly viable alternative, which directly contradicts the CPS's public interest statement on sex work which is "to keep prostitutes off the street". As in Sheila Farmer's case, the individual whose name is on the tenancy agreement becomes liable for the exploitation of anyone else who sells services on those premises. Put simply, there is no such thing as legal co-working. What's more, arresting for brothel-keeping has never been easier nor more lucrative. In recent years, police have had a vested interest in raiding brothels because of the potential assets they can seize under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Since Clause 21 of the PCA 2009 was introduced, police only need suspect, rather than prove, that a brothel employs trafficked or 'coerced' workers in order to issue a brothel closure order, before seizing whatever money or goods they find, keeping 50 per cent for the force itself. Data for the number of closure orders is not centrally collected and remains conveniently unavailable. This is the reason that many are asking whether the police's pursuit of profit is compromising sex worker safety. In London in particular, a crackdown on prostitution prior to the Olympics is creating what the International Union of Sex Workers' Catherine Stephens describes as "a climate of fear". She told me of how women running a brothel in a private rented property were accosted by 10-man gang: "They broke into the premises one night when two of [the women] were working. One of the girls thought some of them were armed. When they went to report the incident at the police station, the desk sergeant said, 'You do realise you're at risk of eviction if you carry on telling me what you are telling me?' He was more interested in nicking a couple of discreet sex workers for brothel-keeping than arresting a violent, armed gang." For every story like this, there are a dozen more. Up and down the country, incidences of violence and intimidation against sex workers now go unreported to the police. Better to risk a punch in the face than a prison sentence. The CPS guidelines on brothel-keeping stress that it is the amount of money made which should influence whether a prosecution is pursued. Neither co-working for safety, nor any notion of choice, non-coercion or freedom of employment matters when it comes to criminalising those who sell sex. Isn't it time for the policing and criminal justice system to recognise, rather than penalise, the potential vulnerability of those in the industry, whatever the circumstances of their organisation? Let's hope that Shelia Farmer's acquittal marks the start of that duty of care. Nichi Hodgson is a 28-year-old freelance journalist specialising in sexual politics, law and culture. › You win nothing in politics just for being right Nichi Hodgson is a writer and broadcaster specialising in sexual politics, censorship, and human rights. Her first book, Bound To You, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is out now. She tweets @NichiHodgson. More Related articles Kezia Dugdale warns Brexit could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom Six months in, Jeremy Corbyn is already one of history's great opposition leaders Steel is not a sunset industry – it’s the linchpin of our economy
Show Hide image Europe 4 April 2016 Why did European intelligence agencies fail to stop the Brussels attacks? Almost all of the recent terror attacks in Europe were carried out by our own people. So how can we stop another? Print HTML The day after the Brussels attacks, in which 32 people died at Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek Metro station, I travelled to the Belgian capital and found an alarming lack of urgency among the forces of law and order. While some of the press reported that there were armed police on the streets, I witnessed only the lightest of security presences wherever I went. When I visited the suspected “bomb factory” in Schaerbeek, where the hardware for the November attacks in Paris was made, it seemed like any other day in the troubled district. British officials, by contrast, were much more proactive at St Pancras Station in London before I boarded the Eurostar: there was an increased police presence, as well as enhanced security checks and sniffer dogs. In the UK, intelligence officers have long grumbled about the incompetence of their Belgian counterparts, complaining about a lack of sophistication to their tradecraft and approach. What I saw on my visit to Brussels – the somewhat minimalist approach to security just days after the deadliest terror attack in Belgium’s history – gave me reason to believe this. The most worrying aspect of the Brussels bombings is the extent to which they expose how European intelligence agencies frequently miss the people they should be catching. The three suicide attackers were known to the security services and were suspected of moving within radical networks, yet somehow they managed to evade arrest for months before launching their attacks. One of the operatives in the plot, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, who blew himself up at Zaventem, was suspected of having tried to join Islamic State in Syria. When he arrived in Turkey in June last year security officials there arrested him, but were told by their Belgian counterparts that he was no of interest to them. He was eventually deported to the Netherlands, where he had originally caught the flight to Turkey. The same is true for the mastermind of the co-ordinated series of terror attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people. Abdelhamid Abaaoud was a known extremist and had appeared many times in Islamic State propaganda. Despite this, he seems to have moved freely back and forth between Belgium and Syria, and is suspected of orchestrating several terrorist plots in Belgium and France in the past two years. The number of Europeans who have joined militant groups in Syria and Iraq over the past couple of years has taken intelligence agencies by surprise. No one could have foreseen just how quickly or how many would travel out. A large proportion of those who went were “clean skins”: that is, they had no prior history of radical activism and were unknown to the authorities. The best example of someone like that in Britain is Roshonara Choudhry, who in May 2010 stabbed the Labour MP Stephen Timms during a constituency surgery in the East End of London, as “punishment” for having supported the war in Iraq. The Choudhry case showed just how difficult it is to stop someone who self-radicalises and has no history of troublesome associations. To miss these plots is one thing, but to let known radicals slip through the net, as happened in Belgium, is quite another. The attacks there have led to soul-searching about why that country was a target for home-grown terrorists nurtured by Islamic State. (Two of the attackers, the el-Bakraoui brothers, were born in Brussels; the third jihadi, Najim Laachraoui, was raised there.) Like France, Belgium has deep problems with its Muslim immigrant communities. Parts of the Belgian capital, such as Schaerbeek, have become hotbeds of radicalisation and, like the notorious Molenbeek, are isolated and detached. Belgium has more foreign fighters per capita than any other country in Europe – roughly 46 per million people. According to a study by the Soufan Group, the New York-based security intelligence consultancy, 74 per cent of the estimated 5,000 European jihadi fighters in Syria and Iraq are from four countries: Belgium, France, Britain and Germany. Another consequence of the Brussels attacks has been renewed debate about refugees and migrants. Some politicians and newspaper columnists insist that refugees are largely to blame for the worsening security crisis in western Europe and that immediate action must be taken to halt the flow. There is a broader discussion to be had about the merits or otherwise of mass migration, though it has nothing to do with security. Almost all of the recent attacks in Europe have been carried out by our own citizens, people who were born and raised in the very countries they now wish to destroy. It is this problem that has to be addressed if we are to mitigate the terrorist threat in Europe. Much is made of the supposed sophistication of Islamic State’s propaganda, but its strength lies in its simplicity. The argument is binary and primitive, revolving around ideas of social deprivation, racism, identity and acceptance. The group’s messaging tells Muslims to join IS in the self-proclaimed caliphate because issues of race and identity melt away there. It offers an alternative identity, one that transcends culture and geography by anchoring itself in confessional and kindred terms by which all Muslims belong to a fraternity of the faithful, through the umma. There is little religious or ideological messaging from IS (by contrast, al-Qaeda has always spoken a much more religious language and offered a greater ideological challenge). This approach finds a ready audience in those parallel and separate worlds – the Molenbeek or Schaerbeek communes of Brussels, or the French banlieue. Shiraz Maher is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and a senior research fellow at King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation Shiraz Maher is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and a senior research fellow at King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. This article first appeared in the 31 March 2016 issue of the New Statesman, The terror trail More Related articles Jacob Zuma’s week from hell The colonel's revenge: on the battle against Islamic State in Iraq Here’s why nothing – and no one – can stop me running up and down escalators
