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Eagle Eye
Clause 14, which sex workers led by the English Collective of Prostitutes have battled so hard to remove from the Policing and Crime Bill, was passed in the House of Lords yesterday.
This means not only that clients will be criminalised, but that prostitutes will be even less safe than before to conduct their business than before.
The rape of a prostitute, for example, has been reduced to a lesser offence than against any other person, and will be punishable only by a fine. This point alone is an outrage – we’re supposed to be working to increase convictions for rape, not diminishing the seriousness of the crime.
“Making it a strict liability offence deprives clients of any defence and undermines a fundamental principle of the law that “intention” is needed to prove guilt,” says the ECP. “Prostitution is being used to undermine fundamental rights, no doubt with dangerous consequences.
I’ve already made it clear that I suspect many sex workers are working under duress, whether from a partner, pimp or simply economic circumstance – in other words, they are often denied certain human rights the rest of us take for granted.
Now they’re being treated like second class citizens in the eyes of the law too.
