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Bedford v Canada: Report from the courtroom on prostitution law and sex work

22 June 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 3 comments | print print

Last October an historic decision was made in Ontario, Canada – suggesting that Canadian laws are antiquated, endanger people who sell sex and violate their civil rights. Immediately, opponents began crying about all the scary things that would happen if decriminalisation came to pass. Here is an interesting report on last week’s events in an appeals court, in which  the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network clearly supports sex worker rights. I added links to rights organisations.

Bedford v Canada: Report from an intervention

From June 13–17, 2011, five justices of the Ontario Court of Appeal heard arguments about the constitutionality of Criminal Code provisions relating to adult prostitution. This was an appeal of an Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision from September 2010, when Justice Susan Himel struck down the communication, bawdy house and living-onthe-avails provisions of the Criminal Code because she found they forced sex workers into more dangerous situations and contributed to a greater risk of violence and other threats to their health and safety.

Besides the applicants in the case (namely Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott — all current or former sex workers) and the Attorneys General of Ontario and Canada, seven groups were granted intervener status in order to assist the court with the issues before it. The seven interveners included a coalition of the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada and the Catholic Civil Rights League; a coalition of organizations that included the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres; the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; the B.C. Civil Liberties Association; a coalition of PACE, Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society (or “SWUAV” — both sex worker organizations in Vancouver) and Pivot Legal Society; a joint intervention from Maggie’s (Toronto sex worker organization) and POWER (Ottawa sex work organization); and a joint intervention from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE).

In their appeal, the Attorneys General of Canada and Ontario argued that the purpose of the prostitution-related provisions in the Criminal Code was to eradicate prostitution by discouraging sex work, an argument forcefully countered by Alan Young, a lawyer and professor at Osgoode Hall who represented the applicants. The Attorney General of Canada also argued that the law was not the cause of, nor did it facilitate, the harm sex workers face — an argument that did not seem to persuade the panel of judges.

Among the interveners, the coalition of PACE, SWUAV and Pivot was particularly compelling because it represented the perspective of street-based sex workers, upon whom the communicating provision has had a tremendously harmful impact in terms of safety and health. Counsel for PACE, SWUAV and Pivot as well as Maggie’s and POWER also decried the “asymmetrical” or “Swedish” model, whereby clients and employers of sex workers continue to be criminalized but sex workers are not. This argument, also endorsed by the Legal Network and the BC-CfE, submits that the asymmetrical approach fails to lessen or eliminate the risks to sex workers exacerbated by the current provisions. Under an asymmetrical regime, sex workers would continue to be prevented from screening their clients by negotiating in advance the terms of their transactions, since it would still be illegal for clients to engage in these communications. Also, sex workers would still be prevented from working indoors, where the work is safer, because the bawdy house law would apply to clients and others found on the premises. Additionally, it would still be illegal for sex workers to hire a bodyguard or a driver, since these persons could be criminalized by the living-on-the-avails provision.

The Legal Network and the BC-CfE argued that, in addition to the violence to which sex workers are subject as a result of the law, they are also prevented from taking precautions to negotiate and practise safer sex. The communicating provision, for example, hampers sex workers’ ability to negotiate condom use. Even more broadly, the criminalization of prostitution hinders sex workers’ access to health-care services, including HIV testing, education, prevention, care, treatment and support.

The impact of the prostitution laws on the health and safety of sex workers was a central theme at the Legal Network’s Symposium on HIV, Law and Human Rights held June 9– 10, where sex workers Émilie Laliberté (Stella) and Nikki Thomas (Sex Professionals of Canada) and lawyers Elin Sigurdson (SWUAV) and Alan Young were featured speakers. The timely discussion helped inform the pressing issue of “next steps” in the event of a positive or negative decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal and, ultimately, the Supreme Court of Canada. The road ahead is long, but one thing is certain: there is no shortage of passion, commitment and activism from sex workers and their colleagues to change the law to protect and promote the human rights of all sex workers.

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New Zealand fails to exclude migrants from its sex industry

8 June 2011 in migration, sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

For many interested in normalising the sex industry, New Zealand’s legislation seems the best. A couple of years ago I pointed out how this good legislation was instituted at the expense of migrants, with a clause prohibiting their legal employment thrown in as a sop to anti-trafficking zealots. This aspect of the law has failed, unsurprisingly to those who know that prohibitionist laws have no successful track record when sexual practices are concerned.

The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective estimates a third of sex workers in the country are now migrants. That is a lot. Many are Chinese. In 2008 a man jumped out a Chinese brothel window (photo) and died, apparently panicking at the police’s Gestapo tactics during an immigration raid. The following story does not explain whether brothels referred to are licensed but employing undocumented migrants or illegal themselves. Either way, it is clear that the decriminalisation of prostitution law excluding migrant sex workers has made their situation as risky and raid-ridden as is it in countries with other kinds of legislation – and in the name of anti-trafficking. Note: CBD means Central Business District in Auckland.

Chinese prostitutes worry sex industry

By Lincoln Tan, 11 April 2011, New Zealand Herald

Candice, a petite Chinese girl, fusses over a customer as she pours him a cup of oolong tea wearing nothing more than a see-through blood-red coloured camisole and knee-high fake leather boots. But behind her smile and calm appearance, the 21-year-old sex worker on Auckland’s North Shore confesses to be living on the edge. “I have to look happy, but I worry all the time if there is an immigration check or even if my client is an undercover immigration officer,” she said.

Candice is one of the many illegal prostitutes who arrive in New Zealand either on a visitor or student visa to work in the sex industry. The arrival of illegal Chinese sex workers have driven an industry that has been decriminalised back underground, says the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. “We’re now looking at two industries – an industry which is supported by decriminalisation, and an industry which is having to be underground again,” said Catherine Healey, the collective’s national co-ordinator, when asked how Chinese sex workers have influenced the sex industry here. “Predominantly, the illegal part of the industry is Chinese,” she said.

Although prostitution was decriminalised in 2003, it is illegal for those on a temporary visa, such as students and tourists, to work in the sex industry. The collective does not record if a prostitute is working illegally, but Miss Healey said Chinese now make up nearly a third of the 1700 sex workers in Auckland – outnumbering Maori and Pacific Islanders, and behind only Pakeha.

Last year Immigration New Zealand, which only investigates when a complaint is received, found at least eight foreign sex workers working illegally. A client, who frequents a Chinese “massage centre” in Takapuna, says the $40-per-hour charge was the draw. “Even with everything included, it rarely goes beyond $80 with one of these Chinese girls,” he said.

NZPC Auckland Manager Annah Pickering said other sex workers charged upwards of $100 per hour, and her organisation has produced a Chinese leaflet urging sex workers to “value themselves” and charge higher rates. Miss Pickering said because of the large number of Chinese sex workers here, it was now an “integral part” of its operations to have many of its information and education brochures translated into Chinese. A Chinese-speaking staff member had been employed by the collective, but she died suddenly from an illness earlier this year, and a replacement was being sought. Miss Pickering said about a third of the brothels and massage parlours in Auckland are run by Chinese operators.

One of them told the Herald it was common to let sex workers “freelance” at his brothel in the CBD. “They are just like customers renting a room from us. We do not employ them or pay them a commission, their customers are their paymasters,” explained one central city operator. “We don’t know and we don’t ask about their personal details, including their immigration status.”

Chinese sex workers, who spoke to the Herald on the basis of anonymity, said money was the main reason they came here and none had plans to settle here. “Even when I charge $80, it is more than I ever earn back in China,” said a 21-year-old from Hunan, here on a student visa. Despite her illegal immigration status, she felt “safe” working here because the only offence she was committing is with immigration and not the police.

A 19-year-old said she found New Zealand “boring” and believed she could do more with the money she earned here back in China.

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Conviction and punishment in Sweden for buying sex, 1999-2009

1 June 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 7 comments | print print

Back in March people in Canada contacted me to ask about Gunilla Ekberg’s claim, in talks given there, that there have been 3500 men found guilty under the Swedish law against buying sex (sexköpslagen) since it was passed in 1999. Why would Ekberg make a mistake about something that can be verified on the website of the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ)? The total is 757 over eleven years.

Until recently, the maximum penalty for those convicted of buying sex was six months in jail or a rather small fine. No one was ever jailed, as far as I can tell; jail-time is not mandated when penalties are minor. Therefore, the nearly unanimous vote in the Swedish parliament last month was about making it possible for a convicted person to go to jail, as a year-penalty pushes the crime upwards in importance. Perhaps one could say, then, that this apparently fierce vote was more about making the original 1999 law more coherent: if you seriously believe something is a crime, then you don’t want it to be never punished. If you see what I mean.

Numbers of convictions for buying sex in Sweden by year, 1999-2009

Source: BRÅ

Is this a large or small number of convictions? How many men were detained by the police but the case dropped? That information isn’t available. Activists and scholars tend to focus on the law’s rhetoric and presumptions, but it is never easy to put such a law into practice. Consider the document BRÅ published in 1999 on the subject of these difficulties from a policing point of view:

Evidential difficulties are the most common reason for the discontinuation of police investigations into suspected offences of this type. The most difficult thing to prove has been that the parties have entered into an agreement that sexual services will be provided in exchange for payment. It is an offence without a complainant and even though the prostitutes are obliged to give evidence, this obligation is limited since they are not obliged to reveal that they have themselves participated in an act of prostitution. Even if the prostitutes might consider giving evidence about the incident, it has been deemed difficult to reach them to obtain their co-operation in investigations since they often have no fixed address or telephone number.

So although the Swedish parliament recently raised the maximum penalty from six months’ incarceration to a year, the difficulty of getting convictions remains.

Thanks to Louise Persson for help with the numbers.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Satanic Sex on Sunday: Gunilla Ekberg, Sex War and Extremist Feminism

1 May 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 10 comments | print print

Feminist Satanism. No, that’s not right. Satanic Feminists. To be fair, no, it should be Feminists Who Believe Men are Pedophilic Satanists (or Satanist Pedophiles). No matter how you look at it, these words don’t immediately make sense together. This is the Rescue Industry with a vengeance – and Extremist Feminism indeed.

Gunilla Ekberg has not appeared in public in Sweden in quite a while, I believe, but she has been giving anti-prostitution talks in Canada in support of a campaign to defeat Judge Himel’s decision to decriminalise many aspects of sex work in Ontario (Ekberg is apparently a citizen of Canada now). Admirers in Canada are billing her as a famous international lawyer, but she was publicly criticised in Sweden for calling herself a lawyer – does anyone know about Canada?  Her notoriety derives from her unyielding attitude as a campaigner, so authoritarian even some Swedes with similar ideas stopped wanting to be associated with her.

In 2005 she worked for Sweden’s Ministry of Industry as an expert on prostitution and was closely allied with ROKS, an organisation that runs shelters for women in trouble. At the time, ROKS’s management claimed Swedish patriarchy could usefully be compared to Afghanistan’s and advocated separatism: women living apart from men. As if this were not enough, ROKS management came to believe that pedophilic satanism was a real threat to girls and women in Sweden. Phew.

Eva Lundgren: There are grim rituals where foetuses are cut out of wombs, cut into pieces and sacrificed.

Other European countries have suffered mad bouts of belief in satanic cults in history, and the US is famous for its Satanic Panic all through the 1980s, but the oddity with Sweden is how such extremism can dwell so very close to mainstream government: get funding, have prestige, function as if ordinary and unremarkable.

The story of Ekberg’s embarrassing moment and public disgrace occurred in 2005, when journalist Evin Rubar (a woman) was making a programme about ROKS for Swedish Television, Könskriget (Sex War – link to first part),  in which the story of the satanic pedophiles is told, including the testimony of a young woman supposedly saved by ROKS who complains about her treatment by the rescuers. You will see in the clip below that Rubar, assuming Ekberg to have been closely involved, asks questions Ekberg refuses to answer. Leaving the room, Ekberg, assuming the microphone is off, threatens Rubar: Don’t count on any help from the shelters. The whole Sex War programme is two hours long; this is the clip in which Ekberg threatens Rubar:

Ekberg did not lose her job over this, but she did eventually leave it. The affair generated much criticism of her behaviour and that of the ROKS people, who come across as maniacs (at least one writer calling their thought patterns feminist fundamentalism, with which I concur, here on the blog and in Sex at the Margins). Numerous Swedish bloggers followed the disgraceful affair, reported here in the newspaper Aftonbladet. The ROKS manager was replaced.

Here is Part One of Sex War in Swedish, and here is a website that does a summary in English. After which, you will need a laugh.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Europe’s anti-prostitution initiatives multiply: EU itself and now France

15 April 2011 in migration by laura agustin | 13 comments | print print

Anyone with romantic ideas about Europe’s sophisticated tolerance of all matters sexual is due for disenchantment. A Europe free from prostitution is the name of the European Women’s Lobby’s campaign, which I find questionable because they receive public funding from the EU yet several member states permit and regulate at least some forms of selling sex. But the EWL have always had a political commitment ‘to work towards a Europe free from prostitution, by supporting key abolitionist principles which state that the prostitution of women and girls constitutes a fundamental violation of women’s human rights, a serious form of male violence against women, and a key obstacle to gender equality in our societies.‘

Then last December the European Parliament passed new rules against trafficking that included the recommendation ‘to discourage demand, Member States should also consider taking measures to establish as a criminal offence the use of services of a victim, with the knowledge that he/she has been trafficked.’ This is a perfect example of the slide between anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution.

However, France has responded positively to the idea and is now the latest country to put criminalising clients of sex workers on the mainstream political agenda. Note that sponsorship of the law comes from both left- and right-wing parties (this is usual). And that France has prohibited indoor prostitution (maisons closes/brothels) for 65 years and persecutes migrant sex workers regularly outdoors. Forget the romantic cliché.

France considers making prostitution illegal – Excerpts from The Telegraph, 14 April 2011

A parliamentary commission of French MPs on Wednesday recommended treating the clients of prostitutes as criminals who should face fines of up to £2,500 or prison. The Socialist Danielle Bousquet and Guy Geoffroy of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP said that 80 per cent of the estimated 20,000 sex-workers in France were foreigners and victims of slavery or trafficking. [Note from LA: this claim from a UN report in 2009 has never been and cannot be substantiated.]

“To penalise clients is to make them understand that they are participating in a form of exploitation of the vulnerability of others,” said their report. Roselyne Bachelot, the social affairs minister, said she supported the proposals. “There is no such thing as freely chosen and consenting prostitution. The sale of sexual acts means women’s bodies are made available for men, independently of the wishes of those women.”

While proposals for a law could be drawn up this month, it is unlikely to reach parliament before next year. In France brothels have been illegal since 1946 and pimping is against the law as is paying for sex with a minor. But prostitution is not outlawed. Mr Sarkozy toughened prostitution rules in 2003 while interior minister in a controversial law forbidding women to loiter in prostitution hang outs in revealing clothes. Sex-workers’ groups in France regularly stage demonstrations demanding a proper legal status. A recent survey found six out of ten French men and women wanted brothels to be legalised. . .

Les deux cotés du debat, de Libération

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Truckers, truck stops, lot lizards and sex trafficking victims: what confusion

11 April 2011 in sex work, trafficking by laura agustin | 4 comments | print print

The incredible double-messaging of US prostitution law finds perfect expression in two recent stories from the state of Oklahoma. In one, everyone agrees that prostitutes are a nuisance and a judge forces the owners of a rest stop to post signs, fix a fence, provide cctv and hire guards to arrest sex workers. (The name lot lizards presumably refers to how baking-hot people get hanging around on black asphalt in the sun.) In the second, truckers are admonished to understand that sex workers are victims of trafficking who are passively transported and need rescuing, the focus being, of course, on adolescents (who, we learned the other day, are mostly running away from home.)

One would almost think these stories are describing two separate groups, one that’s bad and one that’s good, but that’s not true, of course. All the people involved are selling sex in truckers’ rest stops. Some truckers are buying sex. Some owners of truck stops are willing for this trade to go on. For people who don’t want it to go on, however, there are two choices: blame the sex workers or rescue the victims. Very confusing.

Truck stop ordered to clean up prostitute problems

Jesse Wells, 8 April 2011, KFOR

Oklahoma City — An Oklahoma County judge forces a metro truck stop to clean up it’s act. . . “The Five Star was symbolic of the worst problem of prostitution in the city,” video vigilante Brian Bates said. For a long time, Oklahoma City police negotiated with the truck stop owners to curtail the illegal activity but got no results. That’s when they took the issue to court. “Prostitution had been running rampant at that business and the owner wasn’t doing anything to stop it,” explains Oklahoma City Police MSgt. Gary Knight.

The court order will now force the business to post additional “no trespassing” and “no soliciting” signs, repair and enhance the fencing, provide continuous video surveillance and hire security guards who can arrest prostitutes day or night. . .

Oklahoma truckers learn how to stop human trafficking

By Kristi Eaton, 25 March 2011, Associated Press/TheTrucker.com

Oklahoma City — It’s been nearly 30 years, but Mark Brown still remembers the face of the teenage girl who approached him at a truck stop in California. He’d just finished a long day of driving across the country when the girl, who wasn’t more than 15 or 16 years old, knocked on his window and asked if he wanted a date. He said he ignored her and let her proceed down the row of trucks, knocking on windows trying to sell her body for money. “I still regret that decision to this day,” he said. “I should have helped her.”

Brown now uses his position as assistant director of Driving Instruction at Central Tech in Drumright to teach new drivers about what they can do combat the industry’s hidden secret. He passes out wallet cards with tips and information to students and is going to distribute a training video to other schools across the country about human trafficking. And it’s all because of a partnership with Truckers Against Trafficking, an initiative that hopes to educate and raise awareness about domestic sex trafficking along the nation’s highways. The program by the anti-human trafficking organization Chapter 61 Ministries specifically targets young girls and boys who it says are transported across the country to prostitute at truck stops and plazas.

Lyn Thompson, who started Chapter 61 Ministries in 2007 with her four daughters and a family friend, said she developed the idea for Truckers Against Trafficking after learning the important role gas station attendants play in identifying victims of human trafficking. Taking it one step further, she began focusing on truck drivers. “Traffickers have to transport their victims, whether by plane, train, ship, bus, car or truck,” said Thompson, a Tulsa resident who acts as a national coordinator for the initiative. “So, all the transportation industries are first-line defenders against this crime.”

The girls and boys who work the trucks stops and plazas are called “lot lizards,” said Kendis Paris, a national coordinator for TAT based in Denver. She said the group is focusing on kids under the age of 18 because by law, they are victims of human trafficking if forced into the sex trade. “I honestly don’t think anybody wakes up and says, ‘I want to sell my body,’ but the kids really have no choice,” she said, adding that many are runaways who have been coerced into prostitution. By attending trucking industry events and meetings, Paris hopes to get the wallet cards in to the hands of every trucker in America. Trucker drivers can call a hotline number listed to report a crime or ask questions if they are unsure something illegal is taking place.

“The issue is difficult to police or get control of, so that’s why TAT’s effort is so important, because we feel like if we can educate the professional truck driver, nine out of 10 of them are going to want to get these people arrested who are doing this stuff,” said truck stop plaza owner Sam Smith, who has hung up TAT posters and distributed wallet cards to drivers at his Nashville, Tenn., store.

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Sex slavery scare called a waste of time in Kansas

2 April 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 6 comments | print print

How very interesting to read an anti-panicky editorial in the midwestern US state of Kansas. The common-sense argument here says no cases of sex slavery have been found in strip clubs, police should pursue such cases where they do hear about them and the morality of a few should not be legislated for all. The editor asks what lawmakers should be spending their time on, especially given that a similar effort was made by anti-prostitution campaigners last year. Dizzying reasonableness.

Editorial: Strip club bill wastes time

19 March 2011, The Topeka Capital-Journal

Republican leaders in the Kansas Senate see no reason to spend time working on a bill that probably would regulate adult entertainment clubs and stores out of business. Neither do we. A similar bill was introduced and subsequently rejected last year. There’s no reason to waste more time on the issue this year, especially given other important issues — including budget deficits — facing legislators.

Supporters of the bill — known as the “community defense act” — contend adult entertainment businesses, strip clubs if you will, are host sites for illegal activities ranging from drug sales and prostitution to sex slavery. We don’t know how much, if any, marijuana or cocaine is being sold at strip clubs across Kansas, but we’re pretty sure that putting the clubs out of business entirely wouldn’t eliminate one dealer or inconvenience one user. Anyone who wants to buy illegal drugs doesn’t have to go anywhere near an adult club to find them.

As far as the adult clubs in Kansas being hot beds of prostitution and sex slavery, we know of no one who has ever produced specific cases or statistics to back up such claims. Sex slavery is a heinous crime and any law enforcement officer who really suspects it’s going on anywhere should be conducting investigations and making arrests. No, the real issue here is that the adult clubs offend the morals of some among us. We understand that, and know their moral outrage is sincere. However, legislation that would force all to adhere to the morals of some is bad legislation. Granted, no one wants a strip club next to their home, their church or their children’s school. But those are zoning issues that can be handled by local governments without state interference.

The “community defense act” would prohibit full nudity at adult entertainment clubs, force them to close between midnight and 6 a.m., require performers to stay at least 6 feet from the customers and forbid contact between performers and customers. It also would require new clubs, adult bookstores, video stores, theaters, modeling studios and sexual device shops to be more than 1,000 feet from any church, library, park, school or day care center.

Proponents say the bill, which originated in the House and was passed along to the Senate, is not an attempt to legislate morality or regulate sexually oriented businesses out of existence. It is exactly that, and no more time should be spent on it. The clubs, book stores and shops will close their doors when they aren’t generating enough traffic to make a profit. But as long as communities are supporting them financially, the Legislature should stay out of their business and find other things to do. . .

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Bangalore sex workers reject rescue by Supreme Court judge

29 March 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 4 comments | print print

In the hierarchy of the Rescue Industry a Supreme Court judge must rank very high. Here is one in India who surpassed himself whilst deciding on a murderer’s appeal. Not only should the murderer go to prison for life but all sex workers should be given vocational training so they can change occupations. Is this not truly daft? Ideology aside, I mean: there simply are not alternate jobs for everyone in the world who doesn’t have a super-nice one, particularly if you care about money. How does this 19th-century ‘alternate’ idea manage to hold on in today’s world? Sex workers in Bangalore, whose union is affiliated with the New Trade Union Initiative,  explained succinctly why rescue and rehabilitation are not what they want: see below in red under Collective Power.

Rehabilitation cuts no ice with India’s sex workers

By Astrid Zweynert, 28 March 2011, TrustLaw

It was a noble sentiment when India’s highest court proclaimed that sex workers had a right to life and dignity, just like anybody else under the country’s constitution. Dismissing an appeal by a man sentenced to life for murdering a sex worker, the Supreme Court also directed the government to provide vocational training to sex workers to help rehabilitate them. “A woman is compelled to indulge in prostitution not for pleasure but because of abject poverty,” the court said last month. “If such woman is granted opportunity to avail some technical or vocational training, she would be able to earn her livelihood by such vocational training and skill instead of selling her body.”

Sex workers were not impressed. “This is feeble sympathy,” Veena, a transgender sex worker, told TrustLaw. Veena represents Karnataka Sex Workers Union in the southern city of Bangalore.

What many sex workers want more than anything is to have their work decriminalised. In India, selling sex is not illegal but activities around sex work, such as soliciting or running a brothel, are punishable with fines and even imprisonment. “If we can’t solicit clients without getting arrested, we will naturally rely on pimps to carry on our trade,” Veena said. “What we need are practical measures that free us from exploitation created by the law itself.”

The government has until May 4 to detail the steps it is taking to implement vocational training. But one thing is for sure among sex workers – forced rehabilitations carried out by the state in the name of “rescuing them from their plight” is not the way forward.

Collective Power

The idea that sex workers should be rehabilitated may be almost as old as the profession itself. It comes from a belief that every sex worker wants to get out of sex work. To be sure, many sex workers in India enter the trade against their will. Levels of violence against sex workers are high and they grapple with other problems, such as access to health care and high HIV infection rates. But campaigners argue that this does not necessarily mean they want to change their way of life and enter rehabilitation schemes that are based on the moralistic premise that sex work is immoral.

They also say such thinking does a great disservice to the collective struggles by the sex workers’ movement in India, which for nearly a decade has been demanding rights, not sympathy. . .

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The right to have rights: Undocumented migration and health care in Germany

8 February 2011 in migration by laura agustin | No comments | print print

Kein Mensch Ist Illegal: No One is Illegal reads the German pavement art. When I was doing research on migration in Spain, it was understood amongst NGOs and activists that undocumented migrants did indeed have the right to health care from publicly-funded institutions (public health clinics, notably). This right was not advertised anywhere, however, nor did any government spokesperson come out and say it in public. To know that you would be attended if you showed up at a public clinic, someone else had to tell you first – either another, more clued-in migrant or some person in solidarity with migrants.

I have doubts about the concept of rights in general, myself, and in particular that of human rights, but the academic author of an article denouncing Germany’s situation accepts them unquestioningly. The conundrum rests in the fact that migrants don’t legally exist in countries they have entered without documentation. Since they don’t have citizens’ (legal residents’) rights there, human rights to health are claimed, in tandem with arguments that in the country under discussion health care is considered a right.

The following are excerpts from the full article:

Illegal Migrants Languish in German Health Care System

Rajiv Kunwar, IDN-InDepth News

Germany’s immigration policies focus mainly on combating illegal immigration, without any attention to the rights of undocumented migrants. In principle, there are certain minimal rights available to undocumented immigrants in Germany, including a reduced level of medical treatment. Several studies, however, have shown that in practice these migrants are hardly in a position to avail of their right to seeking medical care. The exclusion from full social benefits stems from the Government’s fear of creating any additional pull factors which might encourage further immigration. Undocumented migrants’ human rights are in no way sufficiently protected in Germany where the access to healthcare is governed by highly restrictive regulations. Medical assistance to this segment of the population is hampered as well as criminalised through the legal framework. Paragraphs 87 and 96 of the . . .  Residence Act) . . .  require public institutions to report illegal immigrants to the foreigners’ registration office. While hospitals and independent physicians are not obliged to do so, social welfare offices have to adhere to this law. This dismal situation is putting tremendous pressure on healthcare professionals and social workers who often work with limited resources to defend migrants’ fundamental rights to healthcare.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Texas prostitution policy sends sex workers to jail, costs taxpayers a fortune

1 February 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 4 comments | print print

Talking about human rights and pity goes nowhere with some people who want to end prostitution. What about how much it costs to jail them, then? Do the taxpayers of Harris County, Texas, really want to be spending $2.3 million a year housing and feeding sex workers? Do all Texas taxpayers want to use $8 million for this? It is inconceivable. This story quotes women who sell sex in order to buy drugs about their repeated arrests and how they feel about a new programme to help them get unaddicted. What’s missing are the figures on just how much the rehabilitation costs in money (leaving self-esteem, rights and all other humanist values aside), and how they calculate that cost. Such rehabilitation programmes are not for everyone, whether they are addicted to a drug or not, but it seems obvious that everyone in a prohibitionist context should get a chance to try it.

Millions of tax dollars spent yearly to incarcerate prostitutes

by Dave Fehling, 27 January 2011, khou.com

Houston: Every year, millions of tax dollars in Texas are spent on prostitutes. The money goes for housing hundreds of them in Texas prisons and Harris County jails. The 11 News I-Team found Texas has tougher laws for prostitution than most states, which can mean prostitutes can be charged as felons. That qualifies them for prison.

But the I-Team found one relatively new program in Houston that may be a far more cost-effective way to prosecute prostitutes. In researching the story, the I-Team talked with three former prostitutes about their previous lives and the punishment they faced.

“Do what you do, it’s over in a few minutes and you got this money,” said Loisteen Phillips. “You can go anywhere to find a customer,” she said of her time spent selling her services in Houston.
“If he looked like a treat, we tricked him,” said Alfonette Thomas.
“(It’s) the oldest profession on the face of the earth,” said Kathryn Griffin Townsend. Townsend and Phillips said they were repeatedly arrested. “Many times,” said Phillips. She said she had over 20 arrests.[The Harris County jail] became a home away from home for me, a revolving door,” Phillips said.

They were hardly alone. At the county jail recently, there were 130 inmates charged with prostitution. Assuming that number is constant for a year, and with each alleged prostitute costing just under $50 a day to care for, Harris County taxpayers are therefore spending some $2.3 million a year on them.

Then there’s the state prison system. The 11 News I-Team found that Texas is one of only seven states where prostitution can even get you time in prison (the other states besides Texas that make repeat offenses a potential felony are Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois and Michigan).

The I-Team checked Texas prison data and found that in 2009, the state held over 300 female prostitutes at a total estimated cost to taxpayers of nearly $8 million a year.

“Three or more prostitution convictions, we’ll send you to prison five or 10 years. No other state even thinks about that,” said State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. “I had no idea how severe the penalties were,” said former prostitute Townsend, who moved here from California. “I was terrified,” she said about getting sent to prison. She said she actually did spend one year in a Texas facility. It convinced her that she wanted to quit prostitution.

But here’s the thing: each of the women told the I-Team that prostitution wasn’t their real problem — drugs were. “I wanted my high, I wanted my drug,” said Thomas. Townsend agreed. “Drugs had become the pimp,” she said. Probation officers and court employees said it is the common denominator when they work with prostitutes. “The ladies are in prostitution to support their drug habit,” said Bernadine Gatling, with Harris County Community Supervision.

But as the I-Team found at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, there’s now a new way to prosecute prostitutes. It’s called the STAR court (Success Through Addiction Recovery). The court launched in 2003, and its aim was to exclusively handle addicts, male and female, getting them into treatment — not jail — so they hopefully wouldn’t come back. Of the women who began showing up in front of the STAR court judges, one thing stood out: the majority of them were, or had been, prostitutes. But now, instead of being sent back to jail, they’re getting drug treatment — closely supervised by a judge, who they have to report to weekly. The court has a vastly different decorum than what you might expect.

One of the judges who rotates through the court, Denise Bradley, smiled as she greeted the women, one after another, as they reported their progress to her in various recovery programs. After one woman told the judge about her arrest on cocaine charges and her ongoing substance abuse treatment, Judge Bradley told her: “You’re doing great, we’re very proud of you.” Then, the courtroom erupted in applause from the other offenders, as well as court personnel. “It’s so night and day from what it would be in a regular criminal court,” said Townsend. She went through the STAR program and said it saved her life. Phillips said the same. “They have people who come teach you about how to get a job, how to be a lady, how to talk, how to recognize your defects of character,” said Phillips.

The court staff who runs the program told 11 News it doesn’t work for everyone, but it sure beats just sending them to jail over and over and at a fraction of the cost. “I have quite a few ladies that are doing very well,” said Gatling with Community Supervision. Bradley agreed. “I’d say it’s one of the most effective uses of taxpayer dollars that occur here in the courthouse,” she said. Currently, the program can help only a fraction of the women prosecuted in Harris County for prostitution.

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