Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is vowing to outlaw prostitution. Sanchez says the practice “enslaves” women. The unregulated prostitution industry was decriminalised in Spain in 1995. So long as paid sex services don’t take place in public places and the sex worker is offering their services of their own free will, no law is broken. Read more
It is 8am and the rain is coming down in sheets. The streets are empty except for a dozen women and their pimps – women from some of the world’s poorest regions including Moldova, Romania, West Africa and Southeast Asia. Some are still in their teens. Not far away are numerous massage parlors and saunas offering women Read more
One of the most persuasive myths about prostitution is that it is “the oldest profession”. Feminist abolitionists, who wish to see an end to the sex trade, call it “the oldest oppression” and resist the notion that prostitution is merely “a job like any other”. Now it would appear that the New Zealand immigration service Read more
The owner of Whangarei’s new ethical brothel has hit out at Work and Income New Zealand for blocking her efforts to find would-be sex workers from the ranks of the unemployed. Antonia Murphy who opened The Bach, in Whangarei, four months ago asked if it was morally better to sell 40-plus hours a week of Read more
Nearly 21 million people around the world are currently victims of human trafficking, a vile crime that forces innocents into sex work, domestic servitude and hard labor against their will. Now, a new study in the American Journal of Public Health reveals that even rich, developed countries such as the United Kingdom suffer from staggering rates of Read more
Crystal was 13 years old when she met her pimp. Of course, she didn’t think of him as a pimp; he was her boyfriend, her savior, the man who doted on her and gave her the things her parents couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. “You know how you’re a little girl and you dream of Prince Read more
February 8 was the first International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. An initiative of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Travellers, it occurs on the feast of St Josephine Bakhita who was kidnapped by slave traders, sold into slavery five times, experienced daily beatings and was used as Read more
It’s Saturday afternoon and in an unmarked police car in central London a burly policeman is accompanied by a tiny, bird-like nun. A raid is about to take place on a brothel whose inhabitants, the police believe, include women who have been trafficked into Britain from eastern Europe. The nun is an integral part of Read more
Former prostitutes and their advocates are calling for clients of sex workers to be prosecuted, saying the decriminalisation of the industry has failed them. Freedom from Sexual Exploitation director Elizabeth Subritzky told Parliament’s justice and electoral committee the only solution to the damage that prostitution caused, and the violence it created, was to prosecute buyers Read more
Pope Francis wants action against modern forms of slavery including forced labour and prostitution, the Vatican said on Monday after a meeting of experts called by the pontiff to debate the problem. “Some experts believe human trafficking will overtake drug and arms trafficking in a decade, becoming the most lucrative criminal activity in the world,” Read more