Canada lower house passes Swedish Model

[Loren Pechtel]

I disagree. It's one-sided nature is worse than our rules.

Either way prostitution will still exist.
In China banning it didn't make it unpopular. In fact it's rampant

Yup. My wife was very surprised when she found out there was a small brothel across the street from where we stay over there.

 

[Jokodo]

Illiberal streams in French politics.

How does that justify criminalizing the customers but not providers?

You have not connected the dots. So, I will do that for you. Those foreign born and foreign import prostitutes are the product of human trafficking. Why would you want to penalize them as victims of human trafficking? Of course, you would if you do not consider humans who are being trafficked as victims.

If it turned out that 90% of drug dealers were foreign born does that justify criminalizing drug buyers but not sellers?
Instead of criminalizing people that want to engage in sex between consenting adults maybe the government should go after human trafficking.

Why are you assuming that the French government does not go after human trafficking?

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/fr...human-rights/fight-against-human-trafficking/



Not criminalizing the victims is a recognition that this is not about the rosy scenario of "people who want to engage in sex in between consenting adults". Rather the repeated infernal vicious circle of "recruiters" exploiting the state of dire poverty of those foreign women/girls, promising them a better life in France. Among those recruiters, pseudo modeling agencies operating in ex Eastern Block nations. In Sub Sahara Africa, these women are recruited under the promise of a wealthy French family hiring them "au pair", granting housing, food and a salary. To include the possibility they may even be able to get an education. Of course, upon their arrival, they are "greeted" by pimps who will exploit them for sex trafficking.

Human trafficking is intense in the Western world. The way to fight it is to deprive those organized rings from their financial resources. Financial resources being the customers.

It was not that hard to connect those dots, Derec.

However, just because a sex worker is foreign born doesn't make her a victim of trafficking.

You strike me as someone who is totally unaware as to how human trafficking works. How French internal organized prostitution rings will operate and where and why. Of course I am a reasonable person who understands that you are certainly not expected to be INFORMED as I am regarding the intensity of human trafficking reflected among the high number of prostitutes of foreign origin on the French territory.

A high number of prostitutes of foreing origin does not necessarily reflect a high intensity of human trafficking. You're still not making that connection.

I would not expect you to be able to access the data (or even be interested in doing your own home work on that specific) since it concerns a foreign nation you do not appear to be familiar with, considering your initial comment regarding France, I am replying to.

Neither does her being an illegal alien mean that. By that logic you would have to treat illegal aliens in other lines of work as "trafficking victims" as well. It is about time that sex work is treated as any other work and not subject to special stigma or punitive legislation.

Considering that the motivation in France was based on undermining human trafficking resulting in the sexual exploitation of a high number of foreign born and imported women/girls, I have no idea why you would want to legalize such human trafficking. Again, the 90% of those sex workers are not working under the rosy conditions of "consenting adults". Are you or not going to acknowledge that reality?

So far, this remains a claim, not a reality.

http://www.west-info.eu/french-prostitution-figures/report-287/

I know...it is in French. Maybe can you use your google translator so you may be given a reality check as to the actual status of those foreign import prostitutes in France?

(My French is very mediocre, so I should probably prefix everything below with "As far as I can tell from the text:")

First, the word is immigrant. "Import" is for goods. Prostitutes are people. Even prostitutes that are made to work in the sex trade against their will.
Second, that link doesn't make your case either. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, give any numbers for forced prostitution at all. It states that 90% of the cases that come to the attention of police and courts involve foreign prostitutes, but no absolute numbers here - it is compatible with those numbers that of the 20,000 people involved in prostitution, only 500 cases were brought to the courts, of which 450 involve foreigners. Furthermore, the article doesn't even tell us how many of the court cases involved forced prostitution / trafficking vs. other offenses. It just cleverly puts out that number and then proceeds to talk about the methods of traffickers to make it look like there's a connection between that number and trafficking but staying short of actually claiming it (presumably because they know it would be a false claim). That's a dishonest rhetorical device.

Now, I may have misunderstood, given that I don't really speak French, but if so, could you please point out to me where I did?

 

[Sabine Grant]

You have not connected the dots. So, I will do that for you. Those foreign born and foreign import prostitutes are the product of human trafficking. Why would you want to penalize them as victims of human trafficking? Of course, you would if you do not consider humans who are being trafficked as victims.

If it turned out that 90% of drug dealers were foreign born does that justify criminalizing drug buyers but not sellers?
Instead of criminalizing people that want to engage in sex between consenting adults maybe the government should go after human trafficking.

Why are you assuming that the French government does not go after human trafficking?

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/fr...human-rights/fight-against-human-trafficking/



Not criminalizing the victims is a recognition that this is not about the rosy scenario of "people who want to engage in sex in between consenting adults". Rather the repeated infernal vicious circle of "recruiters" exploiting the state of dire poverty of those foreign women/girls, promising them a better life in France. Among those recruiters, pseudo modeling agencies operating in ex Eastern Block nations. In Sub Sahara Africa, these women are recruited under the promise of a wealthy French family hiring them "au pair", granting housing, food and a salary. To include the possibility they may even be able to get an education. Of course, upon their arrival, they are "greeted" by pimps who will exploit them for sex trafficking.

Human trafficking is intense in the Western world. The way to fight it is to deprive those organized rings from their financial resources. Financial resources being the customers.

It was not that hard to connect those dots, Derec.

However, just because a sex worker is foreign born doesn't make her a victim of trafficking.

You strike me as someone who is totally unaware as to how human trafficking works. How French internal organized prostitution rings will operate and where and why. Of course I am a reasonable person who understands that you are certainly not expected to be INFORMED as I am regarding the intensity of human trafficking reflected among the high number of prostitutes of foreign origin on the French territory.

A high number of prostitutes of foreing origin does not necessarily reflect a high intensity of human trafficking. You're still not making that connection.

Under which circumstance do you believe a woman or girl from Nigeria(and Nigeria is only one of the areas of the world representative of a high ratio of prostitutes in France of foreign origin) would somehow end up in France as a street walker? Are you under the impression that such human beings were not coerced or/and manipulated into going to France under false claims by individuals specialized in recruiting them for the sole purpose of sex trafficking?

To support my contention of a direct connection between a high ratio of prostitutes of foreign origin and human trafficking, let's view this report addressing the situation in the US :

http://web.archive.org/web/20030327...king-of-women-in-united-states.pdf#search=Sex Trafficking

Let's also view this report regarding Europe,

http://michaelmmorrison.com/wp-cont...g-in-Europe-Final-Paper-Online.pdf#search=Sex Trafficking

Note the specific of :

Involuntary Prostitution
According to anti-trafficking workers in Amsterdam, a majority of the women in
prostitution in the area are there involuntarily. The reasons keeping the women there, in spite of
their desire to leave, vary by geography. Many of the women coming from Latin America are
required to stay in prostitution because of familial desires. Parts of the family that remain in
Latin America demand the income that is provided by the prostitution of these women. (S.
Wishart, personal communication, February 23, 2012)
The African women in the Red Light District rarely end up in Amsterdam as a first
destination. The Nigerian mafia plays a large role in trafficking these women, using the
resources of organized crime rings to ship these women to Southeast Asia, North America, and
Europe. Usually by the time these women reach a central location like Amsterdam, they have
been trafficked through three, four, or five countries. Their willingness to stay in Amsterdam is
at this point a result of conditioning from previous experiences being trafficked. By this time,
they know no other reality. (S. Wishart, personal communication, February 23, 2012)
Women from Eastern Europe are frequently offered job opportunities abroad and then,
upon arriving in the new country, in this case the Netherlands, are told that the job opportunity is
prostitution. Often the way the women are kept in country is confiscation of passports, but
sometimes the control is psychological. This psychological control comes from the women's
pimps and “loverboys.” (S. Wishart, personal communication, February 23, 2012)

I would not expect you to be able to access the data (or even be interested in doing your own home work on that specific) since it concerns a foreign nation you do not appear to be familiar with, considering your initial comment regarding France, I am replying to.

Neither does her being an illegal alien mean that. By that logic you would have to treat illegal aliens in other lines of work as "trafficking victims" as well. It is about time that sex work is treated as any other work and not subject to special stigma or punitive legislation.

Considering that the motivation in France was based on undermining human trafficking resulting in the sexual exploitation of a high number of foreign born and imported women/girls, I have no idea why you would want to legalize such human trafficking. Again, the 90% of those sex workers are not working under the rosy conditions of "consenting adults". Are you or not going to acknowledge that reality?

So far, this remains a claim, not a reality.

Why would it not be a reality in France when the reports I now submit acknowledge it as a reality in Europe and also the US? Are prostitutes of foreign origin in France somehow spared from the common methods of recruitment via human trafficking exercised in Third World nations? Do you think that, somehow, organized crime specialized in trafficking dire poverty stricken human beings to further exploit them for forced sex labor is non existent in France?

http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fe30cc932.html

More importantly, considering the conditions under which those forced sex labor human beings end up in France, are you under the impression that they fit derec's definition of "consenting adults"?

http://www.west-info.eu/french-prostitution-figures/report-287/

I know...it is in French. Maybe can you use your google translator so you may be given a reality check as to the actual status of those foreign import prostitutes in France?

(My French is very mediocre, so I should probably prefix everything below with "As far as I can tell from the text:")

First, the word is immigrant. "Import" is for goods. Prostitutes are people. Even prostitutes that are made to work in the sex trade against their will.

I am well aware that human beings are not "goods". Anyone who has followed my stances in several other threads (mostly FRDB) revolving around the topic of prostitution would be fully aware of my motivations behind the legalization of prostitution. Which in no way would reflect a mind state of viewing prostitutes as "goods". I suppose you had no knowledge of my stances. But many other members here do. And they are well aware of my motivations governed by my desire to see sex workers being licensed workers, endowed with of all employment benefits and protections and license delivered by the Health Department. Feel free when FRDB is accessible again to familiarize yourself with my stances. That will prevent any further need on your part to focus your negative attention on one word and assume I need to be instructed as to the nature of human beings versus "goods".

Second, that link doesn't make your case either. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, give any numbers for forced prostitution at all. It states that 90% of the cases that come to the attention of police and courts involve foreign prostitutes, but no absolute numbers here - it is compatible with those numbers that of the 20,000 people involved in prostitution, only 500 cases were brought to the courts, of which 450 involve foreigners. Furthermore, the article doesn't even tell us how many of the court cases involved forced prostitution / trafficking vs. other offenses. It just cleverly puts out that number and then proceeds to talk about the methods of traffickers to make it look like there's a connection between that number and trafficking but staying short of actually claiming it (presumably because they know it would be a false claim). That's a dishonest rhetorical device.

It would be dishonest if there were no reports in other First World nations exposing the direct connection between foreign origin prostitutes and human trafficking. And there would be no confirmation of the connection in France between the high ratio of foreign origin prostitutes and human trafficking targeting specific areas of the world :

http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fe30cc932.html

Further, do you have any supported reason to believe that an ex magistrate such as Yves Charpenel would engage in a "dishonest rhetorical device"? Any history on his account you could dig indicating that during his career as a "procureur", he somehow made up the existing connection between the high ratio of prostitutes of foreign origin and human trafficking in France?

Now, I may have misunderstood, given that I don't really speak French, but if so, could you please point out to me where I did?

I suppose you missed the reality that it is a now retired magistrate, Yves Charpenel, whose statements are being reported in the article. Before attributing to him the intention of "presumably because they know it would be a false claim", you probably should have checked on who the quoted party, Yves Charpenel is. Possibly, your limitations in French caused you to not notice that important detail. It is not a "they" but a person whose professional career was dedicated to uncovering and exposing human trafficking. Currently a strong advocate for the protection of victims of human trafficking to include forced sex labor victims highly represented among the high ratio of prostitutes of foreign origin.

Now, I have provided you with links which will take some time for you read. What they all reflect is the direct connection between human trafficking and a high ratio of prostitutes of foreign origin. They are all consistent with each other in describing how and why human beings of foreign origins and which specific areas of the world end up becoming prostitutes in First World nations, whether it be Europe or the US.

What those reports reveal, I have directly observed it when I resided in Naples, Italy. The local organized crime being invested in recruiting women and girls of foreign origin by sending their "recruiters" into mostly Sub Sahara Africa. I assisted a group of male immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria (they were members in the church we frequented) in attempting to rescue these women. They were street walkers commonly found on the Domiziana road and near by the AFI military installations located in the region of Campania. To include near by the NATO base.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If prostitution were legalized and regulated, wouldn't it make it a lot easier to track these women who are being enslaved and sold?

The model being used in Sweden and France doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in the slave trade there. Given that the entire purpose of the Canadian law is to make the industry safer and prevent exploitation of the women who work in it, it doesn't really seem like a viable model to use for those purposes.

 

[Jayjay]

The model being used in Sweden and France doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in the slave trade there.

What makes you think so? According to www.humantrafficking.org:

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden
January 30, 2008

Sweden has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution by imposing a ban on the purchase of sexual services, the first of its kind worldwide.

But many sex workers argue the ban robs them of their livelihood and makes them more vulnerable to violence. It's 9 p.m. in Stockholm and Malmskillnadsgatan Street is dead. The road, infamous for being one of the city's main drags for street prostitution, used to be packed with women, but tonight only three women are working the street.

...

The ban is hardly controversial in Sweden these days. According to opinion polls, 80 percent of the population agrees with Trolle. When a majority consisting of social democrats, greens and leftists ratified the ban on purchasing sexual services in the Swedish parliament in 1999, conservatives were the legislation's main opponents. They argued that the ban would drive prostitution underground and make life more difficult for the women.

But it's easy to see the results. "We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground," says Trolle. "We only have between 105 and 130 women -- both on the Internet and on the street -- active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000."

Another benefit of the ban is that hardly any country in the European Union has fewer problems with human trafficking. According to the Swedish police, 400 to 600 foreign women are brought to Sweden each year to be prostitutes. In Finland, which is only half the size of Sweden, that number is between 10,000 and 15,000 women. Illegal trafficking is facilitated in Finland by the country's proximity to Russia and the Baltic states, but now Helsinki is also considering introducing a law based on the Swedish model. In Norway, the ruling Labor Party hopes to use similar legislation to fight human trafficking, especially of women from Nigeria.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What makes you think so? According to www.humantrafficking.org:

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden
January 30, 2008

Sweden has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution by imposing a ban on the purchase of sexual services, the first of its kind worldwide.

But many sex workers argue the ban robs them of their livelihood and makes them more vulnerable to violence. It's 9 p.m. in Stockholm and Malmskillnadsgatan Street is dead. The road, infamous for being one of the city's main drags for street prostitution, used to be packed with women, but tonight only three women are working the street.

...

The ban is hardly controversial in Sweden these days. According to opinion polls, 80 percent of the population agrees with Trolle. When a majority consisting of social democrats, greens and leftists ratified the ban on purchasing sexual services in the Swedish parliament in 1999, conservatives were the legislation's main opponents. They argued that the ban would drive prostitution underground and make life more difficult for the women.

But it's easy to see the results. "We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground," says Trolle. "We only have between 105 and 130 women -- both on the Internet and on the street -- active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000."

Another benefit of the ban is that hardly any country in the European Union has fewer problems with human trafficking. According to the Swedish police, 400 to 600 foreign women are brought to Sweden each year to be prostitutes. In Finland, which is only half the size of Sweden, that number is between 10,000 and 15,000 women. Illegal trafficking is facilitated in Finland by the country's proximity to Russia and the Baltic states, but now Helsinki is also considering introducing a law based on the Swedish model. In Norway, the ruling Labor Party hopes to use similar legislation to fight human trafficking, especially of women from Nigeria.

Fair enough. Do you know offhand how that compares to using work visas to limit importation of sex slaves?

That mentions that the prostitutes in Sweden think that the ban makes their work more dangerous, which is the same argument that prostitutes in Canada are making. Do you know if there's any validity to that statement? I'm at work, so I can't actually go googling around for information on prostitution and find it out myself.

 

[Derec]

What makes you think so? According to www.humantrafficking.org:

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden

Other sources, including the study I linked to upthread, dispute this. Who runs this website anyway? Many anti-trafficking organizations take the position that all prostitution is trafficking which is obvious nonsense so I'd like to know more about the ideology behind this website.

In addition, even if Sweden could end all prostitution, it would still deprive people of a legitimate business, and is reducing individual freedom of choice. If Prohibition in the US was successful in eradicating all alcohol, it would still have decreased individual freedom of choice. I happen to think individual liberty is an important value and thus oppose sledgehammer approach to social problems (combat human trafficking by targeting all prostitution, combat alcoholism by banning alcohol etc.) from both right and left. In this instance it is ironically the conservative government which has taken a far-left approach to prostitution.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

In this instance it is ironically the conservative government which has taken a far-left approach to prostitution.

It's not that they've taken a far-left approach to prostitution, it's that they've taken a "do nothing" approach to it ... ok, I admit, that's kind of a redundant statement.

Most of the lawyers I've seen on TV discussing this are of the opinion that this law will get struck down on the same basis at the previous laws did in that it creates an unsafe work environment for the prostitutes and it makes one side of a transaction legal and the other illegal. There isn't, however, enough support in the country to completely ban prostitution and the Conservative government isn't going to offer up and unpopular law a year ahead of an election and they're conservatives so they don't want to do anything that's pro-prostitute. Using this model allows them to do "something" while really just kicking the can down the road until after the election.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What makes you think so? According to www.humantrafficking.org:

Prostitution Ban Huge Success in Sweden
January 30, 2008

Sweden has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution by imposing a ban on the purchase of sexual services, the first of its kind worldwide.

But many sex workers argue the ban robs them of their livelihood and makes them more vulnerable to violence. It's 9 p.m. in Stockholm and Malmskillnadsgatan Street is dead. The road, infamous for being one of the city's main drags for street prostitution, used to be packed with women, but tonight only three women are working the street.

...

The ban is hardly controversial in Sweden these days. According to opinion polls, 80 percent of the population agrees with Trolle. When a majority consisting of social democrats, greens and leftists ratified the ban on purchasing sexual services in the Swedish parliament in 1999, conservatives were the legislation's main opponents. They argued that the ban would drive prostitution underground and make life more difficult for the women.

But it's easy to see the results. "We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground," says Trolle. "We only have between 105 and 130 women -- both on the Internet and on the street -- active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000."

Another benefit of the ban is that hardly any country in the European Union has fewer problems with human trafficking. According to the Swedish police, 400 to 600 foreign women are brought to Sweden each year to be prostitutes. In Finland, which is only half the size of Sweden, that number is between 10,000 and 15,000 women. Illegal trafficking is facilitated in Finland by the country's proximity to Russia and the Baltic states, but now Helsinki is also considering introducing a law based on the Swedish model. In Norway, the ruling Labor Party hopes to use similar legislation to fight human trafficking, especially of women from Nigeria.

But is there actually less prostitution or has it just been driven underground?

 

[SimpleDon]

What makes you think so? According to www.humantrafficking.org:

Other sources, including the study I linked to upthread, dispute this. Who runs this website anyway? Many anti-trafficking organizations take the position that all prostitution is trafficking which is obvious nonsense so I'd like to know more about the ideology behind this website.

...

It is an almost word for word reprint of an article published a year before in der Spiegel, the German news magazine. The English version is here.

 

[SimpleDon]

der Spiegel, The Mirror, is considered to be a left leaning pro-SPD magazine, like Time in the US.

 

[Derec]

I as referring to being without said services altogether.

That's not going to happen. While perhaps not technically correct, prostitution has been described as world's oldest profession for a reason. It has thrived for thousands of years in different governmental systems, many of which were actively opposed to it.
Nor do I think it would be a good thing to eliminate prostitution. Sex industry is a legitimate industry, serving a legitimate human desire.

It's a completely voluntary transaction,

In that case the government has no business prohibiting it.

unless the customer has had all his limbs amputated or something.

I do not quite get where you are going with that. Are you saying that if Mr. Oblong went (hopped?) to a hooker it'd be an involuntary transaction?

Or if you believe that some people are "sex addicts" who just can't live without it, but personally, I think that's a bullshit diagnosis and making analogy to drug addicts or even gambling addicts is an insult to the latter.

No, I do not think "sex addiction" is a thing in most cases. It seems that people get labeled "sex addicts" if their libido is much higher than average or if they do not conform to the normative monogamous paradigm (see Tiger Woods).
However, it is a question of basic individual liberty of two consenting adults. Both the liberty of the sex worked to provide sexual services if he or she so chooses and the liberty of the customers to purchase such services.
Furthermore, many men do not have access to sex otherwise. They may be widowed, disabled (including things like Autism spectrum), in a sexless marriage or single and not the type who can just pick up a woman at a bar due to lack of attractiveness, social skills or both. Why should they be treated like criminals just for seeking sexual fulfillment?

 

[Derec]

That makes all the difference because there is no equivalent of "possession" for a service.

And I think that's a distinction without a difference. In any commercial transaction you have the provider of goods or services and a customer of the same.

So what does that do to the analogy? Not much. The one who has to make a buck to please someone else is the victim, it's not a simple buyer/seller issue.

How does that make him a victim? That's common to all jobs - if you are not making your employer money you are not going to please him.
That said many prostitutes are self-employed but they still have to make a buck to please themselves. I do not see how that makes anyone a victim.

In drug dealing case that's usually the buyer (but not always). In prostitution it's usually the provider (but not always).

Not getting that angle at all.

Laws are made to protect the vulnerable parties, even if it might mean that sometimes the econmic opportunities for the non-vulnerable ones are somewhat restricted. For example if I want to obtain cocaine for my chemistry hobby, I have to go through enormous trouble of filing proper paperwork or risk doing it illegally... but that's a limitation that people generally accept in exchange for protecting potential cocaine addicts from dealers who want to make money off them.

I think it has more to do with moral panic surrounding illicit drugs. Just like there is a moral panic surrounding commercial sex.

 

[Sabine Grant]

If prostitution were legalized and regulated, wouldn't it make it a lot easier to track these women who are being enslaved and sold?

It depends what type of "regulated" you have in mind. If licensed sex services providers under the state or country health departments, it would definitely undermine human trafficking resulting in forced sex labor. If you ask me why "health depart." : a profession which implies multiple and anonymous sexual partners, meaning the primary vector for a variety of infectious diseases known as sexually transmittable. Sex services providers would be mandated to take a class covering contagious diseases prevention and control as well as personal hygiene and sanitation in order to obtain their license to legally operate as a sex services provider. They can either be independent workers as "contractors" or run a business with employees required to be certified. Certification would be obtained under the health dept. Needless to say that under such conditions, sex services providers would be fully afforded employment benefits and protections under the nation's Labor Laws. They would also pay taxes.

 

[Derec]

What it does is open up a gigantic opportunity for blackmail.

Out of curiosity, in places like Sweden or France where it has been tried before, have there been any actual problems with such blackmail?

In Canada it has already started, sort of.

 

[Derec]

Why not just make it legal and don't regulate it?

I do not have a problem with regulation in general - all commercial activity is regulated to some extent or another.

Because there's a lot of abusive and criminal behaviour within the industry which needs to be dealt with. Legalizing it and then leaving it alone simply causes those aspects to grow and fester, making the entire industry less safe as a result. When there's a profession where it's very easy and profitable to break the rules, greater oversight of the industry is required as a result.

I agree some regulation is necessary to achieve those goals. Also, regular health checkups should be mandatory. However sometimes regulation is so strict that it still pushes participants to skirt it. Sometimes it is unintended but often it's a conscious attempt to choke an unwanted industry out of existence - many city and county strip club regulations come to mind.

 

[Derec]

You have not connected the dots.

Human mind is an incredible pattern seeking machine. Sometimes it even sees patterns that aren't there.

Those foreign born and foreign import prostitutes are the product of human trafficking.

All of them? How do you know that?
Look, I know there is human trafficking in the sex industry. But that doesn't mean that prostitution automatically entails human trafficking like many activists claim. Neither is existence of human trafficking a reason to outlaw the entire industry and to criminalize customers. In the US there is human trafficking involved in farm labor. That doesn't mean that food industry should be outlawed.

Why would you want to penalize them as victims of human trafficking?

Why do you assume they are victims of human trafficking just because they are foreign born?
And I do not want to penalize any sex workers for being involved in sex work (nor do I want to penalize their customers). If they are victims of human trafficking prosecute the traffickers. If they are illegal aliens that came to France or any other country voluntarily they should be penalized for that and not prostitution.
But I definitely do not think a facile equation of foreign born prostitutes with human trafficking victims is justifiable at all as there are many avenues a foreign born woman can become a prostitute without being a victim of trafficking.

Why are you assuming that the French government does not go after human trafficking?

They could do that without criminalizing customers who are not doing the trafficking.

Not criminalizing the victims is a recognition that this is not about the rosy scenario of "people who want to engage in sex in between consenting adults".

Victims should not be criminalized. But at the same time sex workers should not automatically be declared as "victims" pretty much by definition.

Rather the repeated infernal vicious circle of "recruiters" exploiting the state of dire poverty of those foreign women/girls, promising them a better life in France.

Are they informed that this better life will be through sex work? If so then they aren't victims. And if they entered the country illegally they broke the law as much as the "recruiters" who helped them cross it. As such it should not matter if they came to France (for example) for sex work, domestic or agricultural labor or anything else.

Among those recruiters, pseudo modeling agencies operating in ex Eastern Block nations. In Sub Sahara Africa, these women are recruited under the promise of a wealthy French family hiring them "au pair", granting housing, food and a salary. To include the possibility they may even be able to get an education. Of course, upon their arrival, they are "greeted" by pimps who will exploit them for sex trafficking.

And if that takes place the parties responsible should be prosecuted. But I do not see what is gained by prosecuting customers. Or by assuming that if there are victims of trafficking among sex workers that all sex workers must be somehow 'victims'.

Human trafficking is intense in the Western world. The way to fight it is to deprive those organized rings from their financial resources. Financial resources being the customers.

No, the way to fight it is to bring the industry into broad daylight. Organized crime ran the alcohol industry during the prohibition but it isn't involved with alcohol now. Why? Because the industry is above board because alcohol is legal now.

It was not that hard to connect those dots, Derec.

There is more than one way to connect them. I prefer to connect them in the way that doesn't result in a net loss of individual freedom.

You strike me as someone who is totally unaware as to how human trafficking works. How French internal organized prostitution rings will operate and where and why. Of course I am a reasonable person who understands that you are certainly not expected to be INFORMED as I am regarding the intensity of human trafficking reflected among the high number of prostitutes of foreign origin on the French territory.

None of what you said here disproves my statement about a sex worker being foreign born not being the same as her being a victim of trafficking.
If a woman moves to France (perhaps even as a child) and takes up prostitution at some later time she would be counted as a "foreign born sex worker".
If a woman is a sex worker in her native country and decides to move to France because of better earning potential she would be counted as a "foreign born sex worker".
Yes neither one would be a victim of trafficking.

I would not expect you to be able to access the data (or even be interested in doing your own home work on that specific) since it concerns a foreign nation you do not appear to be familiar with, considering your initial comment regarding France, I am replying to.

Not being able to read French being another obstacle. Yet data would not change my fundamental points.

Considering that the motivation in France was based on undermining human trafficking resulting in the sexual exploitation of a high number of foreign born and imported women/girls, I have no idea why you would want to legalize such human trafficking.

I do not want to legalize human trafficking and the French law is doing much more than going after human trafficking.

Again, the 90% of those sex workers are not working under the rosy conditions of "consenting adults".

That certainly doesn't follow from them being foreign born (and I still doubt the percentage is that high). A sex worker could be foreign born and still be a fully consenting adult.

Are you or not going to acknowledge that reality?

No, as it is based on a faulty equation of "foreign born" with "victim of human trafficking".

http://www.west-info.eu/french-prostitution-figures/report-287/

I know...it is in French. Maybe can you use your google translator so you may be given a reality check as to the actual status of those foreign import prostitutes in France?

I do not read French and reading auto-translated stuff is barely better. I would like to know, what is the position of this west-info.eu outfit? Are they equating all prostitution with "trafficking" and all sex workers with "victims"?

 

[Derec]

Second, that link doesn't make your case either. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, give any numbers for forced prostitution at all. It states that 90% of the cases that come to the attention of police and courts involve foreign prostitutes, but no absolute numbers here - it is compatible with those numbers that of the 20,000 people involved in prostitution, only 500 cases were brought to the courts, of which 450 involve foreigners.

So I was right to be suspicious of the 90% figure. There are good reasons why "prostitutes who come to the attention of the law" is not a random sampling of all sex workers. Things like having a good social support network, language skills, knowing the lay of the land would help the natives avoid trouble with the police. They also do not have to worry about immigration status while some foreign born workers in general do.

Furthermore, the article doesn't even tell us how many of the court cases involved forced prostitution / trafficking vs. other offenses. It just cleverly puts out that number and then proceeds to talk about the methods of traffickers to make it look like there's a connection between that number and trafficking but staying short of actually claiming it (presumably because they know it would be a false claim). That's a dishonest rhetorical device.

Good point.

 

[Derec]

Under which circumstance do you believe a woman or girl from Nigeria(and Nigeria is only one of the areas of the world representative of a high ratio of prostitutes in France of foreign origin) would somehow end up in France as a street walker?

Maybe she came to France to do another job but lost it and resorted to hooking. Maybe she came to France as a little girl but took up sex work only years later as an adult.
Maybe she was already a sex worker but saw bigger earning potential in a country like France.

Are you under the impression that such human beings were not coerced or/and manipulated into going to France under false claims by individuals specialized in recruiting them for the sole purpose of sex trafficking?

I am sure some of them are. But you can't assume that just because she is Nigerian born that she must be a victim.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030327...king-of-women-in-united-states.pdf#search=Sex Trafficking

Skimming it I get the strong impression that this paper and the sponsoring organization "Coalition Against Trafficking in Women" equates all sex work with trafficking. If you start from that definition then of course you see trafficking everywhere.

Let's also view this report regarding Europe,

http://michaelmmorrison.com/wp-cont...g-in-Europe-Final-Paper-Online.pdf#search=Sex Trafficking

This paper in the introduction admits that there are voluntary prostitutes. It even makes a distinction between human smuggling (where someone pays to cross a border and is thus not a victim) and genuine trafficking. It thus invalidates your assumption that "foreign born" == "victim of trafficking".

Involuntary Prostitution
According to anti-trafficking workers in Amsterdam, a majority of the women in
prostitution in the area are there involuntarily.

I think we need to take statements by "anti-trafficking workers" with a pinch of salt here. For one they are defining "involuntary" way too broadly.

The reasons keeping the women there, in spite of
their desire to leave, vary by geography. Many of the women coming from Latin America are
required to stay in prostitution because of familial desires. Parts of the family that remain in
Latin America demand the income that is provided by the prostitution of these women.

If somebody does a job they do not enjoy in order to send money to the family that is not involuntary servitude. These women freely chose to do this work in order to make money. If somebody hates working in construction but does it because it pays well and they need to support family abroad we would never call this work "involuntary" or call them "victims of trafficking". And we should not do it for sex work either.

Usually by the time these women reach a central location like Amsterdam, they have
been trafficked through three, four, or five countries. Their willingness to stay in Amsterdam is
at this point a result of conditioning from previous experiences being trafficked. By this time,
they know no other reality.

This if true sounds more like genuine trafficking. However, if a woman is free to leave sex work but chooses to stay anyway, is that really involuntary servitude? The real question then is is she free to leave?

Women from Eastern Europe are frequently offered job opportunities abroad and then,
upon arriving in the new country, in this case the Netherlands, are told that the job opportunity is
prostitution. Often the way the women are kept in country is confiscation of passports, but
sometimes the control is psychological.

A few things are conflated here. If she is prevented from leaving that is obviously fucked up and needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But if she is not prevented from leaving and still chooses to do sex work then the only crime would be smuggling and both sides would be complicit in that.

This psychological control comes from the women's pimps and “loverboys.”

I do not see how that can be effectively controlled legally. If she chooses sex work it's none of the government's business why she chooses it or if it's a good choice.

So some of the women described here are actual victims, others aren't. In none of the cases do I see a good case for criminalizing their customers though.

I suppose you missed the reality that it is a now retired magistrate, Yves Charpenel,

What is this, an argument from authority?

whose statements are being reported in the article. Before attributing to him the intention of "presumably because they know it would be a false claim", you probably should have checked on who the quoted party, Yves Charpenel is. Possibly, your limitations in French caused you to not notice that important detail. It is not a "they" but a person whose professional career was dedicated to uncovering and exposing human trafficking.

How is this disproving anything Jokodo wrote?

What those reports reveal, I have directly observed it when I resided in Naples, Italy. The local organized crime being invested

Do you think pushing an industry underground would lead to a lesser or greater involvement of organized crime in the said industry?

 

[Derec]

It's not that they've taken a far-left approach to prostitution, it's that they've taken a "do nothing" approach to it ... ok, I admit, that's kind of a redundant statement.

It's not "do nothing", it's "criminalize the clients".

Most of the lawyers I've seen on TV discussing this are of the opinion that this law will get struck down on the same basis at the previous laws did in that it creates an unsafe work environment for the prostitutes and it makes one side of a transaction legal and the other illegal.

I made a similar comment upthread. The law was overturned by the court for being "over-broad" and "one-sided" but this new law is as well.

There isn't, however, enough support in the country to completely ban prostitution and the Conservative government isn't going to offer up and unpopular law a year ahead of an election and they're conservatives so they don't want to do anything that's pro-prostitute. Using this model allows them to do "something" while really just kicking the can down the road until after the election.

I really wish one could elect different people/parties for different areas of government.