Feb 1, 2009
Dont let a lack of evidence stop you now….
The combination of Julie Bindel and Jacqui Smith is enough to make your head spin…. and the sloppy and uncritical approach in the interview is so blatant that it barely passes as journalism.
But we are publishing this recent ‘interview’ to highlight the lack of evidence and also the disturbingly biased understanding of the sex industry that the government is currently operating on with respect to the current legislation.
original article was published in the Guardian.
On 19 November 2008 Julie Bindel [JB] spoke to home secretary Jacqui Smith [JS]about her proposed new legislation to control prostitution.
JB: What is the new law regarding prostitution?
JS: It is an offence to pay for sex with someone controlled for gain.
JB: What does “controlled for gain” mean? Does this just refer to prostitutes who are controlled by pimps?
JS: It could be anyone who controls that person for gain, such as a drug dealer or others making money from [another person’s work as a prostitute]. The impact will be on men for the first time, who will be made responsible for their actions. To those who say this is unfair, I say that there are some men whose actions are prolonging the suffering and abuse of women, and that is not fair.
JB: What evidence is this legislation based on?
JS: Evidence from the work we have been doing to tackle trafficking, such as Operation Pentameter, in which police uncovered situations where women had been trafficked into prostitution. There was not enough evidence to charge those men who paid for sex with [trafficked women] with rape, and let me be completely clear – if there was, then I think people should be charged with rape.
[xtalk ed note]
In 2006, Operation Pentameter carried out 515 raids on indoor prostitution establishments in the UK and Ireland over four months. It resulted in the ‘rescue’ of 84 women and girls who were supposedly trafficked. During Pentameter 2 in 2007, 822 premises were raided and 167 trafficking victims identified. These figures certainly do not match the (repeated like a mantra) government figures of tens of thousands of women in the sex industry in the UK being trafficked – check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7819984.stm
JB: What do you say to the suggestion that many “trafficked” women are actually just economic migrants?
JS: I do not buy that argument.
JB: Some commentators have suggested that this new law won’t lead to many prosecutions – do you think that this is correct?
JS: It is likely we will get more prosecutions than when we were solely reliant on rape as an offence [in cases where men bought sex with trafficked women]. Of course, I understand that this is the start of the process. But we need to send out a message to men to think twice.
JB: Why haven’t you criminalised the buying of sex in all circumstances?
JS: We asked the public what they felt about us completely outlawing paying for sex, and the majority were not in favour of us going so far.
JB: Do you know anyone personally who has used a prostitute?
JS: [Hesitates] No.
JB: Have you spoken to prostituted women yourself?
JS: Vernon [Coaker, minister for policing, crime and security] did. We have met with those organisations who directly support trafficked women, and other women in prostitution.
[xtalk ed note]
So what she is saying is that she has never actually spoken to a prostitute herself? But unsurprisingly feels more comfortable speaking to groups who ‘help’ prostitutes. Pretty amazing stuff really when you think about it.
JB: How do you respond to the suggestion that you’re using the law to infantilise women?
JS: I am willing to accept that there are women out there who say they have chosen to sell sex. But they are in the minority, and laws are there to protect the majority. In this case, the majority of women in prostitution want to get out, and suffer violence and exploitation. If there are women who have made a free choice, there are more who have had no choice.
JB: Are you a feminist?
JS: Yes. I am sure some people will say I am a killjoy for taking away the right of those men who wish to pay for sex, but I do not think it is inevitable for men to pay for sex.
The non-Q+A form of this interview succeeded in getting Bindel one of her rare slaps over the wrist from the Guardian’s Readers’ Editor:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/08/prostitution-open-door
The Smith interview followed, of course, Bindel’s Guardian interview with Vernon Coaker, presumably to test her out and ensure she was sufficiently sycophantic.
Maybe Home Office ministers are only prepared to be interviewed by fellow feminazis who won’t criticse EITHER their failure to publish their ‘Review of Demand’ for prostitution evidence base OR the “internal Home Office document” that came to the unsupportable conclusion there’s 4,000 women and chidren trafficked here for sexual exploitation.
But I really don’t see why the Guardian should suck up to them. One concludes the best thing is to buy the Independent.
Interesting, you tend to hear the term ‘feminazi’ coming from the likes of Nick Eriksen (BNP). I guess, Mr Paterson, you would enjoy the term ‘nazis in nylons’ to add to your resume, just to enhance your completely derogatory reduction of women fighting for justice and equality for women. What is it exactly that you have against the women’s rights movement, i.e. Feminism? I am sure that many members of xtalk would take offence to your terminolgy also.
I’m not sure the word “feminazi” is appropriate here. I consider myself a feminist, as a man, and yet consider the right of people to work free from both government interference or criminal exploitation to be an obvious result of this simple belief that women are people with agency, just like men.
I know there’s more to feminism than that, and that many feminists can end up on the wrong side of the debate through honest good intentions gone awry (paternalism is still paternalism even if it’s a woman doing it), but I don’t think it’s helpful or appropriate to throw the baby out with the bathwater like that.
the term “feminazi” is not directed at feminists,its directed at women who think like nazis.