More than 30 organisations and nearly 300 individuals have added their name to an open letter calling on the British Medical Association (BMA) to reject a new policy passed by junior doctors backing the full decriminalisation of the sex trade (including of pimps and brothel owners) as implemented in New Zealand.

Background

On Saturday 13 May 2017, the BMA Junior Doctors’ conference  voted in favour of a policy backing full decriminalisation of the sex trade (including of pimps and brothel owners) as implemented in New Zealand. It was passed after less than 20 minutes of “debate.”

There was no explanation of how decriminalising pimps would help those in prostitution, and many statements were made that were naïve or incorrect. For example, it was argued that the Nordic Model (or Sex Buyer Law) is dangerous because under it punters don’t give their real names when making bookings. As if married men  give their real names under any regime.

A more worrying example was the incorrect assertion that the United Nations (UN) recommends full decriminalisation of the sex trade, including pimps. Although UNAIDS recommends that approach, the UN itself does not. On the contrary, since 1949 the UN has defined prostitution as incompatible with the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and later UN instruments (such as CEDAW and the Palermo Protocol) put binding obligations on ratifying states (the UK is one) to outlaw profiteering from prostitution and to take measures to reduce the demand for prostitution that drives sex trafficking. The JDC policy therefore stands in direct conflict with these UN human rights treaties.

It is worth noting that the UNAIDS policy was developed by an advisory group that was co-chaired by the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) under the leadership of Alejandra Gil, who has since been jailed for 15 years for sex trafficking – which is not unlike a tobacco industry mogul advising on smoking policy.

Open letter to the BMA

Mark Porter, Chair of the BMA, members of the BMA council,
Jeeves Wijesura, Chair of the JDC, and members of the JDC
BMA House,
Tavistock Square,
London
WC1H 9JP

23 May 2017

Dear Mark Porter, Jeeves Wijesura, and BMA council and JDC members

We write to express our dismay at the adoption of the J1126 64 motion from North Thames RJDC (the full text of which is set out in an appendix below) at the recent Junior Doctors Conference 2017 and to request that the BMA does not implement it. It is based on a false premise and, as explained below, it is dangerous.

The motion is based on a false premise

The motion starts: “This conference: (i) Recognises the evidence that the policy approach of full decriminalisation of sex work, as adopted by New Zealand, has resulted in public health benefits for both sex workers and wider society – in particular by improving sexual health, personal safety and tackling human trafficking;”

This is factually incorrect. New Zealand changed its prostitution law in 2003, when the Prostitution Reform Act (known as the PRA) was passed. Before that, soliciting was illegal, along with pimping and brothel keeping; and allegations of police violence and corruption were common. But within those constraints prostituted women were able to negotiate their own deals with punters, and maintain clear boundaries, including insisting on condoms and banning kissing.

This all changed after the PRA, which decriminalised all of the actors including pimps. Brothels now set the price through “all inclusives” and prices fell. Men expect more, including anal, kissing, and no condoms. Where before the men paid for the act – direct to the woman – now they pay the brothel, by the hour or half hour, and they expect whatever they want as many times as possible within that time.

Punter violence remains common and in 2008 the New Zealand Prostitution Law Review Committee found that a majority of prostituted persons felt that the PRA “could do little about violence that occurred.” The Committee further reported that abusive brothels did not improve conditions for prostituted individuals; the brothels that “had unfair management practices continued with them.”

It is incorrect therefore to say that decriminalisation has improved the sexual health and personal safety of prostituted persons.

People campaigning for the PRA wanted to improve things for the women – to give them more power. In fact the PRA had the opposite effect. More power has gone to the pimps and punters. Although police violence is now less common, women seldom report pimp and punter violence to the police.

Local authorities have some control over where the larger brothels are sited but not the smaller ones, classified as “Small Owner Operated Brothels” (or SOOBs), over which authorities and local residents have no say. There’s been rapid expansion in the number of SOOBs, and many are run by pimps. SOOBs are excluded from the official brothel data, which therefore gives a distorted view of the reality.

Sex trafficking is now recognised to be prevalent in New Zealand, and Māori and Pacific Islander women and children are disproportionately represented. Because brothels and SOOBs are legal, there is little or no oversight from the police.

The PRA has also failed to stop the prostitution of children, which remains a major problem. Mama Tere Strickland, a community worker, says: “At least the old law kept a lid on the numbers, but with no law on the streets, the pimps and gangs have moved in.” The children typically have a background in family violence and sexual abuse.

Since the change in the law there’s been a significant rise in reported rape, sexual assault and other male violence against women and girls in the general population. This is not surprising given that there’s been an increase in the amount of prostitution, and evidence that prostitution-buying makes men more prone to sexual violence.

Violence is intrinsic to prostitution

Study after study has shown that prostitution is damaging both to those in it and to society more generally. For example:

• A meta study conducted by UCL found that “violence is a prominent feature in the lives of sex workers in almost all sex work settings”; “a single year of engagement in sex work is likely to have the same impact on mental health as an entire life of experiences prior to involvement in sex work;” and “Social exclusion is the leading cause of entrance into sex work and exclusion is often deepened as a result of engaging in sex work.”
• A UN multi-country study found that men perpetrating rape of non-partners and violence against intimate partners are associated with prostitution-buying. Studies of punters have found they are more likely to commit rape and other aggressive sexual acts. In addition, the contempt they have for women is borne out by survivor testimony and research on punter forums.

Health risks are not limited to STIs

Prostitution typically involves a series of male strangers penetrating a woman’s mouth, vagina and/or anus, often with violent and prolonged thrusting. This can lead to infection with HIV and other STIs and injuries to the reproductive and other internal organs, which can cause sterility, problems in pregnancy, and long-term ill-health.

A German study based on medical examinations of 1,000 prostituted women found that:

• Most suffer from chronic lower abdominal pain caused by inflammation and mechanical trauma.
• Most show signs of premature ageing, a symptom of persistent stress.
• Most had injuries caused by the overuse of their delicate sexual organs and orifices.
• Most had injuries deliberately inflicted by punters.

This makes women more vulnerable to infections. Condoms provide little or no protection. Financial or other pressures meant that most of the women in the study had to continue in prostitution even when they were in severe physical pain.

Risks to mental health

Prostitution often has a profound negative impact on mental health. In order to endure the undesired groping and sexual penetration by multiple strangers on a daily basis, many women describe needing to “split off” from their conscious selves and/or to take alcohol or drugs in order to endure it. This can lead to addictions and long term psychological difficulties.

Not surprisingly given the prevalence of violence, prostituted women experience high levels of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For example, in a study of 854 people in prostitution in 9 countries (including Germany where it is fully decriminalised), 68% of the respondents met the criteria for PTSD. This is in the range found in war veterans. Other studies have had similar results.

Mortality

Prostitution can also be lethal. A Canadian commission estimated that the death rate of women in prostitution was 40 times higher than that of the general population. Women in indoor prostitution in particular have a very high rate of suicide. In one study, 75% of women in escort prostitution had attempted it.

Many prostituted women are murdered by punters and pimps and sadly this remains true in New Zealand since the PRA. The more prostitution that takes place, the more murders of prostituted women there are.

Stigma

Prostitution is not the commodification of a person’s labour as in other forms of work, but of her body and her self. This reduces her status (and by extension the status of all women) to that of an object that can be bought and sold. This is the root of the stigma associated with prostitution: it is intrinsic to its very nature. We believe that it is therefore not possible to eradicate stigma without eradicating prostitution itself.

Sex trafficking increases under decriminalisation/legalisation

A large body of evidence shows that when the sex trade is decriminalised and/or legalised, sex trafficking increases. For example:

• A study with data from 150 countries found that countries with “legalized prostitution experience a larger reported incidence of trafficking inflows.”
• An economic analysis concluded the same thing.
• And so did an extensive study by the European Parliament.

Germany

The idea that full decriminalisation of the sex trade, including of brothel owners, pimps and profiteers as implemented in New Zealand, can bring prostitution to an acceptable level of safety is not only far-fetched, but dangerous.

New Zealand has a small population and is uniquely geographically isolated. Since the law changed, it has become a sex tourist destination. However, its isolation and the expense of getting there, mean numbers are relatively low. Were New Zealand situated in Europe, no doubt numbers would be closer to Germany’s and so would the reality.

Germany fully decriminalised prostitution in 2002. Prostitution is now big business, and generates large tax revenues for the government. There are about 3,500 registered brothels and large numbers of smaller unregistered ones.

Practices are more dangerous than before with less protection for the women. There are “menus” where men can choose from a long list that includes things like anal fist fucking, group sex, man shits on woman, two men to one woman, and flat-rate “all you can eat” deals. There’s even a demand for pregnant women, who have to serve up to 40 men a day, right up until they give birth.

Mega-brothels cater for up to 1,000 men at a time. Germany is now a sex tourist destination. Buses transport men from the airport directly to the mega-brothels.

Police estimate there are half a million women in prostitution in Germany, of whom only about 44 are registered. Most of the women come from poor communities in Eastern Europe, many trafficked. Women are shipped from town to town, because men want “fresh meat.” They live in the brothels, eat and sleep in the same room they serve the punters. They live under constant fear: of violent punters, of not earning enough to pay the daily fixed costs, of getting sick, of getting pregnant, of the police, of the pimps, of the competition…

A clinical psychologist specialising in trauma says: “The German model is producing hell on earth. The lives and rights of the women are sacrificed, but for what? Are they defending our democracy? Is it to protect our land from invasion or terrorism? No, these women are sacrificed so that some men can have sex whenever they want.”

A police inspector says the law has made Germany an Eldorado for traffickers, pimps and brothel owners.

The Nordic Model

Rather than full decriminalisation of the sex trade, the Nordic Model is the human rights-based and equality model. Also known as the Sex Buyer Law, it decriminalises all those who are prostituted, provides services to help them exit, and makes buying prostitution a criminal offence, while imposing tough penalties on pimps and traffickers. The aim is to change behaviour and reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking; thus setting new social norms.

Because prostituted persons are fully decriminalised under the Nordic Model, there is no reason for their access to sexual health care and condoms to be restricted.

Those who insist that the Nordic Model puts prostituted persons at heightened risk from HIV and STIs usually base their research in countries that follow a full prohibition model where all parties are criminalised. For example, in written evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, the Sex Work Research Hub when arguing against the Nordic Model (which they refer to as “criminalising sex work”) stated that “data from multiple countries linked criminalisation of sex work with up to a five-fold increase in risk of HIV infection or other sexually transmitted infections.” However, the research referenced was not conducted in a country that has implemented the Nordic Model approach, but rather where all parties are criminalised.

Conclusion

We have shown above that the motion is based on a false premise and is misguided. We therefore call on the BMA to reject it.

We question the wisdom of a BMA conference deciding policy about a complex social and political issue by a vote after a short discussion – particularly when that policy has profound implications for sex equality and the human rights, health and well-being of women and children and the most disadvantaged groups in society, and over which powerful vested interests lobby hard.

We believe that when the full evidence is examined honestly and dispassionately, it will be clear that the Nordic Model is a better approach.

While we welcome the spirit of wanting to consult and collaborate with “peer-led sex worker organisations,” caution needs to be applied. Many people who style themselves as “sex workers” and campaign for full decriminalisation have not experienced being prostituted per se and some are pimps and brothel keepers. Recently 12 high-profile people who publicly identify as “sex workers,” promote decriminalized pimping, and are associated with “sex worker” unions, collectives or advocacy groups, were exposed as having sold others in prostitution directly or indirectly. Clearly such people have a conflict of interests.

SCOT-Pep and the SWARM Collective are organisations of self-styled “sex workers” that campaign for the full decriminalisation of the sex trade, including pimps. The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) claims to be a prostitute collective, but it refuses to declare the backgrounds or occupations of its members. We do not believe that these organisations are representative of the vast majority of prostituted persons.

Many prostituted women reject the term “sex worker” because they do not see prostitution as work, and few, if any, of the most marginalised women in prostitution are in a position to speak frankly. Many have faced beatings for attempting to speak in the past or have heard of others who have suffered this.

Of course, those who are and have been prostituted should be consulted. However, for the reasons described above, there are many difficulties to be addressed. Perhaps therefore the most important voices are those in the growing movement of women who have survived prostitution and have managed to leave it and build a life outside, where they are no longer dependent on pleasing punters or the sex trade and its vested interests.

Survivors of prostitution make up some of the most active and committed members of the international movement campaigning for the adoption of the Nordic Model. We urge you to listen to them.

However, prostitution affects all women because it affects how all men see and treat women. Therefore there must be a consultation with a wide variety of women’s organisations, including organisations like Nia, Women @ the Well, and Routes Out that provide services to help women exit prostitution; women’s organisations like the European Women’s Lobby, Equality Now, and NAWO; and organisations that research policy affecting women and children, like the End Violence Against Women Coalition, the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, Women Analysing Policy on Women, and the Women’s Budget Group.

A note about Amnesty International

Amnesty International made many very serious procedural errors in developing its prostitution policy. Amnesty International admitted in testimony that Douglas Fox, who was a member in one of their north-east branches, and running the largest prostitution ring in the north-east of England, was a member of the group that brought forward the motion calling for the organization to adopt a policy of full decriminalization. There were a few concessions over the successive drafts – the original premise that buying sex is a human right was taken out, after it was realised that it couldn’t actually be justified.

They inserted a section on “intersectional discrimination and structural inequalities,” which conspicuously lacks any discussion of the racism inherent in prostitution, or prostitution’s role in colonialism and maintaining the structural inequalities between the sexes, or the rights of women and girls to live free from commercial sexual exploitation.

The original reliance on advice from the Global Network of Sex Work Projects was downplayed after feminist writer and activist Kat Banyard exposed that its vice-president Alejandra Gil was a pimp who has now been jailed for 15 years for sex trafficking.

But the essence of the final policy remained as Fox first suggested: that all aspects of “consensual adult sex work,” including pimps and brothel-keepers (now called “organisers”), must be fully decriminalised in order to secure “sex workers’ human rights” even though, way back in 1949, the United Nations defined prostitution as incompatible with the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Most shockingly, at no time did Amnesty International carry out any research in any country, like New Zealand or Germany, that has in fact implemented the policy for which they now lobby. Moreover, its research in Norway was of very poor quality.

Finally

We urge you to rethink this policy, informed by women’s groups, survivors’ organisations and a full consideration of the comprehensive problems of the New Zealand approach. We also request a meeting with senior BMA and JDC officers to discuss the issues in more depth.

Signed

Groups and organisations

1. Nordic Model Now!
2. Equality Now
3. European Network of Migrant Women
4. Filia
5. The Judith Trust
6. Women’s Equality Party Scotland
7. Michael Conroy for A CALL TO MEN UK
8. Not Buying It
9. End Online Misogyny
10. JURIES
11. East Ayrshire Women’s Aid
12. Truth About Rape
13. Campaign to End Rape
14. Zero Option Sheffield
15. Yes Matters
16. Campaign to End the Leeds Sex Trade (CELST)
17. Not for Sale in Scotland
18. Siren Press
19. Vera Media
20. Scary Little Girls
21. London Feminist Network
22. Manchester Feminist Network
23. Critical Sisters
24. Chelt Fems
25. Gloucestershire Sisters
26. Older Feminist Network
27. Essex Feminist Collective
28. Suffolk Feminist Society
29. One Billion Rising Sheffield
30. Nova Scotians for the Prevention of Prostitution and Human Trafficking
31. Freedom Foundation, Israel
32. Resistenza Femminista, Italy
33. Abolition 2014, Germany
34. Initiative Stop Sexkauf, Germany

Individuals

1. Jill Leigh
2. Alice Bondi, Retired psychotherapist
3. Dr Helen Mott
4. Magi Gibson
5. Bo Novak
6. Helen Rowlands, Cardiff
7. Professor Roger Matthews
8. Annie Fatet
9. Dr Kathleen Richardson, De Montfort University,Leicester, Founder of the Campaign Against Sex Robots )
10. Wendy Davis,  Director Rooms of our Own
11. Rukshana Afia
12. Lucy Coghill
13. Claire Harries
14. Kate Morrissey (MBCAP)
15. Rahila Gupta, journalist
16. Elizabeth Carola
17. Stephanie Davies-Arai
18. Annette Lawson OBE; Chair, the Judith Trust; Ambassador, NAWO
19. Sarah Sharkey
20. Jay Ginn (Dr)
21. Heather Downs
22. Jacqueline Gruhn
23. Siobhan Jess
24. Jalna Hanmer
25. Lynda Bennett
26. Lorraine Roberts
27. Caroline Ayerst
28. Barbara Lapthorn
29. Sue Banting
30. Valerie Dunn
31. Dr Jacci Stoyle, Secretary to the Cross Party Group (CPG) on Commercial Sexual Exploitation at the Scottish Parliament, Representative of the Episcopal Church in Scotland on the anti-trafficking group of ACTS (Action of Churches Together in Scotland) and a member of the Trafficking CPG.
32. Kirstein Rummery, WEP candidate for Stirling
33. Julie Smith
34. David Battersby
35. Mirabelle Galvin
36. Dr Judith Dodds, Clinical Medical Officer in Community Paediatrics and Staff Grade doctor, Integrated Sexual Health Service
37. L. Bondarchuk, Edmonton Small Press Association (ESPA)
38. Eleanor Rose Price
39. Natalie Painter
40. Morgan King (Ms)
41. Penny White (USA)
42. Marcia Lieberman, Providence, RI (Rhode Island), USA
43. Julian Vigo, PhD, FRSA
44. Maggi Knowles
45. Professor Richard Byng
46. Judith Green, RM
47. Maria Kuznetsova
48. Sarah Johnson
49. Christopher Hall, MA DipArch ARB, Member of the Cross Party Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation at the Scottish Parliament
50. Survivor of 10 years in prostitution
51. Jessica Newbold
52. Josephine Bartosch
53. Sophie Hopkins
54. Lynn Alderson
55. Jayne Egerton
56. Rebecca Turner
57. Eliza Karat
58. Caroline Boreham
59. Elisabet Tasa-Vinyals, Junior doctor (Barcelona, Spain)
60. Mick Parkin
61. Carola Svensson
62. Clare Fisher
63. Susan Moffat, Retired Senior Health Promotion Specialist
64. Racheal Rodman
65. Lauren Smallcalder
66. Lynda Murphy (Ireland)
67. Ernesto Aguilar
68. Vivien Parker
69. Patricia Kenyon
70. Jane Galloway
71. Arianna Martignon
72. Marie Johansson
73. Ms Jacky Holyoake
74. Izabela Palinska
75. Josephine Liptrott
76. Fiona Roberts
77. Sarah Cummings
78. Kate Jacob
79. Alabama Whitman
80. Lesley Painter
81. Caroline Barnard
82. Ghada Jabbour
83. Hazel Lindsay
84. Jan E Goodyear
85. Marina Strinkovsky, Swindon
86. Sally Jackson
87. Silvia Beike
88. Lesley Semmens
89. Jan Goodyear
90. Elizabeth Matz
91. Emma Kettle
92. Anna Shea
93. Rebecca Mott (survivor of prostitution)
94. Helen Saxby
95. Daniella Binning
96. Mary Mulligan
97. Ingrid Maria Mørch
98. Roberta Stevenson
99. Emma Flynn
100. Jan Moran
101. Sareyeh Hadian
102. Anne Martin
103. Scott Bamford
104. Sue Henderson
105. David Menzies
106. Ilaria Cerchiaro
107. Liliana Forero
108. Emily Weir, daughter of a retired doctor and granddaughter of a concentration camp survivor who narrowly escaped being sold as a “comfort woman.”
109. Ceri Gazey
110. Adrianna Rocca-Weatherby
111. Mandy Oram
112. Sarah Ferguson
113. Jill Tinsley
114. Charlie Dacke
115. Anonymous
116. Joolz Saville-Hippely
117. Rachel King
118. Estrellita Angeles
119. Kari Müller
120. Reay (retired hospital doctor and radical feminist, horrified at what my young colleagues are proposing)
121. Pauline Kranendonk
122. Kate Coleman-Brueckheimer
123. Laura Tagliabue (Italy)
124. Susan Kennedy
125. Audrey Yvernault
126. Sabela Eiriz
127. Joshua Hippely
128. Kelly Ann Muldoon
129. Jan Martin
130. Elizabeth Gordon
131. Claire Jones, retired OT
132. T. Alexandra Reid
133. Erin Mansell
134. Rebecca Pennington
135. Ana Sofia Fernandes
136. Katie Toms
137. Courtney Mitchell
138. Asa Fritzon
139. Pamela Rubin
140. Gemma Aitchison
141. Pippa Banham
142. Lauren Sennett
143. Jane Roper
144. Gina Jenkinson
145. Lizzie Roper
146. Rebecca Harrison
147. Spider Redgold, Adjunct Professor – Sydney Australia
148. Jacqueline Gwynne, Former receptionist in a legal brothel in Victoria, Australia
149. Carol Ackroyd
150. Richard Hambleton
151. Natalie Hislop-Holland
152. Michelle Russell
153. Sara Bernabeo
154. Frances O’Connell
155. Rhea Arini
156. Sue Wardell
157. Elizabeth Miller
158. Cristina Vieira
159. Maureen Bennison
160. Chiara Rossi
161. Katherine Dickinson
162. Daniel Read
163. Ana Margarida Neves
164. Margarida Medina Martins (Portugal)
165. Sarah Brown
166. Al Garthwaite BA MA LLD (Hon) PGCE
167. Georgia Constantinou
168. Silvia Santarelli (Italy)
169. Lynne Harne
170. Susan Federspiel
171. Laura Di Mascolo
172. Jane Allen
173. Christine Gaffney
174. Jessica Smith
175. Martin Dufesne (Montreal, Canada)
176. Janet Elizabeth Hacker
177. Simone Watson, survivor of prostitution and director Nordic Model Australia Coalition (NorMAC)
178. Huschke Mau, survivor of prostitution (Germany)
179. Louise Wild
180. Caroline Page
181. Jasmine Anglen
182. Alice Wickenden
183. Chantelle Rial
184. Clara Hilger
185. Diane Stoianov
186. Emily Rose Szalay Prausnitz
187. Freya Judd
188. Lily Rae
189. May Mundt-Leach
190. Natasha Kendall
191. Samara Jundi
192. Louise Abel
193. Clarissa Payne
194. Heather Wood
195. Mary Wood
196. Tuscany Roux
197. Clare Solomon
198. Jen Isakson
199. Jackie Mearns
200. Ali Batts
201. Kelly Frost (survivor of male violence)
202. Kat Pinder (survivor of prostitution)
203. Lori Hirt
204. Joy Wood BSc (Hons)
205. Suzzan Blac (Trainer of social workers in CSA and CSE.  Also a survivor of CSA and sex trafficking victim at sixteen – Raped and paid for by violent men who didn’t know, ask or care as to whether I was trafficked or not.)
206. Lily Marks
207. Arianna di Vitto
208. Francesca Cirelli
209. Katarina Vidović
210. Helen Lipscomb
211. Alexandra Sofia de Moura Teixeira da Silva
212. Ken Doggrell
213. Giti Doggrell
214. Steph Pike
215. Julie O’Dwyer
216. Elena Urru
217. Sarah Crossland Morris
218. Nikki Bond
219. Delilah Williams
220. Andrew Minney
221. Dr Melanie McCarry
222. RoseAnn Cameron
223. Helen Taylor
224. Selma Nieuwoudt
225. Sally Beckford Hendry
226. Alison Togher
227. Emma Howard
228. Maria Riveiro
229. Lucy Wainwright
230. Philippa Vipham
231. Kelly Ryan, Oxford
232. Leopoldo Vargas
233. Caroline Murphy
234. Morag Murchison
235. Sue Kay
236. Isha Hussain
237. Anonymous
238. Roisin Brennan
239. Dr Marina Chitoni
240. Audrey Gleeson
241. Ashleigh O’Donnell
242. Tania Caliendo
243. Cristina Costa
244. Henrike van den Hoff
245. Shannon Toppi
246. Maria Irene De Maeyer
247. Victoria Alice Jones
248. Judy Ferguson
249. Louise Sykes
250. Audrey Taylor
251. Joanne Lowe
252. Penny Forsyth
253. Jane Ellis
254. Gunhild Mewes
255. Jenny Kruse
256. Steve Rawbone
257. Adelina (survivor of sex trafficking)
258. Susan Cole
259. Barbara Hughes
260. Liz Walker
261. Jessica Goldie
262. Antonia Burrows
263. Gabriele Mahler
264. Christopher Goldie
265. Anne Kazimirski
266. Melanie Camu
267. Louise Roberts
268. Inge Kleine
269. Anita Heiliger, Kofra (Munich)
270. Therese Melbotte
271. Dee Sekhon
272. Dr Lesley Orr
273. Kara Newsome
274. Anonymous, trafficking survivor
275. Karrie Payne
276. Betty Holt
277. Marina O’Brien
278. Kate Graham
279. Ruth Maguire MSP (SNP)
280. Nimco Ali, WEP candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green
281. Rowena Knight
282. Ruth Mulenga
283. Richard Newbold
284. Simon Aalders, Director, The Recovery Hub Ipswich
285. Mrs A E Hall BSc Hons, PGDE
286. Francine Sporenda
287. Katie Keene
288. Rebecca Mordan
289. Amy Corcoran
290. Clare Brivati

And a further eight individuals who do not want to be publicly identified.

Appendix

J1126 64 Motion by NORTH THAMES RJDC

This conference:

(i) Recognises the evidence that the policy approach of full decriminalisation of sex work, as adopted by New Zealand, has resulted in public health benefits for both sex workers and wider society – in particular by improving sexual health, personal safety and tackling human trafficking; therefore Calls upon the BMA to:

(ii) Publicly announce support for this policy approach and to lobby the government towards this end

(iii) Develop educational resources to enable doctors and medical students to better understand and respond to the specific healthcare needs of sex workers, such as CPD events and BMJ Learning resources

(iv) Create a working group to work on the above and consider collaboration with peer-led sex worker organisations such as SCOT-Pep, the English Collective of Prostitutes and the SWARM Collective, and other organisations working on this issue such as Amnesty International, in order to achieve the above aims

Download

Download a PDF version of this letter.

Addendum (added 13 June 2017)

Reply from the BMA

On 26 May 2017, we received the following reply:

Dear Anna Fisher,

I just wanted to thank you for the briefing and letter that you sent to Dr. Porter and Dr. Wijesuriya and to acknowledge that they have seen it.

I also wanted to clarify that a motion passed at a BMA branch of practice conference like the junior doctors conference or the medical students conference does not automatically become BMA policy.

Best wishes,

Sally Brett
Head of Equality, Inclusion and Culture
Professionalism and Guidance
Policy Directorate

Our response

We responded on Monday 12 June as follows:

Dear Ms Brett and Dr Porter,

Thank you for getting back to us. We do understand that policy passed at the Junior Doctors and Medical Students Conferences does not automatically become BMA policy.

However, we remain deeply concerned for several reasons. Firstly, the JDC policy calls on the BMA to take action. Secondly the policy was passed on the basis of biased, misleading and false statements and without a proper debate. And thirdly because those who brought the motions will undoubtedly be looking to bring a similar motion to the BMA in the near future.

Much was made during the Junior Doctors Conference debate that the motion was “neutral” and did not make a “judgement.” This is disingenuous. We showed in our open letter that prostitution is intrinsically harmful – not just to those caught up in it who often suffer lifelong negative consequences – but also to the buyers who tend to become more narcissistic and less empathetic and hence to society as a whole.

How is it possible to be “neutral” about an intrinsically harmful practice? Consider another harmful practice – the use of asbestos. In the long battle to get the harms recognised, who claimed neutrality? Was it the campaigners whose friends and neighbours were suffering mesothelioma? Or was it the academics funded by the asbestos barons? If those who claimed neutrality had won the day, to the suffering of those whose health had been ruined would be added the suggestion that they had brought it on themselves, that it was their fault, that they only had themselves to blame, that it was a “neutral” thing.

There are profound implications to doctors accepting that prostitution is “neutral.” We frequently hear reports from women attempting to exit and recover from prostitution that they get little or no help from their GPs because they see prostitution as just another job. One woman told us that her GP would not refer her to trauma counselling on the basis of her many years in the sex trade but would on the basis that she was raped as a teenager. We trust that you are as disturbed by this as we are.

We are living through a period when many of the gains towards sex equality achieved in the last century are rapidly being eroded. Over recent years there has been an escalation of male violence towards women and children and this is connected with the proliferation of porn and prostitution. At the same time, women’s social and economic position has been under assault from seven years of austerity measures that have disproportionately impacted women and organisations fighting for their safety and rights. This means that many of the voices that have in the past campaigned for the recognition of prostitution as violence against women and girls have been silenced as their funding has been cut and their workload increased by rising numbers of women in crisis seeking help.

It is no accident therefore that the most vocal and well-funded voices in the prostitution debate are those that campaign for the full decriminalisation of the sex trade, including of pimps and procurers. Just like in the asbestos debate, they are not “neutral” and do not represent the opinions of the majority of those who have survived the sex trade.

We ask again for a meeting with senior BMA and JDC officers to discuss the issues at greater depth and so they can hear for themselves the voices of survivors of the sex trade and those who work with marginalised and trafficked women and girls.

We also ask that you forward our open letter to all members of the JDC and BMA councils. We have attached it to this email for your convenience. We would be grateful if you could confirm this.

Yours sincerely

Anna Fisher
Chair, Nordic Model Now!