By Esther
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines “dissociation” as “a defense mechanism in which conflicting impulses are kept apart or threatening ideas and feelings are separated from the rest of the psyche”.
I was reminded of this on reading that the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chiefs’ Council would be collaborating with a taxpayer-funded research project to examine how commercial sex websites can address sexual exploitation.
About a year after I exited the sex industry, I met a friend from many years previously who had worked for the organisation which was renamed the National Crime Agency. When I said I had been involved in the sex industry and had been compulsorily admitted to a psychiatric inpatient ward, his immediate response was to say that the serious mental health challenges I had experienced were the direct result of my involvement in prostitution.
It was the first time anyone had made that connection explicit to me, as at that point I had not met many other survivors. It resonated because of my friend’s long experience in working to limit the activities of organised criminal networks.
The role of commercial sex websites in contributing to huge increases in the numbers of women and young girls entering the sex industry because of trafficking, austerity budgets and media misrepresentation of what involvement in the sex industry is like, has been enormous.
Creating and maintaining an over-supply of women is a deliberate strategy in all parts of the sex industry, designed to place pressure on women who enter the industry to cross boundaries, such as not having paid sex itself, or not performing certain acts. Their returns diminish either way, while the profits of the men who own the commercial sex websites through which their exploitation is facilitated increase exponentially through the hundreds of millions.
These are among the many consequences of the unfettered operation of these sites in the UK. Facilitating sexual exploitation is the purpose for which they exist.
The only way the police and prosecuting authorities could contribute to reducing sexual exploitation facilitated by these websites is by shutting them down.
“There would be no punters if the types of identification used elsewhere in society to increase security, such as passports or proof of address, were required before they could make contact.”
The Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation in its March 2021 report Online Pimping: An inquiry into Sexual Exploitation Advertising Websites reached these conclusions:
- Existing legislation fails to prevent the operation of these sites, which are major enablers of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and knowingly facilitate and profit from the prostitution of others.
- It is not possible to design out opportunities and incentives for third parties to traffic and exploit women through them
- They do not enhance women’s safety and they endanger vulnerable women by incentivising and enabling sex trafficking.
The National Police Chief’s Council defended the retention for 100 years of the 20-year-old criminal records for soliciting of Fiona Broadfoot and Julie Walshe, who were exploited from when they were underage by pimps against whom police at the time took no action. The NPCC and the Home Office did this so that these records could be shared if either of the women applied for “positions of utmost integrity”, of which the police are an example.
If this is their organisation’s position, it seems highly unlikely that members of the NPCC would tolerate the involvement of their own children and family members in the sex industry. They have security vetting and will also be aware of the close connections between the sex industry, the trade in illegal drugs and other forms of organised crime.
In this they will be little different from senior staff in global human rights organisations which proclaim the “sex work is work” mantra in theory, like the family member of mine who was able to facilitate my exit from the industry only because the tax-payer funds healthcare in the UK.
Sexual exploitation is “work” if it is performed by others.
What “dissociation” there must be in not being able to reconcile your private views and evidence-based behaviour with the pronouncements and policies advanced by the organisations for which you work.
When it is experienced by women who have been involved in the sex industry, experiencing dissociation is likely to have you labelled as “damaged” and not worthy of being believed.
These additional conclusions of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party group’s report on commercial sex websites deserve to be more widely known:
- The scale of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation they facilitate vastly outstrips policing capacity to respond to it.
- Collaboration with these websites by UK law enforcement gives political cover to the companies running them, fails to meet its stated objectives, and underplays the level of threat they pose.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) claims to focus resources on the larger-scale organisations involved in sexual exploitation.
A possible explanation for its failure to make creative use of existing legislation in England and Wales to bring charges against commercial sex websites is the likelihood that collaboration by law enforcement with these sites would be used by the website owners as a defence in any criminal proceedings related to them. This and resulting publicity would make it likely that prosecution would not take place on public interest grounds, rather than because there was insufficient evidence.
Collaboration with commercial sex websites does not, of course, give the police automatic and general access to the information those sites hold about people controlling others through the sites, or about the real identities of punters. Only those who are providing services are required to provide photo-ID.
There would be no punters if the types of identification used elsewhere in society to increase security, such as passports or proof of address, were required before they could make contact.
The websites provide access only to the extent that it benefits their commercial interests and the power in their interactions with law enforcement lies entirely with them.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection command (CEOP), which is part of the National Crime Agency, must know of the frequency with which punters ask women involved in the sex industry whether they have young daughters with whom they could perform for a higher reward. It isn’t only pimps who do this. How does the CEOP think this recruitment engine can be made safe?
The same people who argue that prohibiting paying for sex will drive the sex trade underground are not on record as having made similar arguments about the ban on handguns enacted in 1997, for which over £90 million was paid in compensation to gun-owners, or about bans on hare-coursing, dogfighting or fox hunting.
Organised criminal networks involved in gambling still hold dogfights, and there is still an illegal trade in firearms, but the potential sanctions involved for those involved in organising these activities are much higher and they are more likely to be reported because their illegal status, recognising the harm they cause, is known.
These comments from the Crown Prosecution Service guidance on hare-coursing are an interesting contrast to the arguments made in support of the “managed area” which was established with police support in the Holbeck neighbourhood in Leeds:
“As well as being an issue of animal welfare, offending in order to facilitate hare coursing can also have a wider impact. This can include vandalism of property, loss of income for farmers and landowners, theft, intimidation, and road traffic issues including the driving of unlicensed and uninsured vehicles. Hare coursing can cause significant disturbance in the countryside and is a cause of serious concern to those who live in rural communities.”
The increasing management of policing through directives and guidance from national bodies, intended to prioritise uniformity over local discretion, but also a phenomenon common in states where police forces grew out of quasi-military organisations and do not require policing by consent, along with graduate-entry, facilitates policy capture of law enforcement by activists in academia.
What makes Leicester University and those collaborating in its research project think they will discover more than the recent Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party group did?
Given the lead researchers’ previous involvement with the Student Sex Worker Toolkit there can be little doubt that this research is being carried out and publicly funded to boost an ideological position.
Why do they prefer euphemism over the title of the Scottish Parliament report? What answer has been provided to the report’s conclusions about the impact of law enforcement’s collaboration with the websites which are the drivers of sex trade expansion in the UK?