Thread by @JuliaLaite

The UK’s proposed #EndDemand bill; a #DecrimNow history thread:

‘Prostitution is a grievous vice’, wrote feminist Alison Neilans in 1919. To her, prostitution was morally wrong & harmful to women. Then, she continued: ‘but it cannot be made a crime without grave injustice.’

Yesterday, an amendment criminalizing the purchase of sex was added to the already controversial Policing and Crimes Bill. As much as Alison Neilans, the leading anti-prostitution campaigner of her day, hated prostitution, I know she would have opposed this. Why?

Because she knew that such laws were impossible to prosecute fairly. Laws directed against women who sold sex or men who bought it rested on stigma & too much police power. She understood that criminalizing one side would inevitably infringe on the rights of the other.

She knew that using criminal law to address a social and economic problem would push it underground. In 1957, the Met Commissioner agreed, & testified that criminalization was the key contributor to a rise in 3rd party organization & a rise in violence against women who sold sex.

Early C20 feminists knew attempts to ‘rescue’ prostitutes would fail, b/c "prostitution is not only the best paid, but the only well-paid profession for large numbers of girls… nobody can pretend that a respectable life of work is a guarantee of tolerable comfort and well-being"

I beg those considering Johnson’s amendment to think historically, & see how harmful the Nordic model has been elsewhere. Labour, of all parties, should understand that, as Neilans put it, ‘economics is the foundation of morality’. Want to end exploited prostitution? End poverty.