Thread by @nordicmodelnow

🧵We will be live tweeting 'POWER PLAY: Is the Sex Industry REALLY empowering for women?' conference, in Coventey. This event will commence at 2PM BST.

Our first speaker is Heli St Luce. Under the pseudonym Maxi McNaughty, she is a therapist, healer, and ceremony and ritual guide. As Ms Ina Propriate she performs. Her powerful and moving voice inspires and gives her work a unique quality.

Heli will be discussing where did the idea that prostitution is a normal job that can be empowering for women came from and why did it gain ground so quickly? What are the key policy approaches to prostitution and who supports them?

Heli shared the experience of her Afro-Caribbean mother and the exploitation from men she suffered.
#PowerPlay
#NotSexNotWork

"What affects one women impacts ALL women" - Heli

In the 1980s, the sexual exploitation industry needed to change its seedy image to something positive, changing the language from prostitution to 'sex work'... A euphemism cannot alter reality, it can only make it more difficult to understand - Heli

The youngest girl saved from sex trafficking from Netherlands in 2020 was 2 years old - Heli

Heli is comparing the Nordic Model for prostitution to full decriminalisation. Here is an image from her website.

The nordic model has several pillars.
1. It decriminalises selling sex.
2. Creates services and genuine routes of the industry.
3. Buying sex a criminal offence.
4. Strengthens laws against sex trafficking, pimping and brothel keeping.
5. Includes holistic measures - education

Full decrimalisation is:
1. All aspects - pimping brothel keeping - are decriminalised.
2. No public funding fro services that help women exit.
3. Laws against trafficking are retained, effectively legal.

People like to say the Nordic Model makes prostitution more dangerous. NOTHING can make prostitution safe - Heli

Next @fiona_broadfoot takes the mic. She was groomed into prostitution by her ‘boyfriend’ when she was 15. Since then, Fiona has been a passionate activist against the sex trade and is the founder of Build a Girl, working with girls at risk of or experiencing sexual exploitation.