My Lords, as noble Lords will know, I have previously introduced a Private Member’s Bill to address human trafficking on two occasions. I am very pleased that, after many debates over a good number of years, this House played such an important part in changing the law to bring in new offences on human trafficking and new mechanisms to provide support for victims. The Bill that I am bringing forward today addresses similar concerns to those Bills—that is, how to prevent harm to those who are in vulnerable situations.
I had the privilege of listening to hours of evidence on human trafficking, including as a member of the Joint Committee that examined the draft Modern Slavery Bill and as part of the all-party parliamentary inquiry, which ran from 2013 to 2014, on the laws in England and Wales on prostitution. As I said when I spoke on a similar subject on 1 December, the group published our report, Shifting the Burden, in March 2014. I encourage noble Lords to review its findings.
The inquiry reinforced for me the concerns I have had about the negative impact on individuals involved in providing sexual services and the circumstances in which they find themselves. I recognise that this does not apply to all individuals, but, as I said in December, the evidence I have seen indicates that the majority of individuals in prostitution today are victims of exploitation and violence of one form or another. I set out some of that evidence in my speech then, and I hope the House will indulge me if I repeat some of the arguments again as they are very pertinent to my Bill.
Multiple academic studies, including data compiled for the Home Office, demonstrate that the majority of people who sell sex are incredibly vulnerable and subject to real exploitation. For example, research has shown that homelessness, living in care, and debt and substance abuse are all common experiences prior to a person entering prostitution, which is sometimes reflected in the evidence received by our all-party group inquiry.
Many of those in prostitution have suffered abuse and violence in the home. Dr Max Waltman of Stockholm University notes that international studies have consistently found that,
“the majority of prostituted persons—somewhere between 55% and 90% … were subjected to sexual abuse as children”.
The 2012 study, which was carried out for the charity Eaves, interviewed 114 women in prostitution in London both on the street and indoors. Of the women interviewed, 50% said that they had experienced some form of coercion from a partner, pimp or relative, or through trafficking. The same study found that 32% of those interviewed had entered the sex industry before the age of 18. Other studies have found higher numbers than this. For example, the 2004 UK study found a figure of 52% entering before the age of 18.
Numerous studies have found that between 50% and 95% of women in street prostitution are addicted to class A drugs. Professor Roger Matthews, an expert in prostitution law and policy has written:
“Street prostitutes frequently report that they work to support not only their own habit but also that of their boyfriend, pimp or partner. In some cases, male drug users/dealers will seek out female prostitutes as ‘partners’ since they make good customers and providers”.
The Eaves study I referred to also found that drug and alcohol misuse was not restricted to those in street prostitution, with 83% of their interviewees having a current or previous problem, which in a significant number of cases had begun or increased after entering prostitution. The evidence indicates not only that most people entering prostitution are vulnerable, but that the experience of prostitution compounds that vulnerability, putting them at risk of significant physical and mental harm. A comparative study of prostitution in nine countries, with more than 850 subjects, found that 73% had been physically assaulted. Some 61% of the women surveyed in 2012 by Eaves reported experiences of violence from buyers of sexual services.
Prostitution has also been shown to have a negative impact on people’s mental health. One comparative study in Glasgow looked at the mental health of female drug users, some engaged in prostitution and others not. The study found that those involved in prostitution experience more abusive incidents as adults and more mental health problems than those who are not. The authors concluded:
“Higher rates of adulthood abuse among prostitutes may explain the greater proportion of prostitutes than non-prostitutes meeting criteria for current depressive ideas and lifetime suicide attempts”.
The Council of Europe succinctly summarised my concerns in a parliamentary assembly resolution last year:
“Prostitution is a complex issue presenting various facets that should be taken into account. It affects the health of sex workers with consequences ranging from increased exposure to sexually transmitted diseases to higher risks of drug and alcohol addiction, physical and mental traumas, depression and other mental illnesses”.
However, it is not only the statistics that persuade me that the harms of prostitution are such that it can be seen as a form of violence against women and a dehumanising practice damaging for individuals and society as a whole. It is the stories of individuals who I have met that have been the most compelling. Earlier this week I had the privilege to listen to the powerful account of a woman who had been through prostitution and who now campaigns against sexual exploitation. She said the following:
“When you are prostituted, however you arrived there, you sign a social contract that comes with the highest cost; for the small print of this contract, the terms and conditions are harsh, disturbing and unjustifiable. So it would appear to most that we stand free on the street and yet everywhere we are in chains”.
She went on to say:
“It is my firm belief that every human is entitled to live a dignified life, and prostitution is the systematic stripping of one’s human dignity and I know that because I have lived and witnessed it, and it must no longer be tolerated”.
I agree with her entirely. The dignity and value of every individual person must be our priority.
All these facts lead me to the conclusion that a reduction in the levels of prostitution is essential, and that this would positively impact not only those domestically but also individuals who might be trafficked into England and Wales in the future.
Noble Lords will remember that we have international obligations to reduce the demand for human trafficking in both Article 18 of the EU directive and Article 6 of the Council of Europe convention on this subject. Indeed, last year the European institutions advocated action to reduce demand for human trafficking and for prostitution. I am sure some noble Lords are thinking that we have covered all this in the Modern Slavery Act. That is, indeed, a fine piece of legislation but, as I said at the time, it did nothing to fundamentally address the demand for human trafficking for sexual exploitation—a very serious oversight given that, according to the NRM figures, sexual exploitation is consistently the most prevalent form of human trafficking in England and Wales.
My Bill before us today seeks to address some of that demand by preventing the advertising of prostitution. It does so by addressing an anomaly in the law on prostitution whereby it is currently illegal to organise or profit from prostitution by running a brothel or allowing premises to be used for prostitution and to cause, incite or control prostitution for gain, but it is not illegal to advertise those same services in newspapers or on the internet. As the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, said to me yesterday, we would not accept adverts for a stolen bicycle or for illegal drugs and yet many prostitution adverts contain clear indications of other offences by referring to the availability of several women and, when combined with reference to ethnicity, should at least raise suspicions of trafficking.
I am not naive enough to think that if this Bill becomes law all advertising for prostitution will cease. That is not the criterion by which we should measure its success. My goal is twofold: first, that the law will help to reduce the amount of advertising and thereby help reduce the demand for paid sex, and all the attendant suffering and exploitation that comes with it, and help us fulfil our international obligations to address the demand for paid sex; and, secondly, that it will send a very clear message that we as a society reject the culture of prostitution advertising which commodifies and dehumanises women.
It is for those reasons that I am bringing this Bill before the House. In so doing, I would like to draw the attention of your Lordships’ House to the fact that this proposal is not without powerful international advocates. The European Parliament has noted that,
“advertisements for sexual services in newspapers and social media can be means of supporting trafficking and prostitution”.
This connection was poignantly highlighted by the case of a family in Bolton jailed last month for trafficking and exploiting two women in prostitution. According to the Guardian newspaper report, the court was told that one of the traffickers,
“set up profiles for the two women on adult websites, and when clients called he and his father would tell the women what to say. The victims, aged 30 and 21, were forced to see up to five clients a day and worked ‘whenever the phone rang’”.
The proposal to ban advertising of prostitution was recommended in a 2014 resolution of the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly. That resolution, which was passed by an overwhelming majority last year, states clearly that,
“trafficking in human beings and prostitution are closely linked … legislation and policies on prostitution are indispensable anti-trafficking tools”.
The resolution calls on Council of Europe member states to,
“ban the advertising of sexual services”.
My Bill meets that call.
The Purple Teardrop Campaign, the United Kingdom organisation committed to ending human trafficking, has a petition calling on Her Majesty’s Government to ban what it terms “sex for sale” advertisements, saying:
“Many ‘sex for sale’ advertisements are placed by traffickers and so contribute to the demand for sexually exploited women and children”.
I understand that more than 36,300 people have signed the petition to date.
My Bill is short and to the point. Clause 1 makes it an offence for a person to publish or cause to be published, or distribute or cause to be distributed, an advert for prostitution. Clause 4 ensures that the offence applies to a business as well as to an individual. Clause 5 defines an advert as,
“every form of advertising or promotion, whether in a publication or by the display of notices or posters or by the means of circulars, leaflets, pamphlets or cards or other documents or by way of radio, television, internet, telephone, facsimile transmission, photography or cinematography or other like means of communication”.
Clause 2 sets out that the punishment would be a fine, the level of which would be set by the Secretary of State. Clause 3 provides a defence that the person,
“did not know and had no reason to suspect that the advertisement related to a brothel”,
or prostitution.
This is a modest but important Bill and I urge noble Lords to give it a Second Reading. I beg to move.
3.11 pm