Latest editorial
THE prostitution industry is inherently exploitative and should not be fully decriminalised, campaigners from Nordic Model Now told a TUC Congress fringe meeting in Brighton on Monday evening.
Barrister Emily Husain said prostitution “opens up our most intimate relations to the full force of neoliberal economics.”
“Is this in line with trade union values?” she asked.
Coach Heli St Luce rejected the idea of “an equal negotiation” between pimps and brothel owners and women and girls.
Full decriminalisation in New Zealand had brought “coercion and a rapid increase in the size of the industry,” she said.
Michelle, a survivor of prostitution and trafficking, dismissed the claim that it was “just another job,” challenging the notion that consent can be freely given by women who need to put a roof over their heads.
The Nordic Model criminalises buying sex while decriminalising selling it, alongside support for women seeking routes out of prostitution.
Who should the trade union movement be fighting for: pimps or marginalised women, asks ANNA FISHER
As Cuba faces an unprecedented US energy siege and growing threats of military intervention, TUC Congress must stand unequivocally with Cuban workers and their right to determine their own future, writes STEVE GILLAN, POA general secretary and TUC president
ANNA FISHER explores what would it mean for women’s equality and public safety if Britain embraces full commercialisation of the sex trade
The legacy of socialist feminists such as Alexandra Kollontai challenges us today to confront an uncomfortable truth: framing prostitution as empowerment lets the abusers of the Epstein class off the hook, warns HELEN O’CONNOR