THE 156th annual TUC Congress will take place this week in Brighton. This event is a pivotal celebration of the hard-won rights of workers, which are increasingly imperiled by the lasting impacts of Covid-19, economic uncertainties and the rise of neoliberal policies.
These challenges make trade unions more essential than ever. The feminist activists at FiLiA UK look with hope to the trade unions, expecting them to resist the growing effort among labour-related circles to promote what they call “the decriminalisation of sex work.”
The title of this policy may seem innocent to the layman, who interprets the “decriminalisation of sex work” as an effort to protect vulnerable women from legal persecution. However, this wording is manipulative and conceals three major falsehoods propagated by the global pimp lobby: that prostitution is simply a kind of work; that “decriminalisation of sex work” aims at helping people in prostitution; and that legalising the sex industry will improve their lives. None of those are true.
