Both Conservative and Labour administrations have now refused to release research showing PIP payments are vital for disabled people’s survival, exposing the ideological nature of planned welfare ‘reforms,’ writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
Supporting vulnerable women, not their exploiters
Women need access to meaningful and properly paid work, not coercion into the abusive and dangerous sex industry, write LUBA FEIN and HELEN O’CONNOR
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
Despite caring for vulnerable children and often covering classes, support staff remain undervalued, with some earning less than supermarket workers — but GMB’s campaigning offers new hope, argues DONNA SPICER
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
Student Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and threatened deportation are terrifying — but the moribund Democrats are still failing to mount any meaningful resistance against the slide toward autocracy, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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.
Similar stories
Wherever prostitution laws are ‘liberalised,’ the result is a surge in human trafficking and abuse, writes STELLA BAILEY
ESTHER, from Nordic Model Now! explains how decriminalisation of prostitution, rendering it just another form of ‘work’, would undermine the Equality Act 2010
Is the United Nations finally recognising that the sex trade is a form of exploitation and a breach of human rights? LUBA FEIN welcomes a new report which suggests that might be the case