Call for halt to sex advertising
Volunteers collect signatures for petition to stop advertising of sex for sale.
Anti-Slavery Day – October 18 – was created by an Act of Parliament in 2010 to raise awareness of modern slavery and to inspire people to eliminate it.
Modern-day slavery is defined as child trafficking, forced labour, domestic servitude and trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Fraud, deception and violence have trapped women and children in the sex trade. They have to endure appalling conditions and they earn huge tax-free profits for the people who control them.
And sex advertising increases the demand for prostitution and fuels human trafficking.
Human trafficking is now the second-biggest source of illicit profits after the drugs trade, the European Commission says, with traffickers making $32 billion in profits annually.
According to the Human Trafficking Foundation (HTF), “there are more people in slavery today than in the entire 350 year history of the slave trade and 1 in 8 of those is in Europe.”
Some 800,000 people – children, men and women – are trafficked every year, the Foundation says.
Around 76 per cent of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation, and of these, 70 per cent are women, some 17 per cent are men, 11 per cent girls and two per cent boys.
The Nottingham branch of women’s volunteer organisation Soroptimist International, was at Nottingham’s Speakers’ Corner on Anti-Slavery Day, collecting signatures for the Purple Teardrop petition.
The prime objective of the Purple Teardrop Campaign is to promote human rights with a focus on the infringement of human rights suffered by the victims of people trafficking – 80 per cent of whom are women and girls.
It is reckoned that some 12,000 women and girls are held against their will in sex trafficking locations in the United Kingdom.
The Purple Teardrop petition is to urge ministers in the UK government to ban advertising of sexual services. Many ‘sex for sale’ advertisements are placed by traffickers and so contribute to the demand for sexually exploited women and children, campaigners say.
To sign the petition, click here.
This petition signing is one of many events taking place across the country and over several days before and after Anti-Slavery Day, all of which aim to raise awareness of the modern day slave trade – that is, child trafficking, forced labour, domestic servitude and trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Films are being screened in Bristol, Gloucester, Loughborough and Leeds, while conferences and concerts are being held in cities including Nottingham, Croydon and Leicester.
The Purple Teardrop Campaign has four main aims: to raise awareness among the general public of the plight of women and children who are trafficked; to try to suppress the demand for trafficked women by making men who use prostitutes aware that they could be contributing to this trade; to support the safe houses which provide holistic care for victims who have been freed from trafficking and to promote awareness of the Crimestoppers number, 0800 555 111, so that members of the public can give confidential information on locations where they think trafficked women are being exploited.
Anthony Steen, the former MP behind the creation of Anti-Slavery Day, said informing the public about the modern day slave trade is vital if it is to be stamped out: “You need awareness,” he said.
“People have to know there’s a brothel around the corner, they have got to know there are men in the fields on debt bondage.”
Erm… We’re agreed that prostitution should be legalised, right? Else how can you police it? Well, it’s going to be difficult to make the sex industry legitimate if it can’t advertise its services. Big picture, people, big picture.
Erm Hendrik, no we are not agreed that prostitution should be legalised – not at all. And, given that the article is all about abolishing trafficking, I think you are not being sincere.
I’m being entirely sincere. How can you take prostitution out of the hands of criminals without legalising it?
Do you think legalising it will take it out of the hands of criminals? Legalising would mean taxes, licensing, possibly health checks. Legalising alcohol and cigarettes hasn’t kept criminals out of it; tax dodging, smuggling, come on…
That’s fair. You’ll never entirely eliminate crime or black markets. However, if you don’t legalise prostitution, it stays _entirely_ in the hands of criminals, by definition.
IPS is running a very clear story on this issue – about how ‘when French police broke up a Nigerian human trafficking ring that allegedly forced young migrant women into prostitution, the arrests cast a sharp light on the plight of what the authorities called “modern-day slaves”, here and throughout Europe.
Following the operation last month, police said that the criminal ring had trafficked young Nigerian women into France via Italy, and that the women were forced into prostitution to pay off thousands of euros in so-called debts to those who had arranged their smuggling.
These young women form part of the estimated 1.5 million victims of human trafficking in the European Union and other developed regions, according to the International Labour Organisation, which puts the global number of victims at close to 21 million.
In Europe, groups say the numbers are rising with the global economic crisis and conflicts in various regions, and they are pushing government officials to take action against trafficking and prostitution.’
So sad, and so sick. http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/10/migrant-women-trapped-in-sex-trade/
And on the other side of the Atlantic: Erin Giles, founder of End Sex Trafficking Day, invited 60 ‘incredible writers and entrepreneurs to write one essay and compiled them all in one book that will have one big mission: to fight sex trafficking. TheEnd Sex Trafficking book on sale for $20 is a collection of 60 essays on love, knowledge + freedom by trailblazers like Seth Godin, Danielle La Porte, Jonathan Fields and herself — and all of the authors proceeds goes to the Not For Sale Campaign an organization fighting to abolish slavery every single day.’ http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/erin-giles/sex-trafficking_b_1972072.html