But the elephant in the room (this cliché has become very common recently) is the question of what MPs actually do. Cabinet ministers, of course, run government departments. Sort of. Actually, civil servants run government departments, and cabinet ministers (if they are wise) set policy or (if foolish) get involved in top-level executive decisions. Junior ministers, naturally, do what their senior colleagues do, but less so. The opposition is there to hold the government to account, and back-benchers of the government are… well… to provide the necessary support for the government to be a government.

If MPs are merely voting fodder or some kind of inspection agency, then their senior-management level salaries look a bit over-priced. Some MPs ask barely more than one or two parliamentary questions a year — not the sort of thing which holds anyone to much account. There are All Party Parliamentary Groups on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from human trafficking (a substantially overlooked topic) to beer, a subject which is seldom overlooked. However, these APPGs have no direct influence on the activity of government. There are also select committees, which form part of the process of law-making. But, again, quite a few MPs are not members of any select committees. These are typically the MPs who ask the fewest parliamentary questions.

Members of Parliament have, at least since the war in most areas, supplemented their parliamentary duties with constituency duties. These range from holding surgeries as semi-surrogate social workers, to an endless round of openings and parties. MPs also respond to constituents’ letters, and raise issues of importance with local government. But, again, they raise issues, but have no direct authority. Naturally, in a public sector organisation, a letter from an MP carries a certain weight. But only a certain weight. It is soft influence, not hard impact.

Ask a member of the public exactly what an MP does, and you may get a fairly vague answer. Ask an MP what MPs do, and the answer can be equally vague. To restore trust in politicians, we need job descriptions.

To someone who has lived without one, a job description may seem threatening. MPs have muttered about the unfairness of being told what to do, and how to live. The phrase ‘living on rations’ has cropped up.

But the truth is, the entirely unregulated life of an MP can be as bad for them as it is for the people they serve. A friend of mine was told by his doctor that if he did not stand down as MP for a seat he had famously won a few years before, then he would be dead in five years. Endlessly late nights, a culture which emphasises alcohol consumption, and a demanding programme which is effectively a 40 hour week in Westminster supplemented by a 40 hour week in the constituency, is not good for the MP, nor is it good for the decisions they should be making on our behalf. There is a reason why good companies do not let their senior managers overwork — overworked managers gain progressively fewer results the longer they extend their hours.

The other benefit of a really clear job description is that, if an MP fails in it, he or she could actually be removed. The ability for the electorate to remove failing MPs is part of Liberal Democrat national policy. An MP who seldom turns up at the House of Commons, is rarely in the constituency, and whose letters are written by a team of poorly paid researchers working from a fairly elementary rule-book, is not earning the money we pay them. Worse, he or she is preventing a more diligent, hard-working person from representing the voters.

It is no surprise that all of the worst excesses of the expenses scandal were in ‘safe’ seats. An MP with no accountability framework, no means of removal, and no likelihood of even having to campaign hard when the General Election is called can casually disregard his or her duty. And, it seems, some, or even many, did.

Job descriptions, then. A simple summary of hours to be worked, outputs to be measured, methods of accountability, common standards and disciplinary procedures. Businesses discovered them decades ago. It’s time for the elected-sector to make its way into the late 20th century. Perhaps as a step (heaven help them) into the 21st.

Related posts

• Restoring trust – how? (0)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• Which David they choose will determine the campaign we fight (0)
• The politics of hate (0)
• The guilty should go, and this includes any Lib-Dems. The innocent should not (0)

When I was sixteen, I once told my (then) girlfriend “I really hate mods”. Mods, at that time, were not first year Oxford University exams, nor modifications to video games or other software, but were the fashion alternative to ‘rockers’. “Oh dear,” she said. “I don’t hate anyone”. We later split up, and while I, through many pathways and byways, became a politician, she successfully pursued her dream of being a diplomat. Of course, I didn’t remotely ‘hate’ mods. I didn’t even really know what mods were, and it turned out later that some of my friends were mods. But, at the moment, it seemed to establish me more as a ‘rocker’ if I said I hated them.

Many years later, I was having dinner with my ex-fiancée (not the same person as the former girlfriend) and another friend. I mentioned that I was going into politics, and, knowing that she was a skilled and passionate person, I asked if she would consider running my campaign. “Oh.” She said. “Which party?”. “The Liberal Democrats,” I replied. For a moment a shadow appeared to pass across the sun (which was impossible, because we were in a Chinese restaurant in Soho where the sun never came). All the Oxford-London fell from her voice, as she said in horror, with as deep a Rhondda valley accent as I’ve ever heard from her: “The LIBERALS?” She appeared to rise to her feet (though she has since assured me that she did not), as she said again, in a voice which seemed to fill the restaurant with centuries of astonished grief and hurt. “THE LIBERALS?”

She later confided in me that it wasn’t the Liberals she hated (we’re actually the Liberal-Democrats), but the Conservatives. She later went off and joined the Labour party, and became a Labour parliamentary and European candidate. We’re still friends, and, no, this was not why we split up, which was, in any case, ten years earlier.

Especially in politics, we use the word ‘hate’ rather freely. But there are times when our distaste for our foes is really no more than ‘I hate Marmite’, and times when it is rather more. Ann Widdecombe famously said that she went into politics to fight socialism. ((She also, equally famously, appeared on Doctor Who in support of Simon Pegg’s John Saxon, aka The Master. If she had waited long enough, she could have joined Tony Blair’s New Labour to fight socialism.)) I always found this odd. If she had said ‘to fight communism’ I could have understood it. But socialism? Really? I remember that hatred between the Socialist Workers Party and the National Front in the 70s. And, of course, the undisguised hatred of the National Front for anyone who did not look exactly like them. As Britain, we somehow learned during the 1970s that hate based on race, then known as ‘racialism’, but now known by the catchier term ‘racism’, was simply wrong. But, in 2001, it suddenly became fashionable and acceptable to hate one particular category of foreigner, the ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. It didn’t take long for the term ‘bogus asylum seeker’ to be melded in the popular conscious with, simply, ‘asylum seeker’, so that anyone who came to these shores fleeing persecution could look forward to disdain, disgust and derision from those they met.

It’s always easier to get people to do things if you can stir up strong passions. Hatred of the BNP will doubtless bring many people into politics over the next few years. But hate is a uniquely destructive attitude. It causes us to obsess over our enemies, to see conspiracy theories, to misinterpret innocence, to categorise other people into the hated group simply because they look or sound similar. Hate causes us to mistrust, to pre-judge and to misjudge. It develops double standards in ourselves, which become embedded in a persona of hypocrisy. It causes us to skew our own positions. When we hate, we lose sight first of truth, then of honesty, and, finally, as the rot really sets in, of plausibility. We see the entire world as a battle between what we hate and what we use against that which we hate. As times moves on, those who refuse to take sides garner even more of our malice than those who are the original object of our detestation.

Hatred twists the most normal, sensible people into a horrific parody of themselves. I’ve found things written about me on websites, or said about me in meetings, by people who have never met me, never heard me speak, and (possibly) never read a word I’ve written. And yet, simply because I belong to one party rather than another, they see me as fair game for whatever they choose to throw. But these same people are, in their ordinary lives, quiet, sensible, law-abiding, the kind of person you would be quite happy to see as a magistrate or a school-teacher, or (until you found out), your town councillor.

Not all politicians are like this. In fact, it seems to me that it is more often supporters of politicians rather than politicians themselves who pursue hatred as a vocation. After I first stood for public office — as a councillor, in a seat I couldn’t win, and didn’t want to if I did — the Labour councillor who did win came up to me and said ‘Well done lad’. After the 2001 General Election, the Tory MP who won the seat came up to me and told me that he thought it was highly likely I would become an MP sooner or later, and gave me some advice on my campaign. Not sneering, measly-mouthed advice, but sensible, valuable advice, which he had learned himself, and which I have taken to heart.

All politics is made up of temporary alliances of people who agree on some important things, and disagree on others. Part of the reason we are locked into a seemingly endless cycle of boom-and-bust electoral landslides in the UK is that our parties have become virtual armed-camps. The rhetoric of Prime Minister’s Question Time makes this quite apparent. You cannot pretend a man is the devil one day, and then plan with him how the country could be served and improved the next.

Whenever I talk about this, people start to be nervous. “If we cannot hate, should we just roll over and let our opponents have whatever they want”, they start to say. Of course not. But we need to rediscover our vocabulary. We can disagree, dispute, rebutt. We can dismantle a flawed policy, discredit a misleading piece of information, decry an unworthy attitude. At times we may denounce an opponent who has, for example, claimed for a mortgage that did not exist. Not hating barely has an impact on the range of means by which we can oppose. You can love and respect someone, and yet be quite clear they are entirely wrong. You can recognise the good in someone’s motives, and yet also recognise they are completely incompetent. And you should. The duty of opposition is to oppose. It is an honourable duty, and serves the public good. But no good is served by hating them ((that is, hating a person — it is entirely right to hate injustice, hate people trafficking, hate cancer, and so on)).

It is time to take the malice out of British politics.

Share/Save

Related posts

• In the nation’s interests (1)
• Wrong answer too late. (0)
• Which David they choose will determine the campaign we fight (0)
• Are single issue parties the answer? Not exactly… (0)
• Tricky moment for the conscience party (0)

Forget, for a moment, how you choose to implement them. If you could have five things, what five? I tried this one with some of my colleagues. Making the unemployed work was a popular choice, so was making people more honest (remember, I did say don’t worry about how to deliver it). One person said she wanted to plant lots of trees, and make sure there were lots of parties.

For the record, my five things would be:

Restore trust in democracy
End human trafficking world-wide
Put a stop to predatory commerce (loan-sharks, scams, and those cash machines they put in deprived areas that charge you for your own money)
Make Britain an environmentally sustainable economy
Brand greed as a vice, not a virtue

This might strike you as an odd list for a Liberal Democrat. Why nothing about education, the health service, the arms race, child poverty? These are all important issues, but they’re also all issues which pretty much everyone agrees on. All parties are for health, against crime, against bloodshed, against poverty, for education. My five are things which either — generally — government shows little interest in, or problems to which no-one yet has an adequate answer. Things that are worth going down in history for, perhaps.

So, what are your five?

Share/Save

Related posts

• Victory for democracy, but the system needs an overhaul (0)
• The politics of hate (0)
• Poor Gordon’s perfect storm — and heeding the lesson of history (0)
• Job Descriptions for MPs? (1)
• Are single issue parties the answer? Not exactly… (0)

Which means not one person who has been implicated in MP expenses is standing. To be sure, MEPs have been questioned about their expenses in the past, most notably UKIP, whose value to the taxpayer in terms of cost for work done is lamentable.

Westminster must be reformed, but tomorrow’s vote will not have a direct bearing on it. We could, of course, vote to send a message, but, for once, it appears that all the major parties have got the message already — though, what they intend to do about it varies from the disingenous to the radical.

So, what are the issues for the European elections?

By number of parties standing, you would think the main issue is Europe — in or out. But it isn’t. Not one of the major parties suggests we should leave the European Union. UKIP may see itself as a major party on this issue, but, after a full term with members in the EU parliament, UKIP has yet to be able to show a single change to the European system which it can call its own. A vote for UKIP is, in every sense, a wasted vote.

The reason that the serious parties all agree on our membership of the EU is that, notwithstanding any number of pictures of Winston Churchill and British Bulldogs (now more commonly used for selling insurance), Britain needs to be at the head of an effective, negotiating Europe. No matter what we would love to believe, the USA, Russia, India, China, and the federations of South America and of Africa are much too big for us to negotiate with as a single player. Worse, climate change is much, much too big for us to deal with alone. And worse still, international crime has now successfully organised itself to slip by any single-government policing programme.

Of course, the serious parties disagree seriously on how we should be involved in Europe. To me, it seems clear that there is only one logically consistent position. If we accept at all that we should be in the EU, then we should be fully participating just as much as France and Germany. Otherwise, we will be second-class members paying the full membership fee. This means full co-operation on crime, a genuine collaboration to rebuild our economies, and a concerted approach to climate change. Pollution, drug and people trafficking, and the credit crunch are three things that will not stop at the white cliffs of Dover.

Various gradations of ‘not-really taking part’ seem to me to be more about being seen by the electorate to be just Euro-sceptic enough to vote for. But they will do us as a nation no good in the long run, nor in the short, as we have bitterly seen in the last years.

So what about the ‘consistent’ position not of Euro-scepticism, but of total Euro-phobia? I spent a bit of last Thursday handing out leaflets while the BBC filmed me as background material to vox-pops. It didn’t take long for us to spot which two people were (more or less) walking up and down, lingering, in order to get their chance on camera. And, of course, they launched a tirade against Europe, the Commission, MEPs, MPs expenses, etc, etc.

If you want to get really angry about something, Europe is always a good choice — after all, it’s not going to come round to your house later saying “what was all that about, then?”, nor is it likely to be on the committee of any club you might subsequently want to join. Europe is, in some ways, tailor-made for the English eccentric who wants to have a jolly good rant, and then get back to raking up the leaves or making cakes for a jumble sale.

But, in reality, the Euro-phobic parties do not go any further than that in terms of their real policies. Euro-phobia is just another manifestation of xenophobia. And, like xenophobia, the real problem is where you draw the line about who is ‘foreign’. In its extreme form, American survivalists end up drawing a line around themselves and their immediate family, and declaring cold-war on the rest of the world.

Neither UKIP nor any of the other fringe parties has ever put forward any kind of a credible process by which Britain could leave the EU, nor have they ever put forward figures that any independent commentator would accept about how much it would cost the British economy to do so. This is not simply because there is no credible process. It is because anyone who works to acquire sufficient knowledge to put together such a process learns quickly that the programme itself is nonsensical.

I used to know a lovely old lady who had (as anyone would confirm) a heart of complete gold. Occasionally, though, she would talk about Europe. “They should never have built the Channel Tunnel”, she used to tell me. “That was really the end of Britain as an island.” She never quite explained what the exact implications of the channel tunnel were. I’m not sure if she felt that European-ness — perhaps a fondness for olives, French bread and espresso coffee — would come wafting through the tunnel like a ground mist. I don’t think she knew herself. But I feel that her fears were of exactly the same kind as the Euro-phobic parties: ill-defined, unfaced, impossible to pin down to any specific threat that could be managed or mitigated.

Such is the way of fear. Fear, as we have seen too often in the 20th century, is the worst of all guides at the ballot box. Closely followed by fury.

Tomorrow, we must put aside both fear and fury, and face the issues. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to each other.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Job Descriptions for MPs? (1)
• How much reform can we handle? (0)
• Forget ‘how to run a cheaper parliament’: how about ‘how to run a better parliament’? (0)
• Cameron promises every kind of change except actual change… (0)
• Who now can claim that the Daily Telegraph helped democracy? (0)

Jacqui Smith came under considerable pressure this morning on Radio 4′s Today Programme, but, effectively, the presenter missed the point. Whatever the views of libertarians (a position which should not be confused with liberalism), the most important action to reduce human trafficking into the UK is to reduce the demand, and the only method open to legislators is the law. Pimps and traffickers have many ways of concealing their linkage with trafficked women. In previous generations, the women themselves have been penalised, often with scant regard for the possibility that they are trafficked or otherwise coerced. Penalising clients who knowingly make use of coerced prostitutes is by far the most reasonable, effective and intelligent approach.

Radio 4 made much of the suggestion that a man might unwittingly make use of the services of a coerced woman, believing that this was not the case. However, this is not legally dissimilar to any case of people who recklessly purchase stolen goods or profit by other illegal activity without making reasonable enquiries. There is a strong body of case law and police practice to prevent the innocent from facing charges.

Objections from the English Collective of Prostitutes are similarly misguided: women who choose prostitution will not be affected by this. In fact, this is progressive legislation, because, in the past, almost all legislation regarding prostitution has focused on penalising prostitutes themselves. It is not very long ago that the same government was introducing ASBOs and CRASBOs which, frequently, resulted in prostitutes facing fines which they could only pay by returning to prostitution — a vicious cycle which could have been anticipated, but was not.

At its most simple, we have to face the question: does any man ever have the right to sex with a woman who is coerced into doing so? There are few questions where the result is so clear cut. No human being has this right. It is a fundamental violation of the very basis of human rights. In that case, we are left asking: why has this not been illegal for some time? This is a much more difficult question to answer, and a much more promising line of attack which Radio 4 might have considered pursuing. Given that there is widespread awareness of the problem of human trafficking, most men who use prostitutes must have some inkling that there is a possibility that the people they are dealing with are either traffickers or trafficked women. In that case, why have men not banded together before to drive the traffickers out of business? A lot of work was done on this question in Belgium in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the publication of the seminal ‘Ze zijn zo lief, menheer’, by Chris de Stoop. In Belgium, where prostitution is effectively legal in all its forms (and therefore a counter example to those who argue that legalising and regulating prostitution will end people trafficking), 1/3 of men are estimated to use prostitutes, and, as de Stoop demonstrated, high numbers were aware of the status of the women they were using. De Stoop explored the reasons for which men engaged in activity which, when considered in the coldest light of morning, was utterly brutal and degrading, and was not (as it is often put) ‘equivalent to a modern form of slavery’, but is, in fact, with no qualifications, slavery itself. The most commonly occurring ‘reason’ became the title for the book “because they’re so nice”.

After many, many years of campaigns, the government is finally doing something. They should be applauded. But there is much work still to do, and, if they are serious, they must now reinstate cut funds for trafficking investigation.

Whether or not the police are ever funded to enforce the new laws — a serious issue, given the recent cuts — the fact that sex with trafficked women will become illegal is a massive step forward in itself. Far too often, the most compelling argument put forward by people engaged in activities of this type is “if it was that bad, it would be against the law”. At last, it will be.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Responding to the BNP (0)
• Nonetheless, tomorrow we must vote on the issues (0)
• Freedom Sunday — why I entered politics (0)
• Birmingham Raid uncovers tip of the iceberg (0)
• Banning prostitution is not the answer — but fining the clients might be (0)

After endless amounts of backwards and forwards discussion, Harriet Harman is considering “banning” prostitution. Her reasons are something I applaud – to reduce the sex market, thereby decreasing the profits of sex-trafficking, and moving towards eliminating the modern slave-trade.

Actually, though, ‘banning’ is something that patently does not work as far as what is generally referred to as ‘vice’ is concerned. The American experiment with Prohibition of Alcohol is invariably cited as the case in point. On the other hand, the solution recommended by the English Collective of Prostitutes – to legalise building-based prostitution, as has been done in New Zealand – has also been proven not to work. In Amsterdam and across Belgium, building-based prostitution has been shown as the best of all worlds for people-traffickers. Their victims are out of sight, easy to control.

This sounds like the counsel of despair. If banning doesn’t work, and if legalisation doesn’t work, we are almost at the point of saying that we are living in the best of all possible worlds – and what a terrible world that is.

Some solutions, have yet to be tried. It has been hinted at in radio interviews, but the best solution is to target the clients. Any kind of restrictions on sex-workers invariably results in more pressure by pimps and traffickers on illegal immigrants. The threat of law is used against the victims. What’s more, those involved in semi-consensual sex, which is most prostitutes, can only pay the fines that are currently dished out to them in magistrates’ courts by engaging in more prostitution. Targeting the clients, on the other hand, goes (as the Inland Revenue say) ‘where the money is’. There are at least three kinds of prostitutes: trafficked women, semi-consensual prostitutes, and (most often heard on the radio) prostitutes who choose to do what they do. There is only one kind of client: men who want sex, and are prepared to pay for it. The experience of research in Belgium is that men are unwilling to distinguish between the three kinds. Target the clients, and the market reduces.

However, this approach can only be pursued if routes are created out of prostitution for those who want to exit the trade. This is not only for trafficked women. There are plenty of semi-consensual prostitutes, working to pay for drug-habits, or because their economic situation is one for which they cannot find another solution. We don’t (as yet) have sufficiently integrated paths out of drug-use. Any way out needs to be carefully constructed at a local level to provide drug rehabilitation, dental treatment (almost always essential for drug users), training for employment, social housing, and more. This can only happen if we commit to it as a society: far too often initiatives of this kind are held back because ‘ordinary’ people (or their local political representatives) say that they don’t want public money to go on helping people out of their own bad choices to this extent. It’s the same argument that says that teenage girls get pregnant in order to get housing benefit. True, or not? Hard to say. But irrelevant. In a civilised society, we need to invest in people’s lives to bring them back into mainstream society, no matter how they fell out of it. If we are not willing to pay the price, then we must accept that we will never approach an answer to human trafficking.

Which makes all of us guilty.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Nonetheless, tomorrow we must vote on the issues (0)
• Freedom Sunday — why I entered politics (0)
• Birmingham Raid uncovers tip of the iceberg (0)
• At last – action on behalf of trafficked women in the UK (0)
• Why it does matter about Blunkett (0)

Wilberforce stands as a powerful example to both Christians and to politicians. But it was not the example of Wilberforce, but direct contact with human trafficking, which brought me into politics.

During the late eightes and nineties, I worked in Belgium with an international Christian charity called Operation Mobilisation. As part of what I was doing, I began to work in pastoral counselling first with asylum seekers and then with victims of sex trafficking. I would like to be able to write that I helped thousands. In fact, the process of working with victims of sex trafficking is so slow, arduous, and, often, painful, that I was only able to work with a handful of those impacted.

In 1996 I left Belgium with a clear thought in my mind. I realised that I could work, very slowly, with individuals, one or two at a time, for the rest of my life. This would perhaps mean a great deal to those individuals, but, for every one I or others doing the same work helped, thousands more would get nothing. Worse, the kind of help that I and others could give was only available to those who had already escaped. We had nothing to offer those still trapped.

It’s estimated that 16 million people were sold into slavery over the 315 years of the North Atlantic slave trade. Some would question that figure, and suggest that it should be far higher. Higher or not, it was a crime against humanity perpertrated from these shores which dwarfs the crimes of Adolf Hitler. Today, the US state department estimates that 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked — sold into slavery — each year across the world. An older estimate by the United Nations set the figure at five million. Other estimates vary widely. The truth is no-one knows. Even if we take the lowest figure, it means that as many people are sold into modern slavery every twenty five years as during the entire history of the North Atlantic slave trade. Worse, an estimated 12.3 million people are held by forced labour, and 179 million children around the world are kept in the worst forms of child labour. 600,000. Five million. Twelve million. A hundred and seventy nine million. At the human level, these figures are beyond all comprehension.

If all the aid workers, charity workers, lobbyists, pressure group workers and politicians in the entire world were to try to work with one enslaved or trafficked person each, first to free them from their current position, and then to undertake the immeasurable harder task of restoring their human dignity, and preparing them to live and work as equals in an equal society — if all this was done at the rate of one per person per year, which would be a rapid rate — the task would never be finished. The scale of the crime dwarfs all of our efforts.

With this in mind, I realised that it was no longer enough to help people one by one out of the trap. It was — and is — time to harnass the full resources of society to do away with human trafficking altogether. Two years after leaving Belgium, I joined the Liberal Democrats, and announced my intention to stand for parliament. Since then, I have continued to argue, on platforms large and small, in public places and in back-rooms, with key political leaders and with grass-roots activists, that human compassion compels us to place this issue at the top of our political agenda.

I am not saying that the economy, terrorism, health, education and all those other things are not important. I am and always will be involved deeply in the detail of how we can run this country better at all levels. But, if there is a single gigantic reproach to the world we live in, it is the blight of the modern day slave trade.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Why Gordon Brown should watch Doctor Who (0)
• What is the Archbishop of Canterbury on about? (0)
• Caught between Kerry and Buttiglione? (0)
• Are single issue parties the answer? Not exactly… (0)
• Why Gordon Brown’s strategy is all wrong (0)

Everywhere there was a sense that change is in the air. This wasn’t just the thrilling Harrogate weather. Elsewhere Labour was going through another regretful crisis. While in Wales David Cameron was pleading with his party not to be frightened by the pace of his changes.

We should not gloat over the discomfiture of Tessa Jowell. Her situation is a tragedy largely not of her making. Nor should we be gleeful over the down-turn on Tory confidence in Cameron. Britain needs rejuvenation in its parties, and if the Tories are too slow-witted to see that, then that is their loss and ours.

In fact, the time for continuously comparing ourselves with our opponents and our poll-ratings has reached its end. Scandal may sell newspapers, but it does not make for good government.

Outside of the tiny world of British party politics, the world is changing. The environment is deteriorating far faster than most people are willing to believe. The West’s recent adventures in war and publishing have dramatically destabilised our relationship with the entire Muslim world. The economic development of China and India is a seismic shift in international trade. And, all the while, the worldwide growth in human trafficking for the sex-industry sees more than five million people sold into slavery each year — a blight on our consciences about which are doing almost nothing.

We no longer have time for bickering.

And Liberal-Democrats, at least, are ready to engage in constructive politics.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Give it a rest, Mr Cameron (0)
• Clean up politics — but you are not the man to do it, Mr Cameron (0)
• Very simply, Gordon Brown is in the wrong job (0)
• The confusion that is transport policy (0)
• Still no action that deserves the name (0)

The Birmingham police deserve every congratulation for facing up to the situation and taking action. But there is far, far more to be done.

The UN estimates that 5 million women and children are trafficked each year. This means that every three years, as many people are sold in slavery in the modern world as were sold during the 315 of the Atlantic slave trade. Nobody knows how many are trafficked in the UK each year — itself a damning indictment of our failure to begin to tackle the problem.

Key factors in the growth of sex trafficking in Britain include the following. First, in tackling prostitution our legal system has tended to penalise sex-workers while failing to go after pimps, and doing little to discourage the clients. Secondly, the growing tolerance for building-based prostitution creates an environment where traffickers can easily control their victims. Third, the UK heavily penalises people who are illegally in this country, even where they are victims of human trafficking. Chillingly, in yesterday’s raid, several of the girls are being held by police while their immigration status is checked. However, the most important factor is a failure by local authorities and central government to take the issue seriously.

While working for charity I was involved in counselling and assisting victims of sex-trafficking in Belgium. It is a long and depressingly fragile process. Belgium has a bad track record for its toleration of this industry. But it has developed some effective support mechanisms for victims, which we would do well to emulate in Britain. There are systems in place for victims to gain immigration status, and help mechanisms to assist them into social housing, language learning and the social security network. All these are missing in Britain.

Ultimately, the Belgian approach is based on the acceptance that sex-trafficking is a crime perpetrated on the victims by Belgian society. It is therefore for Belgian society to redress it.

For as long as we continue to penalise victims, with the occasional foray against the perpetrators to salve our conscience, we in Britain will continue to nurture the conditions which make this trade flourish.

And that is sickening.

Share/Save

Related posts

• What would you do? (0)
• Nonetheless, tomorrow we must vote on the issues (0)
• Getting rid of the parents (0)
• Freedom Sunday — why I entered politics (0)
• Conference resounding success (0)

Red light toleration zones seem such a good idea. After all, they have them in Amsterdam, and everyone knows that the Dutch lead the way in a happy, liberal society with low teenage pregnancy and freedom for all. What’s more, any discussion about sexual politics always ends up with someone pointing out that things get worse if you drive them underground.

But myself, I couldn’t agree less. You see, I’ve lived in Holland, and I’ve worked with victims of people trafficking and the sex industry.

There is simply no way of organising the sex trade that makes it anything other than sordid. Although it’s always possible to find individual sex workers who boldly proclaim that they chose their career themselves and wouldn’t have it any other way, the broader facts speak all too clearly.

Statistically, you are far more likely to find your way into prostitution if you have been in care as a teenager, or if you have suffered child abuse. Among other studies, background to this is available in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation / NSPCC study Choice and Opportunity Project: Young women and sexual exploitation. In that study of 55 13-18 year old women, 39 had been in care or looked after by the local authority.

A very high proportion of people who are trafficked in Europe (read ‘sold as slaves’) end up in the sex trade. Street prostitution is dangerous and humiliating for those who practice it, but building based prostitution is the real power base of sex traffickers – it is simply so much easier to coerce, intimidate and imprison in those circumstances. Legalised brothels in Amsterdam, and tolerated establishments in Belgium, have merely given the traffickers a safer and more defined market. A particularly disturbing report into the trafficking of children into the UK can be found here: Children – what the professionals know

But tolerance zones for street prostitution don’t help either. The control mechanisms that pimps use don’t depend on the legality of what sex workers do. The Home Office estimates that 95% of people working on the streets are using heroin or crack. The introduction of tolerance zones will not benefit these workers.

But what are the alternatives?

The Association of Chief Police Officers vice strategy, published today, is especially to be welcomed because it favours setting up safe houses and exit schemes. This is perhaps surprising coming from police chiefs, since in local situations it is often the police who favour Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and other penalty based approaches to tackling prostitution. From a police point of view, legalising brothels and tolerance zones would get the problem off their books. Exit schemes are a much harder — but better — approach to take.

Their new strategy perhaps reflects the realisation that the current practice of fining girls for soliciting only puts them back on the streets with a need to earn more cash fast.

But there is one legislative approach which has met with some success where it has been tried. Instead of fining the girls, fine the customers. One of the subtle and insidious degradations of the UK sex trade is that while sex workers are seen as dirty, cheap, and reprehensible, their clients are often able to continue respectable lives as business men, politicians, even senior policemen. Who has the most to lose by the threat of the courts? The clients. Who do financial penalties most put off repeat offending? The clients. Who is most threatened by their names and pictures appearing in local papers after a successful conviction? The clients.

It is a reflection of the nasty double standards that persist in the UK sex industry that this approach is often rejected at the local level. It appears that key figures veto it without giving any reasons.

You don’t have to think about it for very long to work out why.

Share/Save

Related posts

• Freedom Sunday — why I entered politics (0)
• “Stupid” goes to ethics committee (0)
• Why Gordon Brown’s strategy is all wrong (0)
• Why Gordon Brown should watch Doctor Who (0)
• What would you do? (0)