World P4P News

Sex workers have been assembling in Paris and across France to protest the proposed criminalisation of their clients.

Late last month, sex workers from eight different countries--including countries where clients are criminalised, such as Sweden, Norway and Northern Ireland--gathered in Paris' Human Rights Square alongside NSWP member group STRASS and the migrant Chinese sex worker group, Steel Roses to commemorate International Sex Worker Day and the 40-year anniversary of the occupation of the Saint-Nizier church in Lyon, as well as to protest the proposed criminalisation bill, which will be discussed on the 12th of June in a second reading in the Assembly.

After 40 years of activism, the situation has not improved, STRASS' Thierry Schaffauser told Liberation. Punishing clients will exacerbate the situation, pushing sex workers into more precarious situations, he said. Pye Jakobsson told the press that in Sweden, where clients have been criminalised since 1999, sex workers are even more stigmatised.

Sex workers in France have been fighting attempts to criminalise their clients for years. The issue was first discussed in the National Assembly in December 2011 when a non-binding resolution was adopted supporting the introduction of the Swedish model. This was later followed by the introduction of a formal Bill by the ruling French Socialist Party.

The Bill proposed to introduce fines for anyone caught paying for or soliciting commercial sexual services and was passed by the Assembly in December 2013. The bill then went to the Senate but was first considered by a Committee, which removed the clause containing the provisions to criminalise clients in July 2014 . However the proposal in now back on the table with a bill due to be discussed in the Assembly on the 12th of June.

In Paris, the Chinese sex workers are particularly vulnerable because they can not speak the language, are often undocumented and victims of police harassment, which prevents them from reporting if they are attacked by a client, said Ajing, President of Steel Roses.

French Lawmakers voted in favor of changes to a proposed bill on the country's prostitution laws, approving the criminalisation of people who pay for sex. The same measure was previously removed from the bill in March by the Conservative controlled Senate.

With the bill returning to its repressive original version, senators will once again discuss the matter. In the case of an impasse, the lower chamber will have the final word on the proposed law.

According to a Nest Movement report released in May, between 30,000 and 44,000 people work in France's prostitution industry full time, with part time sex work being much more difficult to evaluate. Only 30 percent of those in the industry work in the streets, while 62 percent engage customers online and 8 percent through hostess bars or massage parlors.

A licensed brothel in the city of Salzburg, Austria, has been offering free drinks and free sex in a protest against what its owner says is unfair taxation.

The Kronen Zeitung tabloid reports that the news has spread like wildfire, with punters lining up to get inside . Salzburg's red light district king Hermann Pascha Müller, who owns the well-known Pascha brothel, told the paper that he no longer wants to be the tax office's pimp.

Müller said that he's already had to turn away hundreds of disappointed customers as he has had a full house since the summer special went on offer.

The stunt has been great publicity for him and he says that he plans to continue it for four to eight weeks. Drinks are on the house and Müller is paying the sex workers out of his own pocket. He explains

The problem is, the tax office wants more and more, and they are not cracking down on illegal street and apartment prostitution.

He also complained that officials come to check up on the business at Pascha every 14 days.

He said that the summer special would be offset by any profits made in his other establishments, and that Pasha would not be liable for any tax during the special offer. Presumably the tax is levied on turnover or profit.

Irish anti-prostitution campaigners have noted 26 extra profiles listed on escort agency websites in Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim and Louth.

The campaign group, Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI, not a state body), has noted an increase in online escort profiles from 51 to 77.

The group is claiming this to be an in increase of prostitution activity in southern border counties of 51%.

Inevitably now that men will be persecuted for buying sex in the north, there will be a proportion of the sex trade that moves to more tolerant jurisdictions, but counting online profiles is no more than a stab in the dark about quantifying resultant cross border trade.

Brian Killoran of the ICI claimed:

The initial indications are that those who run prostitution have been feeling the heat of Northern Ireland's new laws even before they came into force and have been switching their operations to the South.

It is important that Gardai­ monitor the increase in online activity and use our existing laws to ensure that pimps and traffickers are not viewing our border counties and major cities as safe havens after their business model has been wrecked in the North.

It is also essential that the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald TD, honour her commitment to publish sex buyer laws here and that we join Northern Ireland, the US, Canada and Sweden in shutting down the organised crime behind prostitution.