Intervention | Protest von Sexworker_innen, NGOs und Wissenschaft
EU-Report zur Freierkriminalisierung
Der EU–»Report on Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation and its Impact on Gender Equality« schlägt die Kriminalisierung von Prostitutionskund_innen nach dem »Schwedischen Modell« vor. Sexarbeiter_innen, NGOs und Wissenschaftler_innen kritisieren die mangelnde Berücksichtigung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse zu den negativen Folgen der Freierkriminalisierung.
Als Zeichen des Protests entstanden u.a. ein informeller Gegenreport einer zunächst am EU-Report beteiligten Wissenschaftlerin, sowie zahlreiche Prostschreiben. Die ICRSE kommentiert:
A Critique of the “Report on Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation and its Impact on Gender Equality” by Mary Honeyball, MEP
Tue, 18 February 2014 ICRSE Coordinator
Dear Members of the European Parliament,
We, the undersigned, would like to voice our serious concerns regarding the “Report on Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation and its Impact on Gender Equality”, drafted by Mary Honeyball, MEP for London, which will be voted upon during a plenary session on the 27th of February 2014 at the European Parliament. The report recommends the so-called “Swedish Model” – by which buying sexual services is criminalised but selling them remains legal.The aim of this letter is not to reiterate our arguments against the Swedish Model. We believe sex workers’ organisations themselves will have already demonstrated the ineffectiveness and dangers of this model and we strongly recommend consulting and listening to them in regards to policies and all other matters that directly affect them.
We would like to draw your attention to the inadequacies of the Report, which is based largely on inaccurate and/or misrepresentative data. The sources cited are either studies which have been discredited, or are selected to relate to specific circumstances which do not reflect the experiences of many people working as sex workers. Nor does the Report consider the extensive evidence from peer-reviewed academic studies demonstrating the problems associated with the model proposed. We are concerned that this report is not of an acceptable standard on which to base a vote that would have such a serious, and potentially dangerous, impact on already marginalised populations, i.e. migrants and EU citizens earning or complementing their livelihoods by providing sexual services in exchange for payment.
We are aware that the matter you have been asked to vote upon is for many a complicated or uncomfortable one. However, we would like to ask you to look at the abundance of evidence that counters the claims made in Ms Honeyball’s report. We compiled a selection of research-based evidence countering the claims made by the sources mentioned by Ms Honeyball, which we include below. This evidence clearly indicates that Ms Honeyball’s report is seriously biased with regards to the selective citation of sources. Furthermore, it fails to consider the needs of male and transgender sex workers and the diversity amongst purchasers of sexual services. To base any policy on such a methodologically flawed document, particularly one which would have such a detrimental impact on the human rights and wellbeing of a large number of marginalised individuals, would be setting a dangerous precedent.
The report by Ms Honeyball fails to address the problems and harms that can surround sex work and instead produces biased, inaccurate and disproven data. We believe that policies should be based on sound evidence and thus hope that you will vote against the motion to criminalise sex workers’ clients. We would suggest instead that it is important to enter into a considered debate which takes into account the substantial amount of robust academic evidence on the subject, as well as that from sex workers themselves and civil society groups with longstanding experience of working with sex workers.
Signatories:
1. Nicola Mai, Professor of Sociology and Migration Studies, London Metropolitan University, UK / Aix-Marseille Université, France
2. Maggie O’Neill, Professor of Criminology at Durham University, UK
3. Dr Birgit Sauer, Professor of Political Science, Institute for Political Science, University of Vienna, Austria
4. Christian Groes-Green, Assistant Professor, Institute for Culture and Identity, Roskilde University, Denmark
5. Phil Hubbard, PhD, Professor of Urban Studies, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and Director of Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kent, UK
6. Ine Vanwesenbeeck, Professor of Sexual Development, Diversity and Health, Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science/Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
7. Christiane Howe, Sociologist / Researcher, Institute of Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
8. Rosie Campbell OBE, Visiting Research Fellow University of Leeds & Postgraduate Research Student University of Durham, UK
9. Dr Jay Levy, Researcher & Consultant, UK
10. Katie Cruz, Lecturer, School of Law, Keele University, UK
11. Dr. Susann Huschke, Visiting Fellow, Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
12. Jenny Künkel, Researcher and Lecturer in Geography, University Frankfurt a.M., Germany
13. Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, CPsychol, Reader in Psychology and Social Policy, School of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
14. Giulia Garofalo, PhD, Marie-Curie Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden
15. Calogero Giametta, PhD, Sociologist, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Aix-Marseille Université, France.
16. Jane Scoular, Professor in Law at the University of Strathclyde, UK
17. Mia Liinason, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden
18. Aneta Cekik, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political science, Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia
19. Tomasz Sikora, Assistant Professor at the English Department of the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
20. Matthias Lehmann, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, Queens University Belfast, UK
21. Jane Pitcher, Postgraduate Research Student, Dept of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK
22. Stanimir Panayotov, PhD Student in Comparative Gender Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
23. Agata Dziuban, PhD, Faculty Member, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
24. Ania Ratecka, PhD Candidate, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
25. Daniela Danna, Researcher, Faculty of Political Science, University of Milan, Italy
26. Ronald Weitzer, Professor of Sociology at George Washington University, USA
27. Heidi Hoefinger, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA.
28. Dr Tuppy Owens, Founder and Director of the Outsiders Trust and the TLC Trust, UK8
29. Anna Głogowska-Balcerzak, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Lodz, Poland
30. Kaoru Aoyama, PhD, Associate Professor in Sociology, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan
31. Carole S. Vance, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA
32. Sealing Cheng, PhD, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
33. Kerwin Kaye, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sociology, State University of New York College at Old Westbury, USA
34. Gillian Abel, Associate Professor of Public Health, Department of Population Health, University of Otago, New Zealand
35. Jan Jordan, PhD, Associate Professor, Institute of Criminology / Te Pou Haratutanga, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand / Aotearoa
36. Melissa Ditmore, PhD, Research consultant, Editor, Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, USA
37. Pardis Mahdavi, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Pomona College, USA
38. Svati P. Shah, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
39. Elizabeth Pisani, PhD, Epidemiologist, Director, Ternyata Ltd. Public Health Consultancy, UK
40. Smarajit Jana, PhD, Public Health Specialist, Former Technical Advisor at UNAIDS, Principal at the Sonagachi Research and Training Institute, Kolkata, India
41.Maria Tonini, PhD Candidate, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden
42. Slavcho Dimitrov, MPhil Candidate in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies, University of Cambridge / PhD Candidate in Gender Studies and Philosophy, Euro-Balkan University, Skopje, Macedonia
43. Rafał Majka, PhD Candidate in Cultural Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland
44. Anne Mulhall, PhD, Director, Centre for Gender, Culture and Identities, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland
45. Dr Ole Martin Moen, Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethics, University of Oslo, Norway
46. Dr Hendrik Wagenaar, Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, UK
47. Dr Frances M. Shaver, Professor of Sociology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
48. Dr May-Len Skilbrei, Professor, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
49. Dr Calum Bennachie, Gender Studies Expert, New Zealand Prostitutes Collective
50. Dr Yuko Higashi, Professor, Osaka Prefecture University, Co-Chair of the Sexual Rights Committee at World Association for Sexual Health, Japan
51. Dr Graham Ellison, Reader in Criminology, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK, February 18th, 2014
