World P4P News

The eternal fairy story of thousands of itinerate sex workers travelling the globe from sports competition to sports competition has got its first mention for the 2016 Tokyo Olympics.

The source of the first rumour is a totally unauthoritative figure used by a tabloid sports editor, but no doubt there will be a few gender extremists who will use the quoted figure and the rumour will commence.

In fact the Tokyo Sports tabloid spoke to Akira Ikoma, the editor of a guide to men's entertainment called Ore no Tabi (My Journey). He says that Korean prostitutes from around the world will arrive in Tokyo, especially the Uguisudani area, which is known for its delivery health out-call establishments.

It could be more than 100,000 women. They will be eyeing the economic possibilities that go with the event. There is no doubt about it.

The basis of the claims is that in 2004, the Korean government passed an anti-prostitution law and shuttered a number of sex shops. As a result, the editor says, Korea has exported 100,000 prostitutes to worldwide, primarily to the United States, Japan and Australia. It is this band of travelling sex workers that will supposedly converge on Tokyo for the Olympics.

UglyMugs.ie invited Irish indoor sex workers to take part in the research, which aimed to learn more about escorts in Ireland and particularly about their experiences of crime and abuse. This is the first ever survey of indoor sex workers in Ireland and 195 female, male and trans* escorts took part. Although the survey cannot be considered representative of all persons selling sex in Ireland, 195 participants is a very significant proportion of the Irish sex worker population.

The escorts who took part in the survey were from 29 different countries. Most were aged in their 20s or 30s and highly educated. Just over half had worked in sex work in another country prior to becoming an escort in Ireland. 97.3% were self-employed independent escorts, though 33.3% had experience of working for a third party, e.g. an escort agency, in Ireland or elsewhere in the past.

Despite it being popularly reported in the media that children are involved in prostitution, there was no evidence of the involvement of any under 16s and only one participant was aged under 18.

Participants reported low alcohol and drug use, high condom use, and taking a number of security measures whilst working as an escort, the top ones being not getting in cars with clients (65.3%), taking more precautions when it is a new client (58.1%) and not working alone (41.1%) despite the laws in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that force escorts to work alone if they want to work legally.

Ireland's sex worker population overwhelmingly works indoors with access to phones and the Internet, which is safe conditions, in comparison to outdoor sex working. However, many of the participants reported experiences of a wide range of crime and abuses. It is also clear that a wide range of persons commit crime against sex workers in Ireland, not only clients.

66.7% of participants who had been a victim of crime whilst working as an escort in Ireland did not report to the police. The high level of stigma associated with being an escort being the primary barrier to engaging with police.

Participants said that other escorts were the biggest source of help to them after experiencing crime. The research confirmed that currently there are no useful support services for escorts in Ireland, but escorts would welcome the establishment of a variety of sex worker support services.

Fear of media exposure amongst escorts in Ireland is very high, even higher than fear of crime, with 74.6% of participants worried or very worried about being exposed as an escort in the newspapers or other media.

Recommendations include further research, a review of laws and policies that put sex workers at risk, tackling media abuse of sex workers and the provision of police sex worker liaison services and general advice, legal advice, health services and exiting services for sex workers.

The full report outlines that a number of factors put escort at risk of violence and abuse. The lack of support services and good relations with police, mean offenders specifically target escorts, in the belief that they are people in society without any help, who offenders can abuse with a very low risk of facing any consequences as a result. The media portrayal of escorts as people with no rights, no choices, helpless victims who can't say no to anything or anybody, is also sending a very dangerous message to offenders.

UglyMugs.ie is a scheme that aims to improve the safety of sex workers in Ireland and reduce crimes committed against them, by bringing sex workers together to share information about potential dangers.

Commenting on the research, UglyMugs.ie said:

There has never been any independent research into indoor sex work in Ireland. Instead of asking sex workers about their lives, we ask anti-prostitution campaigners. As our initial research here has shown, the Irish public are being grossly misled. Proper independent research must now be carried out now to establish the reality of indoor sex work in Ireland, so sensible legislation can be put in place.

Paying for sex in France may soon become a criminal offence, according to a forthcoming bill whose details were made public this week.

The proposed legislation would also overturn a 2003 law that penalises prostitutes overtly offering their services, rules that were intended to reduce the presence of sex workers in the streets but instead led prostitutes to dress down while plying their trade.

We are going to turn the law on its head, said gender extremist MP, Maud Olivier, who authored a report that will be the basis of the bill:

Prostitutes are victims and should not be treated like criminals. The law is intended to reduce violence towards prostitutes and to get it into the general mindset that paying for sexual services is not acceptable. We need to destroy the idea that prostitution is a happy trade.

The bill, which is due to be debated by the National Assembly (lower house) and the Senate starting in November, sets out progressive fines of up to 1,500 euros for a first offence, to 7,500 euros and six months' imprisonment for repeat offenders.

The proposal does not have universal support, however, and organisations representing sex workers claim it would push prostitution further underground and subject women to increased risks. AIDS advocacy group Act Up and French NGO Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) were among around 100 organisations who signed a petition against the proposition, arguing that it would make prostitutes more vulnerable .

Manon , a Paris sex worker who is spokeswoman for the STRASS sex workers union , told FRANCE 24 the bill would do exactly the opposite of what it is designed to achieve :

Prostitutes will have to work more clandestinely to protect their clients, putting them at greater danger of violence and further away from sexual health services, she said.

It also means a drop in the number of clients, making it harder for us to make a living. This in turn means that punters will be in a stronger position to pressure prostitutes into doing things they don't want to do, including having unprotected sex.

The Swiss parliament has voted to raise the legal prostitution age from 16 to 18 bringing Swiss law into line with European neighbours.

The lower house of parliament voted to change the Swiss penal code to make it illegal to pay for sex with a minor, following suit after the upper house adopted the bill.

With the law change, sex workers between the ages of 16 and 18 will not face penalties, but clients who pay for sex with minors will face up to three years behind bars. Anyone encouraging prostitution by minors, including pimps, and people running brothels or escort services, will face up to 10 years in prison.

The law change also raises the legal age to participate in pornography, making it a crime punishable by up to five years in jail to produce, import, promote, screen or possess pornography featuring minors.

Finland's Minister of 'Justice' Anna-Maja Henriksson is asking the government to consider revising laws on prostitution to completely ban the purchase of sex.

A report published by her ministry criticises the current legislation for being too difficult to understand and claims not doing enough is being done to protect victims of human trafficking and procurement.

The anti-prostitution report says that the present ban on purchasing sex from victims of human trafficking is unworkable -- as it obliges authorities to prove after the fact that the customer should have known about human trafficking or pimping. The law has been on the books since 2006.

The Public Law and Order Act, meanwhile, forbids the offering or buying of sexual services in public places. The report claims that this ban has basically only been applied to the sale of sex.

The report inevitable argues that men should be criminalised just for the convenience of the authorities. And to confirm the man hating basis for the proposal, the panel also recommends completely removing bans on the sale of sex and clarifying the definition of procurement or pimping.

As she announced the results of the study, Henriksson reiterated her previous stance that the buying of sex should be made illegal in all circumstances. She said she plans to bring the matter before the cabinet soon.

Street prostitution is to be banned in large areas of Vienna's Prater district from September.

It is thought that as a result many of the prostitutes will move to the industrial zone in Liesing.

Gerald Bischof from the SPO said:

I don't think 300 new prostitutes will come, there simply isn't enough space, but there will definitely be an increase.

He hopes to get prostitution banned in Liesing. Over the past few months there has been 150 fines given out in the area - mainly due to prostitutes not having the correct identification and control cards on them.

The Swiss city of Zurich has unveiled a sex drive-in which local authorities say will enable them to keep closer tabs on prostitution.

The facility consisting of nine so-called sex boxes is located in a former industrial zone in the west of the city. The site will be open daily from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am, and only to drivers, who must be alone in their vehicle if they want to pass the gate. They will follow a marked route along which up to 40 prostitutes will be stationed. Once they have negotiated a rate, they will drive to one of the nine car-wash style boxes to have sex.

The boxes will be equipped with alarms, allowing the prostitutes to make rapid contact with police if they are in danger.

Zurich has spared no effort to encourage the prostitutes and their clients to leave the area currently used in city centre and to use the new site, making it as pleasant as possible, with grassy areas and decorative lights. It will be marked clearly with signposts sporting a red umbrella, a well-known symbol for the sex trade..

To avoid putting off clients, city authorities said they had no plans to install video surveillance or deploy police at the site permanently. Social workers and security guards will be on hand, however.

Since January, sex workers have been required to obtain a permit to ply their trade. To receive one, they must have a Swiss work permit and health insurance. In addition, they must pay a tax of five Swiss francs per night of work.

Customers, meanwhile, can only seek sex in three designated areas of Zurich, the new sex-box site, a zone near a highway, and, for those on foot, in part of the old town district.