Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-02-24-Speech-1-245-000"
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"en.20140224.25.1-245-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank my colleagues, as well as all the shadows and the various NGOs and groups I have worked with: the European Women’s Lobby, Equality Now, various networks of women who have survived working in prostitution, and the European Commission anti-trafficking coordinator.
My report takes as its basis two directives: the directives on victims of violence, which came out in 2012, and trafficking, which dates from 2011, because it is very clear that trafficking fuels prostitution and prostitution fuels trafficking. That is one of the main reasons why prostitution is a cross-border issue and why it is something that we should be deeply concerned about in this Parliament.
There are also, of course, health implications which matter as well. So I am very pleased to have this opportunity to introduce this report. It has been a controversial and difficult subject, because the laws regarding prostitution – as opposed to the overall strategy and what we are doing with cross-border issues – belong to Member States. They are, quite rightly, the competence of Member States, and they vary enormously.
In certain countries like the UK, prostitution itself is not illegal, but everything concerning it is: soliciting, procuring, running a brothel and associated activities are all criminal offences. In some countries, prostitution is completely legal – that is the case in Germany and the Netherlands – so we are dealing with a very varying perspective. I would not say that this has made this report difficult, but it has had to take account of all the different traditions across the European Union.
One thing has been clear: that very few women indeed work in prostitution totally as a matter of free choice. During the course of my work for this, I have met many survivors and talked to many people who work in prostitution in various forms, and I did not meet any women who had chosen it as a matter of completely free choice.
As I said before, many have been the victims of trafficking. In fact, official EU research shows that 62[nbsp ]% of those who are trafficked in the EU are women trafficked for sexual exploitation. Very often they are very young women, and very often they are girls. That in itself is appalling enough. In addition to victims of trafficking, there are those who have drug and substance abuse habits. There are many – an unquantifiable number, because statistics are very difficult to find in this area – who work in prostitution who have had very difficult and disturbed backgrounds, and who suffered sexual abuse when they were young; and many, particularly in times of economic crisis, are turning to prostitution through poverty.
I contend that none of those are free choices and that prostitution is not a job like any other. In fact, prostitution is absolutely against gender equality, which is why, in my report, I am suggesting that we take very seriously the model which is used in Sweden – the Nordic model, as we know it – whereby the buyer of sexual services is the one who is criminalised. This has been shown to have reduced levels of prostitution in Sweden since 1999 (when it was introduced) by half: a very significant decrease in prostitution. I believe the way to tackle and reduce prostitution is to reduce demand, and the only model that is shown to do this is the model which is currently operating in Sweden. So I therefore call on all of you to support this very important report."@en1
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