French Take Major Step Against People-Trafficking

PDN

I am delighted to see that the French Government appears to be moving towards anti-prostitution legislation that targets the client rather than the women involved. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16047284

People trafficking is the modern slavery - with greater numbers of people being bought and sold than during the North Atlantic Slave Trade in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Anti-Trafficking groups (such as Tirzah here in Ireland) have long advocated that criminalising the clients is the most effective way to end this evil.

I understand that in Northern Ireland the PSNI have also recently shifted their emphasis to target the clients rather than just arresting and deporting the women who have been trafficked.

AhSureTisGrand

Closing all the borders would also be a major step against people trafficking. So would adultery laws

Edit:

So would curfews
So would greater police powers allowing raids on all private property without warrant
Punishing all parties involved with the death penalty would be a tremendous leap against people trafficking
If we removed the right to a fair trial in these cases it would also go a long way towards eradicating this evil

Benny_Cake

AhSureTisGrand wrote: »

Closing all the borders would also be a major step against people trafficking. So would adultery laws

Huh?

Anyway,there was some talk a while back about changing the law here to something like this.Given the amount of assaults against sex workers it could only be a good thing as it might make them more likely to go to the Gardai.A bunch of guys were arrested for soliciting in Limerick the other day so the focus may be changing anyway.

Morbert

AhSureTisGrand wrote: »

Closing all the borders would also be a major step against people trafficking. So would adultery laws

So would killing everyone on the planet. But let's not be excessive.

Or have I been Poend

lionmqj

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZTN0TbsRYA

Peregrinus

I could be wrong, but I think Morbert is trying to suggest that penalising the clients of prostitutes is as realistic as closing all the borders, or criminalising adulterers, i.e. not realistic at all.

If so, the evidence is against him. What the French are contemplating is basically what the Swedes have already done, in 1999. And the results of that experiment were encouraging. Immediately after the law change making the buying of sex services a criminal act, the number of sex workers in Sweden fell by half. It has remained at that level since, even as numbers of sex workers have been rising sharply in neighbouring Norway and Denmark.

Inspired by this example, Norway has also recently criminalised the purchasing of sex; it remains to be seen whether Norway will enjoy a similar reduction in the sex trade. No doubt the French proposal is also influenced by the Swedish experience.