Category: Trafficking 
2009-04-08
To argue there is a universal truth about trafficking does science, policy and trafficked people a disservice. The figure of 80,000 sex workers (which included women, men and transsexuals) in the UK was first suggested in 1999 in a Europap-UK briefing paper. Despite its speculative nature and the author Hilary Kinnell's refusal to make claims beyond her data, the estimate of 80,000 has been widely reported as a firm figure, often applying only to women and often in the context of claims that the sex industry is expanding rapidly (which cannot be the case if the figure of 80,000 has remained the same for 10 years).
I and several colleagues (including Kinnell) across three universities have just carried out a replication of the Europap study using the same methods and multipliers derived from original study to provide various updated estimates of the wider population of sex workers. We, however, point out the limits of our estimates and the methodological difficulties of estimating the size of this hidden population. While I can't divulge the findings yet, as it would compromise the originality of the academic article, we will announce them as soon as the academic paper is published.
Herein lies the difference between Rahila Gupta, the legion of no doubt well-intentioned commentators on this subject, and serious academics. The academic body of work takes time, has to be reviewed and scrutinised and as a result the media often loses interest by the time a piece is published. The work will be debated in conferences and seminars and flaws are ironed out. Whereas the truth so confidently exhibited by Gupta, like Nick Davies's flat earth news stories, go from press release to press agency to newsroom to Home Office to press release and so on. The result of such hyper-inflation is policy that spreads resources too thinly sometimes missing the really needy; and over-zealous campaigning that criminalises clients, friends, maids and receptionists makes women less safe. When looking for a needle in haystack, it doesn't make sense to keep making the haystack bigger. We have reached a crisis of sorts. And at a time of crisis, when there is a desperation to find the right policy, then a return to the slow, steady grind of the academe is necessary.
Interestingly, the academic body of work generally takes account of sex workers' views and recognises that no one has campaigned harder for sex workers' rights than the sex workers themselves. They campaigned and argued in the Declaration for Rights of Sex Workers (pdf) to be treated as ordinary workers deserving of rights rather than helpless victims or evil wrong-doers. Sex workers have campaigned for trafficking laws here to resemble the Palermo protocol rather than the broad definitions in the Sex Offences Act 2003 which allows friends giving lifts to be prosecuted for "trafficking". Trafficking definitions need to align with the Palermo protocol so that the "three Fs" of fear, force or fraud are incorporated into legislation. Sex workers have also campaigned for "control" to be tightened up so the innocent maids and receptionists are not falsely imprisoned. We currently have a mess whereby "control" has to be decided by the court as in R v Massey 2007 (pdf) when it could be more simply and cheaply be done by statute. Above all, they have campaigned not for legalisation but for decriminalisation, there is a difference.
Gupta, in believing in universal truths, accepts distorted evidence. All state-funded research from the US between 2000 and 2008 should be questioned. Owing to a "global gag clause" only research that situated prostitution as exploitation, or investigated it alongside abstinence could get funded. In one of the most important papers on prostitution written this decade, Ron Weitzer (pdf) shows how the moral crusade against trafficking then became a project of the US government. The crusade against sex trafficking in the US erroneously incorporated the sex industry as a whole and met with remarkable success in ensuring its views were incorporated into law and policy, despite dubious claims and questionable tactics. The crusade was formed of a coalition of religious right organisations and radical feminists, and became institutionalised within the neoconservative US government under George Bush. Relying on horror stories and "atrocity tales", described as typical despite the limited evidence available, such crusades eschew or suppress research that challenges their claims or suggests grey areas. Evidence-based, objective research, or the views of sex workers themselves, are angrily dismissed as "pro-prostitution" rhetoric. For example, key players cite unreliable and flawed research on the incidence of violence in prostitution. One oft-cited report was based on interviews with just 40 women, via organisations committed to getting women out of prostitution. Inflated figures meant more funding, although both Unesco and the Government Accountability Office stated that most figures were false or spurious. Indeed, there are no reliable figures on the magnitude of trafficking. And unions argue that the high proportion of foreign nationals in the London sex industry is proportionate to the number of foreign nationals in other sectors such as the hotel and catering sector.
Just as the relationship between NGOs and the US government became too close, so it has in Britain. There are many linked organisations with no interest in questioning ramped-up figures on trafficking. The Poppy project's parent organisation, Eaves Housing, has an income of more than £5m, and a large sum of this comes from the Home Office. Eaves' objectives are threefold: to provide accommodation, advice and support directly to women and children escaping domestic violence and women trafficked into prostitution and domestic servitude; lobbying and responding to government papers on violence against women; and researching and highlighting issues around violence against women, including prostitution, trafficking and domestic violence. The Home Office gives money to the Poppy project, which in turn lobbies the government. If this sounds rather circular, it is.
The 2006 accounts describe the cosy relationship it has enjoyed with government. "In addition to direct service provision Poppy research and development team has been nurturing relationships with both government and non-governmental agencies. Members of the project joined Mr Paul Goggins, the parliamentary under secretary of state at the Home Office, on an official UK presidency visit to Lithuania and following a meeting with Mr Mike O'Brian, the solicitor general, were invited to attend the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking." (Page 8).
As "Eaves plan over the long term is to be recognised as one of the leading agencies on violence against women issues in the country [sic]" (page 2, pdf), one fears this implies corporate domination over the interests of, rather than provision of service to, women. Funding comes from the Home Office (via the Office for Criminal Justice Reform) and also from the former Association of Local Government, London Councils. This is worrying because these same organisations are the ones being lobbied by Poppy, Eaves and Object.
Rahila Gupta is a leading light of Southall Black Sisters, a longstanding group that campaigns on violence against women and which is cited by Eaves as benefiting from its work (page 2, pdf). Gupta is not a neutral commentator, but belongs to a coalition of campaigners with a particular agenda on trafficking and prostitution. If she were an academic, publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, she would need to submit to a higher standard of scrutiny both her figures and her institutional links.
Gupta may get angry about the plight of women she sees. I sympathise, but to let such anger cloud judgment without scrutiny of the wider picture is dangerous. It is rather like asking only the nurses of hospital burns units to create policy on fireworks without doing an objective analysis of how many deaths and injuries there actually are. (Although I suspect the nurses might be more measured and less histrionic in their policy pronouncements.) Neither science, policy, nor the most vulnerable needing help, are well served by this approach.
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