LettersSex trafficking is more than a numbers game
As academics, writers and health practitioners we have long argued that the trafficking figures quoted in government reports were debatable and were ramped up by vested interests (Sex, lies and trafficking, 20 October). The people and organisations in Nick Davies's article have often refused to allow their work to be subject to usual forms of academic, political, or media scrutiny. Further questions follow. Why did the government continue funding reports after we pointed out their intellectual and methodological shortcomings? Why have organisations resorted to threats of legal action over articles which questioned the credibility of the trafficking figures in the past? Why did it take two freedom of information requests and a whole year for the Home Office to send us its internal trafficking report? We have argued that the figures are based on questionable methods and that most are unreliable. While Home Office reports use an apologetic tone and many caveats to excuse the "poor" data and high margins of error, ministers, MPs and prohibitionists seized on the figures as indicative of a serious problem. The confusion and misinformation leads to the diverting of resources from other victims, increasing police power to invade ordinary workers' lives, and the further stigmatising of sex workers. The intensive surveillance and repeated raids justified by the exaggerated claims directly threaten the safety of sex workers by forcing them to be more clandestine. They also make it difficult for non-coerced sex workers, and indeed their clients, to collaborate in the exposure of traffickers for fear of arrest and possible deportation. The policing and crime bill's clause on premises closure orders is particularly insidious. These allow gross intrusion into ordinary women's lives and power to turn homeowners out of their homes on mere suspicion that sex work may take place in the future, in conjunction with the seizure of sex workers' hard-earned money. Clauses 13-20 of the bill are based on reports by the same organisations Davies writes about. All have been complicit in ramping up trafficking and sex-work scare stories. These clauses should not stand. Belinda Brooks-Gordon Reader in psychology and social policy, Birkbeck, University of London Helen Ward Professor of public health, Imperial College, Rosie Campbell Senior researcher, University of Loughborough Nick Mai Senior research officer, London Metropolitan University Jane Scoular Reader in law, University of Strathclyde Helen Self Independent historian Anthony Grayling Professor of philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London Petra M Boynton Lecturer in international health services research, UCL Michael Goodyear Asst professor of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Canada Marina Della Giusta Senior lecturer, University of Reading John Davies Visiting research fellow, Sussex Centre for Migration Research Katie Hickman Author Graham Scambler Professor of medical sociology, UCL Nicola Smith Senior lecturer of political science, University of Birmingham Ruth Morgan Thomas European board member, Global Network of Sex Work Projects Chris Ashford Principal lecturer in law, University of Sunderland Michele Farley Service manager, SHOC (Sexual Health on Call) Jane Pitcher Postgraduate researcher, University of Loughborough Kate Hardy Doctoral researcher Hilary Kinnell Author and past Chair, UK Network of Sex Work Projects Mark Cowling Professor of criminology, University of Teeside Coleen Moore Principal lecturer in criminology, Anglia Ruskin University |