France make it illegal to pay for sex


The lower house of French Parliament has passed a bill that make it illegal to pay for sex. It will become a law when upper house also approves it. A person who is caught paying for sex will have to pay a fine of 1700$. Repeat offenders will have to pay 4270$.

 Transgender sex workers protest against a parliamentary vote to enforce the penalisation of solicitation, near the Assemblee Nationale (French parliament) in Paris, France, 06 April 2016. French parliament is seeking to pass a new bill which would penalise the clients of prostitutes - a move which angers NGO's prostitutes' associations, claiming such sanctions could push sex workers further into clandestine operations to circumvent the new sanctions. Signs read 'Prostitutes, fists raised in the air, against the penalisation of clients'. EPA/IAN LANGSDON

Transgender sex workers protest against a parliamentary vote to enforce the penalisation of solicitation, near the Assemblee Nationale (French parliament) in Paris, France, 06 April 2016. French parliament is seeking to pass a new bill which would penalise the clients of prostitutes – a move which angers NGO’s prostitutes’ associations, claiming such sanctions could push sex workers further into clandestine operations to circumvent the new sanctions. Signs read ‘Prostitutes, fists raised in the air, against the penalisation of clients’. EPA/IAN LANGSDON

Thus France is following its Nordic neighbours , Sweden ,Norway and Iceland in punishing those who pay for sex and not those who offer it. This new policy views sex workers as victims.

Though many have hailed it as a pro women measure and a step forward to reduce exploitation of women and children, some others, including some sex workers disagree.

They fear that sex work will go underground and workers will get very less protection than present and will be exploited more. Some also criticise the move in terms of loss of autonomy.

It is true that there is a large amount of exploitation in this field and any measure that help the workers to live a free life should be welcomed. If such a measure is going to be implemented rehabilitation of current workers should be given top priority.

Comments

  1. says

    The problem is that punishing clients doesn’t work. Look instead at the success NSW has had with decriminalising sex work:

    Today NSW is in its twenty-first year of sex work decriminalisation. To this day, decriminalisation of sex work remains the best regulatory system for sex workers because it allows sex work to be treated as what it is: work; and it removes the barriers to engagement with regulation and regulatory bodies that are produced by alternative systems of legalisation, licensing, regulation and criminalisation.

    In 2012, The Kirby Institute’s report to government, The Sex Industry in New South Wales: A Report to the NSW Ministry of Health2, declared the NSW sex industry ‘the healthiest sex industry ever documented,’ and advised the government to scrap the few remaining laws related to the industry.

    The report stated that sex work decriminalisation has: ‘… improved human rights, removed Police corruption [and] netted savings for the criminal justice system … International authorities regard the NSW regulatory framework as best practice.’

    The decriminalisation of sex work in NSW is held up as an example of world’s best practice. This framework for regulation is evidence-based and backed by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), literature cited in the leading medical journal The Lancet3, and most recently, Amnesty International4. Aside from NSW, New Zealand is the only other jurisdiction globally that has a decriminalisation framework in place for the regulation of the sex work industry.

    That’s from https://www.afao.org.au/library/hiv-australia/volume-14/vol-14-no-1/transgender-sex-workers-and-the-police#.VwnTTnV94WM

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