Sarah Champion MP to lead Parliamentary debate on ‘Tackling the Demand for Commercial Sexual Exploitation’

In her speech, Sarah Champion, Member of Parliament for Rotherham, will call for the Government to tackle the demand from sex buyers by criminalising paying for sex and by legally holding prostitution advertising websites to account. Sarah will highlight that paying for sex is a form of violence against women and girls.

In her speech on Wednesday 4th July, Sarah will say:

“Across the UK, men are paying to sexually exploit vulnerable women and girls that they have 'shopped' for online. We need to join the dots - between prostitution, modern slavery, trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

The common thread is men who pay to sexually access women and girls' bodies. There is no separate and distinct market for sex trafficking victims, the market is for sex.

To reduce demand for prostitution and sex trafficking the law has to send a clear message that it is never acceptable to exploit someone by paying them for sex. To do that, the Government should urgently extend the existing prohibition against paying for sex in a public place to make it a criminal offence in all locations.

At the same time, it is vital that people exploited through prostitution are not criminalised, but are instead supported to exit and access the services they need. As such, penalties for loitering and soliciting should be removed from the statute book. This 'end demand' approach to prostitution is often referred to as the Nordic

Model or Sex Buyer Law. It has so far been adopted by Sweden, Norway, France, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - so it is already in operation on UK soil.

We urgently need to extend this legislation to the rest of the UK.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The debate takes place in Westminster Hall between 2.30pm and 4pm on

Wednesday 4th July 2018.

For further information about Sarah’s speech, please contact Jim Pomeroy on 0207

219 5942 or Jim.Pomeroy@parliament.uk