Prostitution – Benbassa: “This law is an empty shell” – Le Point

The Senate, right since September, has significantly modified and adopted by 165 votes for and 44 against the text of the Socialist deputies voted in December 2013 to the National Assembly. The text originally proposed to repeal the offense of soliciting introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy and establish in consideration the criminalization of clients. The special Senate committee has done the opposite Monday night by reintegrating the offense of soliciting, yet highly criticized by the associations in the field, and rejecting the sanction of customers. For the environmentalist Senator Esther Benbassa, “it conjuring trick only around the problem, not solve it.” Maintenance

Point.fr. You who Advocate for years against the offense of soliciting and penalizing customers, you inspire changes to the draft law passed yesterday by the Senate

Esther Benbassa : I think that this text is very poorly designed. The problem is not to ideology or morals, but, as said Elisabeth Badinter, to “tackle organized evil”, these networks of pimps who put young women at risk. Or, keep the offense of soliciting is weakening further prostitutes. It’s simple, since Nicolas Sarkozy has restored the number of pimps tried has not increased. Not only the method has not been proven, but it is terrible for prostitutes. He just has to see what is happening abroad. The journal The Lancet notes in its January 2015 issue of these laws that penalize greatly increase the vulnerability of sex workers in the countries concerned. This is the case in Sweden, for example, where street prostitution has indeed declined, but where prostitution “chamber”, which happens today primarily through the Internet, increased from 700 to 6 000. In France, prostitutes “traditional” a certain age and do not use the Internet. The girls from the East, meanwhile, will be taken to other countries. Just like those practiced in Sweden increased in Denmark. Thus around the problem without solving it.

Make soliciting a crime he did not allow precisely to collect information on networks?

Absolutely not. I spent whole nights repression brigade to see how it was. The French, it does not affect them. The police often have known for years: they will not put them in custody. And foreign, they do not speak. They are simply afraid of reprisals.

Prostitutes “traditional” expressed their deep concern yesterday and associations largely denounced the text changes to their security. What needs to be more

I deeply regret that the Senate – and before him, the Assembly – has not been central to the debate all those women who are at the front chef. To hear the exchange yesterday, we are dealing with “Cosette” poor abused women, often raped as children … Let the speech of another time! Admittedly, women in prostitution in France today, in 2015, to have a job and feed their children. In working with some associations, I saw small provincial ladies who came into prostitution few days a week in the city to feed their kids. In the same way, we can not close our eyes to these students and students whose families have few resources and who engage in prostitution point to round their income, pay their room or buy a pair shoes.

The Minister of Social Affairs, Marisol Touraine, wanted us to believe yesterday that 97% of prostitutes in France owned by procuring networks. These numbers are completely tampered: Today, international agencies estimate between 14% and 27% the number of prostitutes in networks. Moreover, all foreign slaves are not pimps. Some, from Asia, South America or Africa, pay the travel expenses and then come to work on their own the Bois de Boulogne. After all, everyone has the right to dispose of his body as he pleases and the state should not intervene in the sexual privacy of citizens.

The text should start in the second to the Assembly. What can we expect from this second passage?

This folder is a sea serpent. The problem is that instead of giving real means to fight against pimping which is a very specific aspect of prostitution, it puts everything in one basket without addressing the underlying problem. Yesterday we passed an empty shell. After all, we are left to hope that it stays in closets. What may well be the case before the regional elections and pending presidential elections.