When Is Prostitution Not Prostitution?

This interview from the BBC with a woman who works as an "escort" - selling sex - makes for very uncomfortable viewing. But it also serves to highlight one of the big problems with finding solutions to the abuses and horrors of the industry.

First of all the woman being interviewed insists that she is not a prostitute (or prostituted woman as many survivors prefer to be known) but an escort. When asked what the difference is she explains that (1) she worked indoors on the streets and that (2) she didn't wear high boots. Later she describes being physically forced to have unprotected sex against her will. The interviewer (less than tactfully) suggests "that's rape" and she responds saying she didn't see it that way because she was paid.

Now evidently what is happening is that she is in deep deep denial of what she goes through. But this is totally unsurprising - people in unbearable situations develop multiple personalities issues to allow them to "be someone else" during the awful bits. We know that many rape victims convince themselves that what they have experienced isn't rape as a coping mechanism. Should we be surprised that victims of repeated systematic rape and other abuses use euphemistic language to help them survive their experiences?

And bear in mind the stigma attached to words like "prostitute" and "rape victim". While men who pay for sex and rapists are often hailed as hyper-masculine. My boxing gym still has Mike Tyson's face on the wall and Wayne Rooney still plays top flight football and appears with his glamourous "WAG" wife in magazines like "Hello".

We have to distinguish however between being respectful to those who have had traumatic experiences and wish to chose their own language to describe them and those who are in fact defending the "right" of abusers to carry on abusing.

Threatened With Arrest

I wrote previously about the death of Sebastian Horsley, who I knew. Because I knew him I was paying attention to what the papers and other sources were saying about him. I suppose I had unthinkingly assumed his funeral would be a quiet nondescript affair. A cremation attended by close family. Of course I was very wrong. The funeral was announced widely as planned for St James' Church in Piccadilly (yes church - that would be the Church of England honouring the man who wrote, and never retracted or apologised for, these words: "I remember the first time I had sex - I still have the receipt. The girl was alive, as far as I could tell" and "I have slept with every nationality in every position in every country. From high-class call girls at £1,000 a pop to the meat-rack girls of Soho at £15, I have probably slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes, at a cost of £100,000.") and featuring an all-star cast of celebrity names: Stephen Fry giving a eulogy, Nick Cave, a member of the Clash. And, to me most sickeningly of all, his coffin was to be conveyed in a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Soho. Oh and of course the whole thing was to be filmed for a documentary glamorising him and his life and death.

Well it put me to thinking about the other people in the prostitution industry, the ones who didn't inherit vast fortunes, or win big on the stock market as Sebastian did. The ones trafficked into the country, promised legitimate jobs that never appeared. The ones trapped on drugs and in a situation of poverty that leaves them with no choice but to endure night after night of gang-rape in every possible orifice (Sebastian bragged of being an "expert" on anal sex). The ones who try to escape or fight back and end up dead and rotting in some unmarked ditch. The children. The CHILDREN. The average age of entry into prostitution in the UK is 14. Based on the statistics he himself gave and the studied indifference he, by his own admission, practiced towards the sex workers he used and abused it is nothing short of fair to conclude in all likelihood Sebastian Horsley at some point paid to have sex with a woman who was in fact a child.

And it is not a matter of seeing the best in someone because they're dead - where were Stephen Fry and Nick Cave when Harold Shipman died? Being dead doesn't make you a nice person if you were a serial abuser before you died.

So I went and stood outside the church (silently and sombrely) with the sign pictured here. The reaction was interesting. The first person to approach me, who was a mourner, said I was making a brilliant point and she was glad I was doing it. Not long after however people started screaming at me. They were, I was reliably informed, offended and upset. Ironically that is exactly what I felt when I learnt that Horsley would be given this grossly indulgent funeral. Even more ironically having debated Sebastian on matters of porn and prostitution he always insisted he was an advocate of "free speech", no more so than when when a graphic column he wrote about anal sex was published in The Observer drawing large numbers of complaints from those offended and upset by it. I honestly believe he would have defended my right to express my views as I saw fit, and not the "rights" of anyone in the vicinity to not be offended or upset. One particularly aggressive woman loudly suggested to her friends that she would set fire to my sign. She came back (perhaps to do so, or to shout some more) but a security guard stepped in and protected me, saying he would prefer if I moved further away from the church but I was on the pavement so I had every right to be there. He then tried to stand in font of me so my sign could not be seen. So I held it over my (and his) head. From the start lots of people noticed the sign and read it and several photographers took pictures of me holding it.

Then a police officer came over and asked to speak to me. She told me I had to stop holding the sign and give them my details. I explained that since I wasn't in a motorised vehicle I didn't need to give my details unless I was being arrested in which case I would do so at the station to the superintendent there. She told me if I held up the sign again she would arrest me for harassment. I might have persisted but my fear was that the whole process of being arrested and at some point released, given a warning, whatever might happen, would take forever and well, frankly, I have a lot to do today (see me tonight as Super Sandra at Ariadne the Greek WAG's Comedy Bag).

So I abandoned ship and went home just as two beautiful horses arrived followed by the polished black funeral carriage draped in layers of sumptuous red velvet to convey into the historic church, lavishly decorated with sunflowers and a grand piano, the body of a man who bragged that he couldn't be bothered to check if the prostitute he was fucking was alive or not.

Economic Tits

So I know - I should expect this sort of thing from The Sun. Seriously though, I would do a line-by-line except as with most Sun stories there's only about three lines. Apparently the recession's over because more people are going to strip clubs. So....

1) Where are the statistics on this? There aren't any. This is based on one guy saying so - one guy who in return gets his chain of misogyny shops plugged in Britain's best-selling paper.

2) Hooray - lets see what other dodgy industries we can use to prop up the economy. People are buying more heroin than ever. Hired assassins have never been so popular. The demand for mugging old ladies has gone through the roof. Oh whoops, except economic benefits don't justify an industry that's riddled with exploitation.

3) If this is all true then it's very very frightening news indeed. Women are already seriously over-represented in the ranks of those affected by the downturn. We earn less across the board and are way more likely to suffer discrimination, way more likely to have dependent family members to support along with complicated caring arrangements. How many more women will start to feel that their only viable economic choice is to work in one of these horrible places? And then when they're not making as much as they thought, feel like they have to start offering sexual services too...

4) Again if this is true then why exactly would we imagine that lap-dancing is more resistant to economic conditions than other activities? What other industries appear to have strong resiliance against bad economic conditions? Alcohol and cigarettes. Stuff that's addictive, stuff that is actually doing you no good at all but over a number of years you've become so used to that you can't live without it. If lap-dancing is really just the "harmless" fun that these assholes constantly claim it is then when money's a bit tight guys would stop going and come back when they have more disposable income. Not happening.

5) Our reliable correspondant says the customers are city bankers. So bad news for the female city bankers who wanted to get ahead with a bit of networking. He also says more and more women are going to strip clubs - I wonder how many of them really have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun" and how many of them are just worried about losing their jobs if they don't go along with the team for the socialising.

6) Of course - random excuse to show more tits in The Sun. Why is this "newspaper" not sold on the top shelves? This is not news. News would have found actual market trend statistics, interviewed an economist rather than a pimp, and included, for balance, comments from those who feel that a rise in strip club attendance may have it's negative side too. This is porn. Pure porn. Porn goes on the top shelf - away from where children can reach it.

The Sun "newspaper" has so much in common with strip clubs: Bad for women. Bad for men. Bad for business. Bad for society.

Two footnotes here: (1) on the subject of how young women are now supposed to have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun". When the revolution comes and I am magically able to access whatever pleases me whenever I please I'm going to demand regular hot baths poured for me and about an hour a day of cunnilingus. Going to a grimy, tacky strip club full of drunk blokes letching at women who we all know for the most part really don't want to be there strikes me as neither "sexy" nor "fun". (2) The photo - I took it just before xmas in a major chain book store on Oxford Street (I forget which one - Waterstones or Borders I think). There under a huge "we recommend" sign are the gifts for the man who likes to spend his festive season thinking about women's bodies in a strangely dismembered way. The Big Book of Legs and The Big Book of Breasts. I guess great literature isn't dead...

Dark Knights

Last night I was on BBC Five Live discussing Harriet Harman's plans to stop businesses from reclaiming VAT on "expenses" trips to strip and lap-dancing clubs. Well we were supposed to be discussing that. Instead I got screamed at by a guy called Chris Knight (the one on the left) who described himself as the president of the lap-dancers association. Weird for two reasons - firstly elsewhere on the web he's listed as the vice-president and secondly because why would a guy be head of the lap-dancers association? I mean isn't that kind of like having a white guy as head of an organisation which represents black people?

Anyway there were three things that I was angry about.

Firstly because he just shouted over everything I said, which sometimes I do too on air, sometimes you have to stop someone taking up all the air time with some irrelevant or just outright wrong point. But this was not it - this was just him trying to silence me. He didn't listen to a single point I made, however brief.

Secondly he had this manner of saying things as though that made them true. He said "the law as it is works perfectly" - and that's really not true of any law. The murder law doesn't work perfectly, murder still happens and some people trying to assist suicide for the terminally ill can be at risk of prosecution. He also said "if anything illegal happens the police sort it out" when in fact what is true is that when illegal things happen if the police find out about them there is a chance they'll try to sort it out.

Finally though when I agreed to do the interview I was told there would be one other person on air - a lapdancer called Naomi. When we went live Chris Knight was there too - effectively Naomi's boss. Needless to say when your boss is sat next to you you're hardly going to be open about the positives and the negatives of you work environment. For instance at one point I asked Naomi if clients ever touched her while she was dancing and she said "no, never". Really? So she's worked for several years dancing naked across the laps of drunk men and not one has ever touched her? Does anyone believe that. Afterwards I had a chat with a friend who has worked as a stripper and I told her what Naomi had said to which she responded (and I quote) "ah fuck that's ridiculous".

Today I noticed that I'm not the only person who thinks Chris Knight is a nasty bully. So do ... wait for it ... the House of Lords! He's been paying lobbists to try to convince Lords to table watering-down motions to the new bill changing the way lapdancing clubs are licensed. The article in The Times (linked above) contains two classic Chris Knight-isms...

"We got the best response from lords because they don’t rely on votes like MPs do."

Or in other words "Boy, if we lived in a real democracy, we'd be in trouble". And...

"It’s hard to get public support when you run strip clubs."

Aw boo hoo. Well don't do it then!

But the best line in the article comes from 78 year-old hereditary peer Lord Bridgeman who said "I’m very happy to discuss this with you but I need to be properly briefed".

...being "properly briefed" is not something Lord Bridgeman or the women working the industry should expect!

...But Is It "Art"?

Camden Council has decided that burlesque shows where there is stripping and nudity should require adult entertainment licenses, like strip shows and lap-dancing venues do. And I know I sound like the oldest prude in the book but they're right.

And I do feel mean about this because I have a number of good friends who perform burlesque, and for the most part what they do is genuinely alternative and intended at least in a positive way. The thing is that already I've seen amateur burlesque nights springing up around London and they are really using that term to mean "stripping but we can't be bothered to get a license". I fail to see how the line can be drawn. The council will still have authority to grant licenses if they want to.

On top of that I am still not totally comfortable with burlesque as an art form. A number of comedy clubs have sprung up recently offering a "cabaret" of comedy and burlesque. I am not, and am never going to be, comfortable going on stage when the last performer has just stripped off. And it is tangibly restricting my career, just as it used to when I worked in finance and wouldn't socialise in strip clubs.

To give a concrete example of why I feel that way: I was asked a couple of years ago to do warm-up at a highly prestigious burlesque show happening in Edinburgh at the festival. I said I thought I'd feel uncomfortable surrounded by glamourous dancers, to which I was told "no-one will be looking at your face". Confused I asked what they'd expect me to wear and was told "Don't worry, we'll lend you a basque". To be honest that's what I was most worried about so I declined the job and it was given to a male act who performed in jeans and no doubt got his own BBC series on the back of it or some such.

Some venues will still apply for and be granted licenses and for the rest of the burlesque world I can only suggest doing something wildly alternative and positive - keeping your kit on! No-one is suggesting demanding licenses for venues where nudity doesn't happen.

Mile High Misogyny

This article is from the latest Ryan Air inflight magazine. It lists their recommended top ten lap-dancing clubs worldwide. Has anyone told them that some of their passengers may be female? Or indeed for any number of other reasons not comfortable with an article like that peeking out of their seat-pocket?

But the article is also interesting in that they admit two things that most lap-dancing promoters will aggressively deny:

They admit that "gentleman's club" is a direct synonym for "lap-dancing joint".

They admit that the claim that these places are frequented by "adventurous young couples" is a lie and that the actual clientele is "randy blokes".

London's was represented on the list of course by Stringfellow's, a club whose owner is delighted to brag on his blog about his great friendship with David Cameron. How nice.

Borderline Reporting

From today's Independent:

Firstly, how did the press get hold of this story? It's in a number of papers, Mail, Telegraph, etc so it's not that a journalist happened to be at customs at the time of the incident. Someone's written a press release. It's unlikely to be the woman herself since no version of the story has a quote from her explaining her actions. It does however have quotes from the border officials. Which means it must be them who let on to the press about the story. Why? Did they think it would boost their image? Or did they think it was funny? Either way a bit sick and screwed up.

Secondly, the piece seems to be saying that the woman was coming of her own free choice to the UK to seek sex work and was turned away. But imagine if you were going overseas to take on a job that required a specific type of clothing. Would you pack only the specialist clothing (wet suits? bee-keeping gear? workmen's overalls?) you were planning to wear while working? Or would you also pack some "normal" clothes to wear when you went shopping or for a night out? I think I would.

So it's possible they totally misunderstood, that she's actually a model only visiting for a one-day photo shoot and she's brought a range of clothes for the job and they haven't bothered to listen to her story. If so she's been unjustly denied entry and had her time and money wasted.

But more likely is that she's being trafficked to the UK to do the kind of sex work where you're not allowed out of the house at all. In which case refusing her entry is going to make no difference because whoever is trafficking her is just going to keep trying. What they should have done of course is found out who was controlling her and how (drugs? money? threats?), found a safe place for her to be rehabilitated either here or at home and then chased down the organisers of the racket and jailed them.

It's really irresponsible of newspapers like The Independent to treat the issue of sex work as a saucy "and also" space-filler. This is about women's lives and wherever you stand on the subject you have to accept that many sex workers are working under duress. How to deal with that problem and make sure women who want to get out of the industry can do so is - or should be - the real story here.

Stripping the Illusion

Hmm, my satirical blog has been really fun the last few days. Never quite sure how long my enthusiasm for these ventures will last but today's effort has a feminist feel to it, poking fun at Peter Stringfellow and his attempts to avoid a much-needed crack-down on lap-dancing licensing law. If you want more information about the problems I seriously recommend you go to the Fawcett website here and read the personal accounts by Lucy Brown and Sarah Evans of working in and commuting past a strip club. And find out more about the campaign at the Object website here.

Frustratingly the BBC has put up on their news site a link to Stringfellow talking bollocks but not bothered putting up a link to Sandrine Leveque from Object doing a brilliant job of explaining why the law change is needed. Luckily the footage is up on Parliament Live TV where what I find amazing (aside from the great job Sandrine is doing) are the weird, pathetic and totally out of date objections put up by the MPs hearing the case. At one point one of them says (essentially) "But don't women get jobs stripping on cruise ships as a way to get their Equity card?". Now firstly I'm not aware that this is true but whatever. Secondly if it is true, surely it's a rather horrible state of affairs and we should sort it out. Or does the government thing stripping should be a short-cut into acting. What other career paths does the government think should offer fast-track access to those prepared to strip for money? Forgotten to study for your GCSEs? Just flash your boobs at the invigilator... Is that what these idiots actually want?

(Piccie from Freefoto.com)

Headlying

Take a look at this article in The Herald. Notice anything? I noticed the headline is a lie. It reads "Aberdeen police claim new sex laws increase prostitution" but the article explains that police believe the change in the law has moved existing prostitution to different areas. The "increase" comes from the BBC who report that there has been an increase in the number of arrests. But surely tightening the law means you would expect more arrests. So it would seem the law is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. And the more you arrest, the less are left on the streets? No?

The law change was supposed to crack down on the men who visit prostitutes, the idea being weirdly that this is in some way "fair" to legally pursue both parties. This of course misses the point that the vast majority of prostitutes are not doing the job out of free and straightforward choice. It makes sense to criminalise those who use prostitutes because it reduces demand and thus the incentives to those who would force women into this role. It would make more sense however to simultaneously decriminalise the women themselves, so that they can seek help and a route out of prostitution when they are ready and feel able to.

Sex and the Tories

Thanks very much to everyone who's been in touch since Saturday about my appearance on BBC Radio Five Live. For those who missed it - the subject up for debate was those dreadful "purity" and "virginity" cult spreading over here at the moment from the US. Of course there was mention of religion being pushed on school children, as well as the drive for abstinence-only education. What we ended up focusing on though was whether there is some objective "moral good"- regardless of religion - to holding off on sex until you are married. Well my point was that sex isn't dirty or disgusting or morally bankrupt - done right with the right person it's a lot of fun.

Well of course the phone lines started ringing saying I didn't know what I was talking about and that casual sex causes disease*(1), teen pregnancy*(1) and leads to emotional hurt when relationships break up*(2). So I said that I had had casual sex in my life so I did know what I was talking about, probably rather better than those arguing with me.

Anyway that was about the last word of reason on the show because the phone lines were going crazy with people ringing in to call me all sorts of names... I mean people were actually cut off because of the language they were using towards me! Too funny. One guy rang in to say I'd never get married now and that if Mr Cru had heard me on air he'd be gone before I got home (he was still there)...

And amazingly while healthy, safe, consensual sex between two adults is enough to have the general public screaming in outrage, it's considered so normal and commonplace for men to go out and pay women for sexual services that they hand out discount vouchers for it at the Tory party conference! How screwed up is that?

For some reason that picture of David Cameron, which I saw in the Daily Mail, seemed appropriate...

*(1) The evidence suggests the opposite - that the abstinence promotion organisations in the US and the UK have resulted in more STDs and teen pregnancies because young people are not taught the facts about their own bodies and not encouraged to carry condoms.

*(2) Weird - because you don't have to have sex in a relationship to be hurt when it's over. And who the hell goes through life without experiencing some emotional pain? Why would you even try to do that, regardless that it's pretty obviously not possible?

If You Haven't Done So Already...

...then please read this report about the UK sex industry by Julie Bindel. Disturbing but important stuff.

When Will This Rubbish Stop?

I know I shouldn't read the Daily Mail but someone sent me the link and I got curious. This article is disgusting. The story is about W.I. members (women's institute, a big organisation of women in the UK, and I should point out it is a very small group of them who are involved with this piece, the vast majority want nothing to do with it, although this is not mentioned at all in the article) launching a "campaign" to legalise brothels in the wake of the Ipswich murders.

Firstly they have done a tour of brothels around the world as a fact-finding mission, but of course have only visited the ones that welcome inquisitive visitors, and then only by pre-arranged appointment. I don't think you can expect to get a real understanding of what goes on in these places unless you went undercover. Even on their tour they apparently saw "a room where up to 80 men could join in sex with about four prostitutes for eight euros" - which implies some of these women are expected to have sex with 20 men at once... And assuming they get half the money the men pay - for about EUR80 or £60...? That sounds pretty awful. And that's the sanitized version! Plus as always when legalisation comes up as an issue one of the key messages is "health checks for the girls". If you are admitting the women need health checks, you are simultaneously admitting that in some instances unsafe sexual practices take place, aren't you?

Secondly they haven't really explained the leap from "Ipswich murders" to "legalise prostitution". As far as I remember the horrible murderer in the Ipswich case was not a prostitute, but a man who regularly used prostitutes. I find it quite a big jump to imagine that if he had been using legal prostitutes he would somehow not have wanted to murder them. And while legalising prostitution might mean some of the women had safer places to work from, you can't create a world in which no woman ever gets into a car with a man she doesn't know all that well. I see a much stronger logic in concluding from the Ipswich murders that we should legally and safely provide drugs to addicts, which it appears all of the murdered women were. What do we really want for these women? Are men so entitled to access women's bodies that we would prefer to tidy up the sex trade and make sure they pay tax? Or do we want these women to have genuine choice about the direction their lives take, and the freedom to leave the streets and fulfill their own ambitions?

But also listening to what the W.I. leaders have to say, it sounds inordinately classist. Here's a quote: "Everybody looks on these girls as being from the lowest stratum of society and that’s not true. One of those girls [murdered in Ipswich] was into horseriding, the whole works." WHEN EXACTLY did it become somehow ok to murder a woman who wasn't in to horseriding? And women from the "lowest stratum" are less worthy of our protection why?

End of the Road for Strip Pub

If you are wondering how the Stop The Strip Pub campaign ended I have given the full and unedited version on BBC London here. Yeah!

Victory!

Last night a number of F-Word writers and readers were in attendance to see Hackney Council refuse to give Satchmo’s a license to become a Sex Encounters Establishment (strip club).

Thank you and well done to everyone who wrote letters of objection and showed up for the hearing - it worked! More info on the website.

Photo by adman_as, reposted from the F-Word.

Stop The Strip Pub Blog

I have put together a very simple blog for the Stop The Strip Pub campaign. There is also a really nice quote from me in the Hackney Post article about Saturday's protest.

Stop Press: Stop The Strip Pub

Got into a bit of real grass roots activism today. Satchmo's - a bar just up the road from my house - has applied for a license to do strip shows. Now I don't really approve of strip clubs anywhere but seriously - it's in a residential area, just between a mosque and two primary schools. It's the most ridiculous idea I've heard in a very long time. So we went along to protest outside and there was a great turnout, 50-100 people just from the few streets around it, including ten from the Turkish Community Centre, six or so from the mosque and a bunch of school children from one of the local schools. Several journalists appeared and interviewed me and others and took photos so hopefully it will attract some attention. I'll keep you posted.

Off to Million Women Rise now - two protests, one day...

Swedish Models

Unsurprisingly with all the recent news - there is some discussion at present of how best to deal with the problems of prostitution. Julie Bindel gets very much to the bottom of the matter in this great interview with a professor of criminology.

To me it's seems so obvious that the way to sort the problem out is to criminalise men who pay for sex. Not because I'm some kind of mad man-hating lunatic who wants every guy thrown in prison. And not because I'm some weird anti-sex prude either.

The facts are these: the vast majority of women in prostitution are there under coercion of one sort or another: Trafficked women, drug-addicted women, victims of domestic violence and sexual violence. These women are being put at risk on a daily basis of rape, assault and murder. While fiction-writers may tell us there are "high-class" call girls who enjoy their work, if there are, they are clearly few and far between and do not justify the industry as a whole. n Criminalising someone who works under coercion won't change anything.

Meanwhile the men who visit prostitutes are not coerced to do so in any way. No man is ever forced to visit a prostitute. Men chose quite freely whether to do so or not. So by criminalising paying for sex you render illegal a part of the process that is not coerced and can be stopped dead in it's tracks. Problem gone.

This means of dealing with the sex industry is known as The Swedish Model because it works a treat in Sweden. Hopefully the government will come back to it at some point.

Pimp My Media!

When exactly did the word "pimp" cross over into being an acceptable mainstream term for "spruces up, with particular reference to motor vehicles"? The Independent is now using it! Am I the only one who still thinks it means "one who makes a living hiring out women for sex"?

Save Us All...

The BBC have an article up today asking whether it's acceptable for disabled people to visit brothels. And when it says disabled people, let me be very clear: it means disabled MEN. They are honestly proposing that while able bodied men shouldn't be allowed to support a corrupt industry and fund human trafficking, sexual slavery, institutionalised rape and brutality, we should make an exception for men with a serious disability.

Now I'm a bit confused, I mean how disabled would a guy have to be to qualify for the proposed scheme? Would there be a government register of who is and isn't allowed to pay for sex? Maybe a points system? Lost one leg? Sorry you can still get the other one over. Lost both legs? OK but hand-jobs only. And if you've lost both legs and are deaf and blind? Presumably Gordon Brown will come round himself and personally suck you off.

Personally I don't believe anybody has a RIGHT to get laid. If anything, you have the right to go out and TRY to get laid. But I also think that the article isn't really about a right to get laid, it's about a right for a man to get laid with a gorgeous young fit woman. And they definitely don't have that. One thing they don't address is whether there might be women out there who - for whatever reason - are just as lonely, who might be interested in these guys - if of course they didn't sound like such unpleasant individuals.

And this leads to the bigger issue: what about the disabled WOMEN? Have they not sexual desires too? And if all the disabled guys are off visiting brothels there'll be fewer guys to go round...

Anyway if you'd like to hear a lot more about disabilities and sex I can only recommend you come along and see the fabulous Liz Carr (pictured) performing with me at Soho Comedy Club on Monday (8pm Roundtable Pub, St Martin's Court, nr Leicester Square, London, £5)

Why Are We Sending the VICTIMS of Crime to Prison?

Another horror story about the UK immigration system's treatment of trafficked women. The story itself is disgusting:

"She tells of a time early on in her abuse when she was with one customer who had asked for two girls.

The other girl was showing her what to do but Anna started to cry when she saw the customer lying on the bed - it was the first time she had seen a naked man."

So a man went in to visit a brothel and one of the girls started crying, and yet evidently he didn't go to the police or report the incident, or if he did the police did nothing. Is that the kind of society we live in now? Of course the treatment from the pimps themselves is the most horrific:

"she was forced to have sex and faced ice-cold baths, starvation and beatings if she did not do as she was told"

So when at long long last she was rescued from this horrific life, from a life of being raped by different men up 15 to 20 times a day (oh and up to 30 around Christmas - cos all those devoutly religious people know the best way to celebrate the birth of the Lord is with a trip to a cheap brothel...), and frequent violent abuse too, how does Britain respond? We lock her up in Yarl's Wood detention centre.

She was 12 when she was trafficked out of Albania. She's 20 years old now. She fears she'll be forced back in to prostitution if she goes back to Albania. So we're deporting her straight back there.