PROSTITUTION: where should labour movement

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Existence of prostitutes considered legal: their work as prostitutes subject to police Following a series of 'Ripper-style' murders in Lyons in France in 1974 and 1975 about which the police seemingly did little except increase the harassment of prostitutes-which resulted in higher fines and increased imprisonments-a national strike of prostitutes took place which lasted for over two months.

A church was occupied in Lyons, being a sanctuary for 'criminals' and the 'moral centre' of the community: this occupation was quickly followed by strikes and occupations of churches all over France by prostitutes.

Support by the political parties was very limited and generally hostile but support for the movement grew and reached a climax when prostitutes Paris occupied St Bernard Chapel in Montparnasse.

With the number of Paris prostitutes being in the region of 6,000 and therefore every church being under threat of occupation, the movement was finally broken with the police entering churches and violently evicting the occupiers.

The church occupations were hailed as an enormous victory; the murders stopped, and prostitutes had gained experience and the basis of an organisation to fight for their rights-in 1979 a government proposal for state brothels failed.

Recognition

This defeat was seen to be the result of both the organisation of prostitutes with the support of others and the beginning of public recognition of their views.

The importance of the strike in bringing to the fore of public debate a group of workers who are normally kept invisible cannot be doubted.

However, the strike only began to raise issues to those outside of the work and there still remain many unanswered questions-along with tendancy of the organised left to ignore prostitution whén discussing other aspects of the women question.

The following must therefore be seen as only a very sketchy outline of what is an extremely complex issue. It does not attempt to answer all the questions.

Whatever views, as socialists, we have on prostitution (whether it should exist at all or only in state brothels, whethe prostitution should be abolished under socialism, whether it is a valuable "social service" , etc.) it is clear that, under capitalism at least, prostitutes form one of the most oppressed and exploited groups of workers.No other group facés such gross hypocrisy from bourgeois morality and the legal system. This hypocrisy reaches the extent of their existence as prostitutes being legal, while their working as prostitutes is declared illegal!

Union

It is therefore important that socialists consider the question of prostitution, not as an abstract debate but in the face of growing numbers of women out of work (for whom prostitution is always an alternative) and various organisations that prostitutes themselves have set up which effectively operate, in a limited way, as a union for prostitutes.

As socialists we have to look at these organisations and seriously consider what types of demands we would make and what type of transitional arrangements we would envisage harrassment following the overthrow of capitalism.

While, of course, we would never attempt to formulate some kind of definitive blueprint for post-revolutionary society, we must accept that prostitution as presently exists under capitalism could not continue under socialism and we therefore have to examine and work towards a view on prostitution and prostitutes.

The notions of sexuality which give rise to the 'need' for prostitution, and the oppression of women which allows them to become prostitutes (aside from economic considerations) have unquestionably to be challenged under socialism.

Illegal

Prostitution is legal in this country, as in France, bui "loitering for the purpose of prostitution" and "soliciting for the purpose of prostitution" is illegal.

Furthermore, in law brothel is defined as a place where more than one prostitute works. Effectively, this means that prostitutes, although having legal status, cannot actually legally work.

Not only do prostitutes incurr heavy penalties (on their third conviction they are liable to three months imprisonment) but they are subject to constant harassment from the police.

This includes agent provocateur tactics. In the USA this is known as "entrappment" and is a form of legal defence, but in Britain it is not a defence.

Street walkers are referred to as "common prostitutes" in the courts and this results (in contrast to every other type of defendant) in the court knowing about previous offences as soon as the charge is read out.

Unce known as a "common prostitute" you can be arrested for just standing or walking in a particular street.

The law used for this, (Section I of the Street Offences Act 1959) is strikingly similar in wording to the notorious "sus law" (Vagrancy Act 1824).

But whereas a successful prosecution under "sus" has to involve some incriminating evidence by way of observation or otherwise, a successful prosecution under the • Street Offences Act involves. simply proving that the defendant is or has been a prostitute and was standing or walking in a known vice-area.

At least 300 women go to prison every year and the threat of imprisonment is increased when a prostitute comes out in the open and campaigns for legal and working rights.

PROS (Programme for Reform of the laws On Prostitution) is an organisation of prostitutes which actively campaigns to abolish all laws relating to prostitution and the imprisonment of prostitutes.

An organisation that has been active for the last few years, they produce a paper Street Beat and have active groups around the country.

While they acknowledge the short-term nature of their essentially reformist demands, it is not clear what they see as a long term perspective for prostitutes or how they seek to achieve it.

They point out that, at the moment, the possibilities of setting up a PROS trade union affiliated to the TUC are very limited-given the fact that they have not even yet won the right to work (legally). Therefore they act, at the moment, as a campaigning/support body.

Although in a recent issue of their paper they document a struggle in the nineteenth century to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act (by which any woman could be picked up on suspicion of being a prostitute and detained in a locked hospital ward until presumed clear of VD), in which they point to the less well known supporters including working men's organisations, they do not appear to place demands on the trade union movement today to enlist their However, the tendency towards overt hostility to the trade union and Labour movement on the part of the women's liberation movement (WLM) is not present in PROS literature, and their failure to broaden out the campaign beyond enlisting the support of MPs may be a reflection of their understandable caution given the nature of their jobs and their obvious desire to attract only genuine supporters.

In contrast to PROS, two other groups-the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and Prostitution Laws are Nonsense (PLAN)-both of which have close ties with the Wages for Housework Campaign -work from within the WLM.

In line with the wages for housework campaign, ECP adopts the concept that women attain power through earning money:

"This is the women's moveare women, we are not different; like other women we don't like housework and its lack of wages, we don't like the second job and its respectable low women's wages, and we hate pennilessness, we always did... The prostitution laws divide pros from other women. An emancipated pro is bargaining power for other women who want more pay and in the home and children's allowances. The fact that a prostitute can earn £1,000 a week shows how undervalued other women are."

ECP represents a wide range of prostitutes-from street walkers to call girls--but like many other positions and campaigns taken up in the WLM and inherent in the notion of an autonomous women's movement, the ambiguities and confusions shine forth. One of ECP's leading members argues:

"I am certainly for the end of prostitution. I believe that we le should have a society - where nothing is bought or sold and that means none of us will have to sell ourselves."

At the same time the collective argues:

"Not only mustevery woman have the right to choose to have or not to have children, she must lave the right to agree or refuse to give her time and skills, and the right to agree or refuse to sell her time and skills." • They completely fail to make any link and formulate any policy as a transition between reform of conditions today and their other concern which is eradicating prostitution.

Clearly the inclusion of prostitutes in the WLM has been a controversial issue since they, above all other women, are seen as most directly servicing the enemy.

At the same time the liberalism within the movement shudders at the thought of compromising the concept of sisterhood and so reaches out to prostitutes so as not to alienate them as women.

But what all this clearly fails to examine is the cause of prostitution and reasons for its existence under capitalism and thus fails to adopt a clear socialist perspective on class lines, of the way in which prostitution might exist or not exist under socialism.

From literature that is available, it is fairly clear that the main motivation for women to become prostitutes is economic. Often for single women with children, prostitution provides a lucrative income that once being earned becomes difficult to end:

"Once you've started, everything's set up to stop you being able to get out-the cops for a start. Cops and cash, they're the two poles in the daily life of a prostitute."

Prostitutes Our Life, ed C. Jaget.

In this book, in which six French prostitutes tell their own accounts of their livés, a common theme is the lack of choice that they felt they faced in becoming prostitutes:

"In my case it was never a choice, I'd never have thought, even when , was a hostess, that -might one day become a prostitute. I saw it as I think all so-called normal women see it-it was something impossibie, something you never do, out of bounds ... But then I think this is fairly common; you can't think ahead, I'm going to be a prostitute' and then organise your life accordingly. Just the opposite-you refuse to think about it."

Neither is it described as being an enjoyable occupation, this comment again reflects a common view:

•.. the first time it really is horrible ... Gradually it becomes a routine, so you find ways of distracting yourself from it. You find escape routes, blinkers, drugs. You grow a sort of second skin. Everyone finds their own way of coping, but you never really get used to it."

This is an important point; many socialists may feel that prostitution is like any other job-working in a tedious factory job or being selfemployed-that you switch off and adapt to it.

Many of the accounts in the book point to the problems encountered in having 'ordinary' sexual relationships with men and many women, understandably, maintain sexual relationships with other women instead.

Surely this illustrates the enormous differences that exist in working as a prostitute and in any other type of job. The exploitative nature of prostitution-particularly in wartime (Vietnamese women for instance being shot full of penicillin to keep down the incidence of VD in army-run brothels) goes far beyond the "alienating" aspects of factory. work.

Inherent in the view that prostitution is just another job is the notion that prostitution provides some kind of "social service' This is patently refuted by the fact of the incidence of rape in well-known red-light districts; although men who are otherwise deficient or sexually inept may require the services of prostitutes, the service by no means reduces the violence and sexual harassment against women who live in the areas where prostitutes are readily available.

And while, as a short term measure, legalising prostitution would enable women to work off the streets (and so reduce the increased harassment that 'straight' women face from kerb crawlers) the continuation of prostitution cannot be seen as the maintaining of an essential service.

The PROS campaign makes very clear their view on state brothels and complicated legislation making prostitution legal as has been done in Germany and Holland.

They are opposed to the lack of control that they see would inevitably flow from such a system (and does occur in Germany for example).

Instead most favour the setting up of prostitutes co-ops under their control. Nowhere in their literature do prostitutes talk of their enjoyment of their job; they write as workers seeking a limited set of demands to improve and decriminalise their working conditions.

No small task Given the concepts of sexuality and sexual oppression of women that exists in capitalist society which prostitution represents, decriminalising it is no small task and must be a first stage in the political fight by prostitutes under capitalism.

To that extent the PROS campaign is an important group with a cleat perspective that avoids the confusions and ambiguities of ECP and PLAN.

However, in the long term we must as socialists have a perspective of abolishing prostitution along with other forms of grossly exploitative labour; with the economic incentives removed and decent provision of childcare, housing, health and leisure facilities such a job would no longer be necessary for survival.

During the transitional stage however, it is quite conceivable that prostitution would remain.

The difficulty. then, as exists to some extent now, will be the need to overcome any inherent distaste we may feel and moral conditioning that we've inherited that prevents us from reaching a clear materialist understanding of why there is a need for prostitution and whether and under what conditions we, as well as prostitutes themselves, could condone its future existence under socialism.

*It has not been possible here to consider the question of gay prostitution ... "the rent scene" ... which although has similarities to problems faced by female prostitutes would require a more detailed consideration of its own.

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Wednesday

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