Freedom for sex workers, jail for their clients? MEPs call for measures to tackle prostitution

The report's authors celebrated it as a breakthrough in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation but critics call the approach "biased".

Transcript

00:00 A report calling for common guidelines on prostitution for all member states has been

00:06 approved at the European Parliament's plenary in Strasbourg.

00:11 The report will now go to the European Commission, which will draft a legislative proposal.

00:17 It includes decriminalization of the sellers, but the prosecution of clients and pimps.

00:27 Prostitution is not a way of work, sex work.

00:31 Prostitution is a kind of violence against women.

00:34 We have to reduce the demand.

00:36 To reduce the demand means we have to make clear it is not allowed to buy a body of a

00:43 woman.

00:44 I think it's clear for all things that are not allowed.

00:47 The first times are fees and the second times are prison.

00:51 The report's authors argue that it will help tackle cross-border implications of prostitution,

00:56 including human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

00:59 Former sex workers told Euronews what changes they expect from the new legislation.

01:04 What is at stake is the dignity of Europe.

01:09 We have to be a reflection of a model of progress and progress.

01:15 What we are playing at is a model of equality, respect and good treatment between women and

01:24 men.

01:25 That is what we aspire to.

01:27 No woman wants to sell her body and her orifices to men just because she likes it.

01:33 So we have to end the demand, help the women, decriminalize the women.

01:40 Because right at the moment in legalization in Germany, the only who has to fear punishment

01:47 from the state or fees are the women.

01:51 But the European Coalition of Sex Workers' Rights and Inclusion criticized the report

01:56 as biased.

01:57 The NGO argues that it ignores the body of evidence of negative impact of criminalizing

02:02 the clientele of sex workers, leading to higher clandestine activity and more violence.

02:08 The co-chair of the Greens in the European Parliament agrees.

02:12 What we want is to have legislative steps, like for example a revision of the Victims'

02:16 Rights Directive, so that we can better protect those people that are affected by sexual exploitation.

02:24 Why not generalizing that all forms of sex work are gender-based violence?

02:29 Several UN agencies, namely WHO and UNFPA and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty

02:35 International and Human Rights Watch, also oppose criminalizing the purchase of sex.

02:41 Last month, the European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear a case brought by sex workers

02:46 challenging a French law passed with that purpose in 2016.

02:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]