New Zealand prostitute's collective

Again, New Labour trades women for votes... I've been meaning to write about this for some time.

One issue that us feminists must get our myriad acts together on this year is the legal status of prostitution.

In the coming weeks, Jacqui Smith - a politically-expedient goody two-shoes, if there ever was one - provides us with a golden opportunity to unite in favour of keeping all aspects of prostitution legal (and I DON'T include include kidnapping, trafficking, or rape in that catch-all, as you'll see at the end of this piece*).

As many of you will know (debate has raged on a range of great feminist blogs and at the marvellous Shiraz Socialist, where you'll find a comprehensive background) Smith's 2009 wheeze is to squeeze further votes out of the righteous arm of the voting public by tightening prostitution laws at the next readings of the Policing and Crime Bill. Sex workers themselves are opposed to Smith's proposals - they believe, rightly, that criminalising sex work will exclude them from police help, legal recourse and support, and society itself.

It's the flagrant dismissal of women that gets so many of us: women are utterly expendable in New Labour eyes. The English Collective of Prostitutes and the International Union of Sex Workers reported that they weren't even contacted by the Home Office about Smith's proposals. 

No surprises there. Sex workers' liberal views on their own working conditions add nothing to Smith's blatantly conservative agenda: tis thus that Smith will be forever happy to throw them to the hounds. This Labour government is prepared to sacrifice all manner of women's rights and protections on the centre-ground altar at which it so slavishly worships.