MAKE BUYING SEX A CRIME
I was appalled to learn of the sexual exploitation perpetrated over so many years within the international aid sector.
As my colleagues on Parliament’s International Development Committee highlighted recently, male aid workers have been sexually abusing women and girls by paying them for sex.
The very organisations meant to support these women are now rightly being held to account for their failures to stamp out abuse.
But the scandal of men paying to sexually exploit women is not confined to overseas. Here in the UK organised crime groups are trafficking women around the country to be sexually exploited in hotel rooms and “pop-up” brothels. This abhorrent abuse, revealed in a recent inquiry as “widespread”, takes place for one reason – demand from a minority of men who pay for sex. Prime Minister Theresa May has a duty to act. Her Government must urgently criminalise paying for sex and decriminalise victims. Because to end the exploitation we have to end the demand. MPs will soon be asked to vote to set a Stalkers Register – and I’ll be backing it. I believe MP Sarah Wollaston’s Stalking Protection Bill will allow the proactive policing necessary to help protect victims – like TV presenter Christine Lampard. If we track and monitor known offenders – in a similar way to the Sex Offender Register – serial stalkers and domestic abusers will have an obligation to change their behaviour so we can protect their potential victims and ultimately save lives.