The Truth Begins to Emerge. Fiaz Allies with Greens Against her own Cabinet Member!

Mayor Fiaz (pronouns: she. her) and the Green Coalition? 

In an approach which seems to have the active support of the two Green councillors and the Mayor, (but precious few Labour councillors), Newham has announced its change of policy for the control of prostitution; to a policy of not controlling prostitution.

At the heart of this change is a confusion as to whether prostitutes are free agents plying their trade in a free market or whether they are the victims of an unscrupulous male criminal tyranny which exploits their labour and treats women as a sexual commodity. 

It is not entirely clear where Fiaz stands, though for Higgins, the concern for the impact upon incomes of sex-workers during the cost-of-living crisis seemed to suggest that, on this issue at least, he was part of the free-market tendency; and, in the question he posed to the then cabinet member, he seemed to think that the police were more of a problem to prostitutes than violent pimps. 

The tweet below from Cllr Higgins (pronouns: I’ve no idea) might come as a bit of a surprise to the residents who voted him (them?) in. In it he (they?) appears to show a greater sympathy for the “sex workers of Newham” than he (they?) do for the residents (and here) who elected him (them?). It is clear, that when he (they?) writes about “women’s safety” it is the women working as prostitutes he is (they are?) advocating for, not the women who live in the area and suffer harassment.

We suggested earlier, that the move of Cllr Carlene Lee-Phakoe away from Crime and Anti-social Behaviour was in no small part due to a major difference between Lee-Phakoe and Fiaz about how to control prostitution on the streets. 

Fiaz and Lee-Phakoe clearly didn’t see eye to eye. The latter sought to introduce a PSPO (a Public Space Protection Order). Fiaz didn’t.

The PSPO would give the police powers to move on or prosecute those who were in breach of the order. This would result in a fine (up to Level Three i.e., £1000) for those in breach of the order.

The PSPO was made possible by the 2014 Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. It was aimed at giving local authorities the power to curb various forms of anti-social behaviour that were blighting the lives of their residents. If they were willing to put in the effort.

Would it work? Probably.

Would it not merely displace the place that prostitutes were touting for clients? Again, probably.

But it would give the residents of the Romford Road a break.

The wider debate.

Does anyone know how to solve the problem of prostitution. The simple answer is ‘No’. This is due in no small part to an inability to agree as to what the problem is.

• For residents it is largely harassment of non-sex-worker women on the streets, as well as general feeling of unease caused by prostitutes plying their trade and men pulling up in cars.

• For traditional feminists, prostitution is an example of the exploitation of women by patriarchal male society.

• For feminist deviationists, and their allies, prostitution is simply a matter of women engaging in a trade and one which empowers them.

• For the religious and traditionalists, prostitution is immoral.

• For the police it is a public order problem, in which providers are not criminal, but purchasers may be.

Newham has chosen not to define what the problem is that it seeks to solve, assuming that Mayor Fiaz actually wants to solve anything. It appears that she has found yet another cause where wishful thinking supplants policy and we suspect that we will see further examples of hand wringing and selective virtue signalling. 

What we will not see are clear statements of the problem that she seeks to confront and how the success of her approach will be measured.

She and Cllr Neil Wilson, are promoting a Public Health approach the issue of prostitution. It sounds good, progressive even. What it does not demonstrate is that it is effective.

Fiaz is currently in the game of attempting to change the narrative. Residents along the Romford Road want prostitution off their streets. 

Fiaz wants “to support vulnerable people and reduce the stigmatisation and exploitation of street and off-street sex workers”. This might be a laudable aim, but it is not about ridding the streets of prostitution.

By changing the narrative, she can claim success for a policy that fails to improve the lives of residents one iota. It actually doesn’t have to achieve anything. It is enough to spend money and trumpet her good intentions.

Unfortunately, this is also not an approach which enjoys the wholehearted and universal support to which she alludes. One correspondent in the The Lancet wrote as follows. “The truth is that prostitution is an evil of global proportions, and not only in terms of its adverse health effects. It is associated with casual violence, organised crime, drugs, and the most vicious forms of trafficking in human lives.” Reflecting upon the public health approach with regard to earlier social campaigns he asks, “Did Dickens ask for health clinics in the mines and factories? Did Wilberforce ask for “tailored medical care” on the slave ships and the plantations? Are you against prostitution, on health grounds, or not?”

We suspect that Mayor Fiaz would have to answer, “not”.

This is from the government’s Review of Effective Practice in Responding to Prostitution. 

Enforcement is necessary. But not in Newham.

Reading through the government’s review of effective practice, it is clear that there are approaches that can support women who choose to leave prostitution. The numbers are not massive, but they are real. The trouble is that when one woman leaves street sex work, another replaces her. 

For residents, the women might be different individuals, but the problem is the same.

So, let’s look at the approach Newham plans to take.

The following comes from the council’s website. 

“As part of the first phase of work and in order to determine the scale and nature of sex work across Newham, the Council will undertake a needs assessment in partnership with people with lived experience, (lived experience of what? Everybody has lived experience! We assume that this means those who have worked as prostitutes, so why don’t they just say it? Or they could ask the police, who probably have a fairly good idea about the extent of the problem.) 

…residents (good, unless of course, the residents don’t happen to agree with the direction that the council is taking, in which case they can expect to have their views ignored) 

… and experts” (experts in what? Our suspicion is that some of the ‘experts’ and those with ‘lived experience’ will come from the organisation below, and whilst their lived experience may be considerable, the interests that they represent are not the interests of the people that voted for Fiaz, nor Cllr Higgins, we suspect.)

The council will seek to “…to identify local needs, gaps and wider community impact so that a comprehensive and holistic strategy can be developed”, (this is just a word salad). 

“A review of best practices locally, nationally, and internationally will also be undertaken in order to develop solutions for Newham.”

So, to be clear, they are abandoning the approach they had been working towards and in 10 months’ time, they will have a strategy which will tell us what they are going to do.

We will be returning to this issue in a future post.