Callous cruelty and disregard for a survivor of violence, as mob descends on Melbourne summit

Professor S. Caroline Taylor AM is an internationally esteemed academic and researcher who provides specialist evidence in child abuse cases.  She is recognised as one of Australia’s leading experts and consultants in the field of child and adult sexual violence and domestic violence and the criminal justice response to victim/survivors and social models of trauma and recovery.

She is Founder and Chair of Children of Phoenix Inc., a charity assisting survivors of childhood abuse to rebuild their lives through education and mentoring.

Dr. Taylor contributed the chapter ‘The Pornification of Intrafamilial Rape’ to Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry (eds MTR/Dr. Abigail Bray, Spinifex Press). She is also, herself, a survivor of child sexual abuse, which informs her life’s work in the field.

But none of these professional or (devastating) personal credentials mattered to the protestors who stormed the Australian Summit Against Sexual Exploitation (ASASE) at RMIT University Melbourne on Saturday. They rushed towards her as she was delivering a paper on her research into child sexual abuse material and efforts to achieve redress for the victims whose historic images are fodder in the global pornography industry. Their callous cruelty and disregard for a survivor of the most hideous abuse suffered as a defenceless child, was deeply disturbing. Here is a transcript of the exchange (via Caitlin Roper) and view the You Tube video for full effect.

Protester: Are you against sex work? Why? Why are you against sex work?

Taylor: I’m not talking about sex work. I’m giving a talk on child sexual abuse and rape. That’s the talk I’m giving, girls, and you’re disrespecting not only everybody here, I happen to be a person who experienced child sex abuse, for a long, long time, in horrific ways, I can’t have children because of what was done to me.

Protester: (cutting her off): Then why does it say ASASE?

Taylor: I am talking about-

Protester: (cutting her off): So you’re saying you’re not with the ASASE, even though you’ve got a lanyard around your neck?

Taylor: I am very proud to be talking at this conference to these people –

Protester: (cutting her off): Sex work is not child abuse.

Taylor: I’m not talking about sex work, I’m talking about the rape of children. That is my talk. You are interrupting a talk on child sex abuse.

Protester: Why are you part of ASASE?

Taylor: I don’t need to justify that to you darling, I’m talking about the rape of children. If you would like to be educated, you are more than welcome to sit here, but otherwise, please leave us.

Protester: Yeah, nah. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

You can see a collation of other video footage here:

and more video footage here.

While verbally assailing Dr. Taylor, pulling on her lanyard, and intimidating her, other thugs were destroying property at the back of the room and throwing lanyards at the back of the heads of women attending while brandishing placards such as the compelling: “Blow Jobs are Real Jobs”. (Now there’s a slogan you want to die in a ditch for). There was only one exit – the intruders blocked it.

Some women survivors were left shaking and crying. One said she was “shaking from head to toe” after an encounter with one of the intruders who yelled into her face “Are you a prostitute?” Dr. Taylor described the impact as we debriefed with friends later that evening. “They put vile posters in my face about sex acts that triggered what happened to me as a child, even when they knew I was a survivor”, she said. “These are people who shoved triggering messages into my face and the faces of other survivors, and yet claim a platform demanding respect all the while screaming hate speech at me at a venue where I was advancing the human rights of children to live free of sexual violence and exploitation.  They not only disrespected me they disrespected every woman survivor of violence in the room today”.

Tom Meagher (husband of the late Jill Meagher) posted this observation about what constitutes ‘protest’ these days on my Facebook page.

Supporters will recall the pimp lobby (and its puppets and propagandists) have form. Remember the time they tried to hijack our launches of Prostitution Narratives: stories of survival in the sex trade (co-eds MTR/Dr. Caroline Norma, Spinifex Press), and even attempted to re-recruit our youngest contributor Alice (‘Charlotte’ in the book) back into the trade? You can read about their campaign of harassment in this piece by Jas Rawlinson:

Sex Industry tries to recruit prostitution survivor back into the trade at book launch.

All this group achieved was to show their true colours. You can’t claim to care about women while subjecting them to psychological warfare, cruel provocation and triggering traumatic memories of historic child abuse, which is exactly what this mob achieved.

See also: Pro-Sex Work Protesters Shout Down Sexual Abuse Survivors at Melbourne Conference

“I don’t know any woman whose own personal sexuality drives her to be with a succession of strangers, catering to these strange men’s desires while struggling to uphold the very minimum of safety precautions, until we are sore, raw, swollen, chaffing, and torn. This is not consent, this is coercion. This is not sex work, this is rape. This is economic exploitation. This is women’s oppression” – Chelsea Geddes, NZ writer, artist, survivor (from exhibition catalogue foreword)

Artwork: Isla Macgregor/Karla Gjini

Renee Gerlich, my friend, writer, feminist activist and co-conspirator, has curated a special global exhibition of women’s groups from around the world engaging in activism against the sexploitation of women and girls.

Renee Gerlich

The exhibition opens in Wellington, New Zealand, September 25. I am delighted that Prostitution Narratives: stories of survival in the sex trade co-edited by myself and Caroline Norma, is part of this exhibition, along with other Spinifex Press titles.  Collective Shout’s work will also be included. Renee has compiled a 40-page booklet with colour images and an essay about the exhibition, its contributors and its message, with a powerful foreword by Chelsea Geddes, extracted above.

More information about this significant and timely exhibition in this media release:

Women’s exhibition opposing sexploitation opens September 25 in Wellington

The New Zealand media has recently released reports revealing that girls as young as nine are being purchased for sexual exploitation from their own homes in New Zealand.

These reports are timely: the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) – which saw the pimping and purchase of women fully decriminalised in 2003 – is due for review in 2018. Revelations of child trafficking and exploitation should be contributing to public pressure for a critical review. An exhibition in Wellington this month, called Too Much Truth, aims to do the same.

From September 25 until October 1, Wellington’s Thistle Hall will host the exhibition Too Much Truth: Women’s global resistance to sexploitation.

The exhibition will present posters, paintings, magazines, photographs and street art by over 35 sex trade abolitionist organisations, activists and artists worldwide. Many of artists and activists involved with Too Much Truth have survived prostitution.

Among the organisations represented will be Stígamót in Iceland, Filipino organization Gabriela, transnational feminist organisation Af3irm, Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution, and photographs from Apne Aap in India, which runs schools to help save girls from a system of “hereditary” prostitution. Copies of feminist magazine off our backs will be available as well as Spinifex press publications Prostitution Narratives and Radically Speaking.

All groups, artists and activists with work in Too Much Truth are survivors and feminists who advocate for the abolitionist model of prostitution policy, which uses fines paid by pimps and “sex” buyers to assist prostituted people out of the sex trade.

Under New Zealand’s legislation, which is promoted by the sex trade lobby worldwide, pimps and “sex buyers” become entrepreneurs and customers, and violence tends to be minimised.

For instance, in 2016, NZPC spokesperson Anna Reed referred to sex trafficking as a “working holiday”. Too Much Truth curator Renée Gerlich says that public debate on prostitution policy has been monopolised by the sex trade lobby and the politically conservative for too long. “The issue is a feminist issue, and a decolonisation issue,” she says.

“The global sex trade lobby cleverly markets prostitution as a woman’s “choice”, and even openly persuades women to “call ourselves whores” in the interests of legitimising the industry. But in New Zealand and worldwide, poor and indigenous women are disproportionately represented in prostitution. The push to legitimise the industry and call it women’s own “choice” is nothing but sexism and racism. That these narratives have also been sold to women in the guise of so-called third wave “feminism” is a tragedy.”

The exhibition Too Much Truth will show how the sex trade is an industry that women in India to South Africa, Germany to Iceland and Canada to New Zealand are imprisoned in, and fighting against for their lives – and the freedom of all women.

Too Much Truth will be dedicated to the legacy of Grace Molisa, ni-Vanuatu freedom fighter, feminist, poet, publisher, educator and abolitionist.

April 6, 2016

 CATWA condemns threats of violence at sex trade conference

See also: Anti sex trade conference, survivor stories book launch Melbourne April 9-10

Statements from NORMAC and Abolish Prostitution Now following Amnesty state AGMs on weekend

NORDIC MODEL AUSTRALIA COALITION (NORMAC)

Media Release

10/05/2014

AMNESTY BRANCHES OPPOSE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S SEX INDUSTRY AGENDA.

A resolution has been passed today by Amnesty branches in Tasmania and Queensland which advocates for an abolitionist approach to prostitution.

This decision conflicts with the position proposed by the international secretariat in support of a legalised sex industry with little government interference into the buying and selling of sex and with no recognition of those who are harmed in the industry.

Former anti-discrimination commissioner Dr Jocelynne Scutt stated her concern for the direction of Amnesty in proposing support for the sex industry. “Concerted action on a global level needs to be taken by all countries working cooperatively to end the slave trade, prostitution, and buying women and girls by whatever means – whether prostitution, slavery or marriages.”

Several Amnesty members who attended the Tasmanian branch AGM said that Amnesty had not consulted with Survivor Groups in the development of their sex laws proposals nor had they acknowledged the growing body of evidence that legalisation has been a failed experiment in all countries where it has been adopted, especially in Holland, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

International Survivors Group Abolish Prostitution Now has stated:

If Amnesty International succeeds in its pimp- and pro-prostitution lobby-inspired stance of decriminalizing all aspects of prostitution, that will be almost the end of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as we know and understand it. They will not have brought it down alone, there have been other forces undermining the foundation of global human rights, but the impact of AI to decriminalize and remain the leading human rights NGO of the UN cannot be underestimated. The concept of Human Rights, and of Human Dignity as universal, inalienable and shared by all equally will be replaced by the idea of “dignity” being a marketable, individual stance that is at all times subject to market forces. Safeguarding human rights – and the rights of marginalized and disadvantaged groups like women and girls – will no longer happen from the standpoint of their inalienable rights, but merely from the point of view of improving their sales opportunities.

This is unacceptable. It means giving free reign to those in power, that is those with money. Just as decriminalizing all aspects of prostitution basically means giving free reign to pimps, traffickers, brothel owners and punters. The question will no longer be – how can women and girls (and boys and men) be kept out of prostitution, which we know to be devastating – but: How can we devise ways to make prostitution sound good, and to let those in prostitution keep a fraction of the money that is being passed around among powerful men? This is not Human Rights.

“NORMAC fully endorses this statement by Abolish Prostitution Now and considers that if Amnesty does not develop a contemporary and informed policy framework on the issues of exploitation of persons in the sex industry, the outcome will be dire both for their membership and for their standing as a peak human rights group.” said Matthew Holloway

For further information contact Spokesperson: Matthew Holloway 0450 682 372

Abolish Prostitution Now

Media Release

Amnesty’s Prostitution Policy Sparks Dissent in Australia 

• Members of Amnesty International Australia vote against International Secretariat’s plans to decriminalise pimps and buyers of sex.
• Pimp admits involvement in policy’s development.

• Jimmy Carter speaks in support of the Nordic Model in opposition to decriminalising pimps and prostitution buyers. 

Amnesty International’s proposed policy to decriminalise pimps and buyers met with opposition at Australian Amnesty state Annual General Meetings on the weekend.

The proposed policy was raised at Amnesty state level AGMs around Australia Saturday May 10, with dissent from Amnesty members. Amnesty Queensland and Amnesty Tasmania voted against the draft policy. Members voted instead to adopt the Nordic Model of prostitution, which decriminalises prostituted people, while at the same time criminalises pimps, traffickers and buyers. WA members voted in favour of a new process, which would involve seeking input from those who have survived sex industry violence. There was rigorous debate on the issue in other states.

Former president of the United States and human rights champion, Jimmy Carter, is the latest big name to speak out against the proposal. In an interview with Robin Morgan, Carter said ‘it’s inconceivable to me that Amnesty International, or any other organisation that respects human rights, would endorse slave masters’.

Escort agency manager, Douglas Fox, has claimed the credit for the policy’s development and advancement throughout the organisation. Fox manages one of the biggest escort agencies in the UK, along with his male partner. Fox has held leadership positions in Amnesty International, with an agenda of decriminalising prostitution.

While escort agency managers have been given a voice by the international secretariat of Amnesty, survivors of prostitution and sex trafficking say they have been ignored by Amnesty’s international leadership.

The Swedish branch of Amnesty International has also taken a stand against the decriminalisation of pimps and buyers of prostitution.

The consultation on the draft policy on decriminalisation of pimps and buyers of sex was initially slated to be resolved at the International AGM in June. However, due to strong opposition internationally from prostitution survivors, Amnesty members and other human rights organisations, Amnesty International had pushed back the decision until August 2015.

Sunday May 11, 2014

Contacts:

Dr. Caroline Norma: Ph: 0410 190 964

Why are we forced to fund Scarlet Alliance?

NORDIC MODEL AUSTRALIA COALITION (NORMAC)

Media Release

4 May 2014

Minister must withdraw funding from Scarlet Alliance

The Nordic Model Australia Coalition (NORMAC) has written to the federal Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan, calling on him to withdraw $360 000 in funding provided to the Scarlet Alliance to assist with the detection and prevention of human trafficking and slavery.

NORMAC has asked Minister Keenan to re-allocate the Scarlet Alliance’s funding to other groups who will also receive funding for this purpose, including Anti-Slavery Australia, Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) and Project Respect.

Spokesperson Matthew Holloway said, “Whilst we fully support the intent of this funding, NORMAC is concerned that tax payer dollars are going to an organisation that promotes an effectively unregulated industry, with the only constraints on its operation being the planning approvals that would apply to any other business.”

“Project Respect is better situated to utilise additional funding as they do a lot of on-the-ground work assisting and supporting people trapped in prostitution towards meaningful careers and employment outside the sex industry.”

Lecturer in public policy Dr Mary Louise Sullivan has stated that:

“The Scarlet Alliance presents itself as the peak ‘sex worker’ association in Australia and is a major defender of the pro-prostitution position. Indeed the Association’s membership requires that those who join must agree to its objectives. Members must acknowledge that ‘sex work is a legitimate occupation’. Moreover they must be ‘actively promoting the right to work… including street, brothel, and escort, private and opportunistic work’. The Scarlet Alliance undisputedly opposes ‘the development of exit strategies and programs for women who wish to leave the sex industry, particularly trafficked women.”

The 2004 report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission – ‘Inquiry into the trafficking of women for sexual servitude’ indicated it is generally accepted that approximately 300 women are trafficked into Australia each year for sex work whereas the Scarlet Alliance estimates only a low number of 10 trafficked women.

The Hon Mr Duncan Kerr observed that contract women who have been trafficked into Australia represent a continuum – from those who enter with full knowledge and consent; to those who enter with consent but are deceived as to conditions; to those who enter Australia completely deceived as to their work in the sex industry.

“NORMAC’s concern is that the Scarlet Alliance response fails to recognise that a number of people, specifically women, are trafficked into Australia under the false pretense of being offered legitimate work and instead become sexual slaves.”

“It would be irresponsible for the new Liberal government to continue down the path of providing any funding to the Scarlet Alliance as the organisation lacks the ability to impartially represent trafficked people and those in sexual slavery.”

“The Scarlet Alliance’s core beliefs and ideology seem deeply opposed to recognising the harm caused by prostitution to those involved in the sex industry. NORMAC believes this makes their organisation unfit to receive taxpayer funding when it would be more effectively used by other organisations who have a proven track record” said Matthew Holloway.

For further information contact: Matthew Holloway – 0450 682 372