Belfast Telegraph Article

[UKHeather]

Not sure if this has been posted before. If so, my apologies. It's from back in October. Just had it sent to me.

Graham Ellison is an academic.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/op...-16224308.html

[Naughtynatalie]

Great article Heather, havent seen it before love. Shame there is not more articles like this but fair play to the Telegraph for publishing a more honest opinion of the proposed new legislation xx

[LaBelleThatcher]

Not sure if this has been posted before. If so, my apologies. It's from back in October. Just had it sent to me.

Graham Ellison is an academic.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/op...-16224308.html

Did you hear Lord Morrow on the BBC NI broadcast?

Everything he said was SO RIDICULOUS it was like some kind of caricature...I find it a little bit scary that anyone would take him seriously.

[Half Man and Half Dildo]

At least the media in Northern Ireland are willing to give both sides an opportunity to express their views, unlike 99% of their Southern counterparts who are afraid to risk the wrath of the NGO's for fear they might be castrated.

There should be a sticky at the top of this forum where all links such as that posted by Heather could be collated for further use.

[UKHeather]

Did you hear Lord Morrow on the BBC NI broadcast?

Everything he said was SO RIDICULOUS it was like some kind of caricature...I find it a little bit scary that anyone would take him seriously.

Was that the program that Laura spoke on? If so, yes I heard it.
The bumbling old fool kept repeating that it was about those sex workers who have no voice.
Criminalising clients won't give them a voice now will it. It won't make them go away either.

Also I objected to his comments that almost all sex wokers come from abusive backgrounds.
I wonder if any research was done to find out how many women in other occupations come from abusive backgrounds.
I hate loaded research tailored to suit the purpose with a passion!

[LaBelleThatcher]

Was that the program that Laura spoke on? If so, yes I heard it.
The bumbling old fool kept repeating that it was about those sex workers who have no voice.
Criminalising clients won't give them a voice now will it. It won't make them go away either.

Also I objected to his comments that almost all sex wokers come from abusive backgrounds.
I wonder if any research was done to find out how many women in other occupations come from abusive backgrounds.
I hate loaded research tailored to suit the purpose with a passion!

To me he was just making things up as he went along.

People who have no voice? He was speaking for people who do not even exist in the real world.

On any other topic people are expected to make at least a half hearted attempt to stick close to the facts. He just wasn't interested in the facts at all.

I have a friend in Antrim who has only ever slept with one man in her life and has never had anything to do with the sex industry...and she knows a great deal more about the reality in NI than Lord Morrow does...and not from me, from her own observations.

[the traveller]

That piece and many similar articles have all said the same. The evidence doesn't support the "Swedish Model". So I wonder how can the chairman of the Justice committee say "Again, Sweden’s prostitution legislation is held up as model of best practice and an example of enlightened law-making.".Just makes me so angry that they are all so brain washed by the TORL campaign. Will they ever read the evidence and make up their own minds?

[LaBelleThatcher]

That piece and many similar articles have all said the same. The evidence doesn't support the "Swedish Model". So I wonder how can the chairman of the Justice committee say "Again, Sweden’s prostitution legislation is held up as model of best practice and an example of enlightened law-making.".Just makes me so angry that they are all so brain washed by the TORL campaign. Will they ever read the evidence and make up their own minds?

Trust me, most of them are not brainwashed at all, you have to be a lot less stupid and gullible than that to be a politician...they see an advantage for themselves and go for it.

One obvious advantage for a politician is distracting people from their ongoing acquiescence with austerity measures that are unfair, ruthless and inhuman in the UK...and it hardly costs them, or the state, a penny. Down in the south it buys them brownie points with many of the NGOs that whip up opposition to austerity (with the main focus on hanging on to their own funding).

If you watch TORL you will see that they regularly plug "The Swedish Model" as guaranteed way to get organised crime out of our communities and prevent underage sex. (Before they are through, the Swedish Model will likely remove stains and kill 99% of all known germs as well). In frightening times like these people are apt to clutch at any panacea.

As a matter of interest, if you watch TORL you are watching an exact microcosm of how the Nazis managed to efficiently exterminate 7 million Jewish people without anyone objecting in any serious way.

[Morpheus]

Thanks Heather.

It's nice to see some journalists presenting a balanced perspective and exposing the hypocrisy of what is being proposed in N.I., Scotland andf here in the republic.

The last sentence in the article sums it all up.

"For all the talk about women involved in the sex industry as "victims", there is no apparent appetite for actually speaking with them in order to assess what the real issues are"

If they are that concerned about the welfare of escorts (as opposed to propagating their religious and ultra feminists propaganda) then you'd think they would openly welcome what escorts have to say on the matter. But oh no!! Most of these groups (Ruhama the TORL and their friends up North and in Scotland) are quite happy to speak for sex workers!