Mariska Majoor article 21 March

[Larrii]

"According to Majoor, Amsterdam’s sex workers are furious. “It feels like a war on prostitution,” she says. “Sex work is not the same as trafficking or abuse. Why can’t anyone understand that?” "

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-s...tion-1.1732197


Some of us are always happier on the move, in edgy situations. Where trust can form at once, based on instinct not credit references.

Office bound desk jockeys prefer indoors, consensus decision making, bland grey boring lives, no wonder they dislike us so much...

[Davidontour]

''The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, employers and 68 Irish organisations believe prostitution is exploitation and not work.”

And what do sex workers believe? Have they been surveyed or consulted on an issue directly affecting their livelihoods and safety? Why should the blinkered opinions of others be allowed to over-rule freedom of choice?

Most people believe politicians to be self-serving chancers who fail to keep their promises. Does this mean we should close all parliaments?

[Larrii]

Another item on "modern slavery" explodes the numbers here. It's a BBC podcast on statistics that explains how there are no actual slaves (publicly for sale), but millions of people that may treated badly. This underlies the TORL arguments, so we should all understand why it is wrong:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/...0308-0600b.mp3

from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless

The ILO calls trafficking and exploitation "Modern Slavery"

..explaining why the unions here are involved. In reality they don't want their members' wages to be undercut. So there's a selfish motive.

But they work out that even in Germany there are over 10,000 "slaves", and 60,000 in the USA, which seems unlikely The ILO man admits (8.40) that the figures may be "completely off the rails". Hmm...

Also, "slaves" can be double-counted but should be counted in the countries they are from, not where they work. That means that anyone from say Slovakia working in Ireland and being exploited would be counted by the ILO as a Slovakian "modern slave" and not on the Irish figures.

TORL would like to argue that the Slovakian is now Irish... something to confront them with. They claim that they follow ILO best practise but not when it comes to the numbers. How is anyone in Ireland supposed to know about these complexities ??

White middle-class student interns don't get a mention, funny thing that.