FCAP Launch

On Monday I went to London for the launch of the feminist coalition against prostitution. For those that don’t know FCAP’s position is this:

We are a coalition of UK Feminist individuals and groups who believe that prostitution is violence against women:

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This is a UK wide group advocating a common approach to prostitution for the whole of the UK
* We invite all Feminist individuals and groups, from all backgrounds, to join this Coalition
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We are calling for the decriminalisation of all women, children and men involved in prostitution – and demand that all criminal records for loitering and/or soliciting be wiped so that survivors are not barred from employment branded as ‘sex offenders’
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We urge the UK Government, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly to consider a Swedish style law to make buying sex illegal and to invest money in exit services such as housing, education & training, legal advice, welfare benefits and health care
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We believe that prostitution is not inevitable – end demand

(taken from their website)

I think this is really important because Its really important to push for recognition that prostitution is violence against women and I love that they are really focusing on exit routes for women involved in prostitution because without that criminalizing the buying of sex would just leave women who are involved in prostitution with nowhere to turn

I was really impressed with the way the whole thing was presented, it seemed really slick and professional. There were some excellent speakers the ones that stood out for me were Aravinda Kosaraju from CROP (Coalition for the removal of pimping) and Gunilla Ekberg who was speaking about the Swedish system.

It was quite hard for me to be there partly because I find the underground difficult to negotiate and quite triggery for my PTSD and also because the subject of prostitution brings up a whole lot of emotional stuff for me, but it was also really good to feel like I was really part of something that mattered. Also I met up with Arantxa before hand which was awesome because we haven’t seen each other for about a million years and I’d forgotten how much I like her and how similar her feminism is to mine.

I also met rmott62 which was good and we talked lots and it was nice to meet someone who kind of knew where I was coming from on stuff.

And the woman I stayed with was pretty darn awesome

I really want to set up a sister group in wales, as London is not particularly easy to get to and also there seem to be members of the assembly government who are on board with the idea of prostitution being violence against women, so I’m going to start seriously getting contacts and support for a welsh group up together next week