Managing Disaster — Why the “legal prostitution” zone in Holbeck MUST go
By: Thain Parnell
Tags: Prostitution, Sex Work, Nordic Model, Radfem, Feminism

On December 13, 2018, Leeds Council and West Yorkshire Police reaffirmed their commitment to the disastrous pilot scheme legalising prostitution between the hours of 7 PM and 7 AM in an area of Holbeck, Leeds, known as the Managed Zone.

Despite 100’s of residents complaining about the serious problems the zone has caused since it’s inception on October 1st, 2014, as well as strong opposition to the scheme from Leeds MP Hillary Benn, and local councillors, both the council and police have doubled down on their support for the failing project.

“We remain convinced that this approach is the right one,” said Detective Superintendent Steve Cotter for West Yorkshire Police, adding, “as it provides the best opportunity to safeguard the vulnerable women involved in street sex work, to limit the issues that impact on residents and businesses, and to reduce the level of street sex work in Leeds.”

Holbeck residents have continuously complained about the problems the managed zone has thrown up, from rubbish such as condoms, and needles, which litter the streets of the residential area surrounding the zone, to the public sex acts they have been forced to bear witness to on residential streets, inside and outside of the zone.

Though the zone was originally intended to be a strictly limited area, it’s boundaries are frequently not policed or clearly defined, resulting in overspill. Prostitutes solicit for business and punters cruise for sex on streets that were never meant to be part of the Managed Zone area.

"It's meant to be within a certain time and in a certain place away from residential areas but it's not,” resident and local business owner Laura Walton told reporters from the BBC.

"It's happening 24-hours a day, outside people's houses, in parks, in all the public areas, so we see it constantly,” she added.

Young girls and women have also been approached by cruising punters and propositioned for sex well outside of the zone’s borders. One mother told how she was approached at a bus stop while waiting with her teenage daughter, by a man who asked her how much it would cost to have sex with her underage child.

The zone has also failed to protect prostituted women, with punter violence such as sexual assualt and rape, still rising One prostituted woman, Daria Pionko, 21, from Poland, was even murdered within the zone’s borders in December 2016, after she was kicked to death by a violent john.

Yet both Leeds Council, who introduced the concept of the zone, and West Yorkshire Police, who are responsible for the security of residents and prostitutes within it, remain united in support of this troubled scheme.

Curiously, West Yorkshire police have a rather dubious track record of making misguided decisions, from their mishandling of the Yorkshire Ripper case back in the 70’s to their present day persecution of gender critical women and men such as feminist activist Posie Parker, and Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan.

Parker, is currently being investigated by West Yorkshire Police yet again for speaking out about Mermaids TG, the transgender charity that advocates for the medicalisation of children. Mermaids TG have a peculiarly close relationship with West Yorkshire Police, with the service posting police officers to many of Mermaids speaking events. The two orgs are apparently so close that West Yorkshire Police even hosted the Mermaids Christmas Party.

West Yorkshire Police’s continued support for the Managed Zone in Holbeck is also rather puzzling, particularly as it does not appear to correlate with their stated aim of safeguarding women. Recent stats on punter violence collated by Nordic Project Now show that whenever prostitution is legalised, such as it has been in Germany, violence against prostituted women rises not falls.

By contrast, countries such as Norway, who have introduced the Nordic Model, which criminalises the punter but removes threat of prosecution from the prostitute, have seen a drop in punter violence, and also a resulting decrease in demand for paid sex.

Nordic provides prostituted women with exit strategies , so they can leave the sex trade behind, and discourages sex traffickers from plying their trade by criminalising pimps and punters.

Nordic has a host of benefits, and wherever it has been adopted, punter violence against women has markedly decreased, due to the heavy deterrent of prosecution punters face.

This emboldens prostituted women to report crimes such as rape, handing them the power, rather than the exploitative pimps and johns.

Israel and Spain are two countries that have recently realised the benefits of Nordic, and both have now adopted it as the preferred model for dealing with the problem of prostitution and the concurrent social problems that arise from it.

If Leeds Council and West Yorkshire Police really want to keep women safe, they would do well to consult with leading experts on prostitution such as Julie Bindel, author of the 2018 book The Pimping Of Prostitution, as well as anti-prostitution orgs such as Nordic Model Now and OBJECT.

Politicians, councillors, and police officers alike must realise that only way to truly keep the women and girls of Britain safe is to consider adopting the Nordic Model.

Whatever happens in Holbeck, one thing is clear, the problems caused by the dogs breakfast that is the managed zone are not going to disappear, and will very likely worsen.

It looks like it will be left to feminist activists and anti-prostitution campaigners to place pressure on politicians, councillors, and the police to keep women and girls affected by the managed zone in Holbeck safe. And we need to do all we can, since the police and local council so far look to have resolutely turned their backs on women.

To lend your support to the campaign against the managed zone visit www.saveoureyes.co.uk. To find out more about the Nordic Model visit https://nordicmodelnow.org