Sheila Griffin

Mary Honeyball MEP organised this Symposium as a launch for a campaign to gather signatures on a Written Declaration to the European Parliament.  (Similar to Early Day Motions in Westminster).

 There were a number of speakers.  One strong message was that prostitution is a barrier towards equality, but makes women objects not human beings, it is modern slavery.  It also indicates the status of women in society.  Gunella Ekburg talked about the new law in Sweden, where it is against the law to pay for sex.  Traffickers, pimps, and  users should be charged in the same trial.  Italy also has strong laws and allows those giving evidence to be shielded from the traffickers.  At present the U.K. is seen as a good country in which to traffick women and children. 

Myself with Mary Honeyball.

More will be heard about this subject in the near future.