Exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation

CEASE Summit 2018

14th November

Westminster Central Hall
London

A full day event including lunch and refreshments
This event is archived.

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Why Attend?

CEASE UK, 2018 is about exposing links between all forms of sexual exploitation in the UK, with topics ranging from prostitution and pornography to child sexual exploitation and sex trafficking.

It will present an overview of the latest developments, challenges and opportunities in these areas, with diverse speakers including academics, journalists, MPs, lawyers and charity workers giving unique insight into various facets of the movement.

We believe that we will never see an end to sex trafficking, CSE and violence against women until we see an end to the vast commercial sex industry that profits from women’s sexual exploitation and upholds a culture that reduces women to sex objects.

And we believe that we will only see laws, culture and social attitudes shift if we stand together, armed with the broad knowledge and perspective to engage in the fight with strategic intelligence and a tireless passion for change.

If you believe in the dignity, humanity and worth of every person; if you think that no one should be bought, sold or rented out by the hour, that no one should be prostituted, sexually abused, trafficked and exploited, this conference is for you.

Gain insight into different aspects of sexual exploitation
Broaden your perspective through learning how the different forms of sexual exploitation are interconnected
Get practical insight into bringing about positive change
Stand with others: learn, share and collaborate
Form long-term strategic objectives that will ultimately see an end to all sexual exploitation.

Speakers

Dr. Julie Bindel

Leading Academic and Expert on Prostitution

Tom Farr

Journalist and Trainee Lawyer

Anna Fisher

CSE Survivor and Head of Nordic Model Now!

Dr. Sasha Rakoff

CEO - Not Buying It!

Carole Stone CBE

Event Chair Charities Patron and Councillor for One Young World)

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Carole was for many years producer of BBC Radio 4’s current affairs discussion programme Any Questions?

She is Patron of the charities CAIRN – Leading the way to end domestic abuse and of the mental health charities SANE and Triumph Over Phobia UK.

Carole is a Counsellor for One Young World, a UK-based not-for-profit organisation that gathers together global young leaders to develop solutions to the world’s most pressing issues.

Earlier this year she established The Carole Stone Foundation – connecting people, exchanging ideas and building friendships around the world to help make a fairer society.

Sarah Champion MP

Former Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities

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Sarah was elected as the first female MP for Rotherham in 2012. From 2015 to 2016, she served as Shadow Minister for Preventing Abuse and Domestic Violence as part of the Shadow Home Office team, and from 2016 to 2017, she was Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. She does not consider herself a career politician but was driven by a commitment to creating a fairer and more just society

Alan Caton OBE

Retired Detective Superintendent Suffolk Constabulary

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Alan served as a police officer in his home county of Suffolk for thirty years. In 2006, he co-wrote the strategy and led the multi-agency response to tackle street prostitution in Ipswich after the tragic murders of five young women. The strategy has been hugely successful, and instrumental in assisting other constabularies and local authorities in dealing with street prostitution. In 2012, Alan was awarded an OBE for his services to policing. Following his retirement from Suffolk Constabulary, he was appointed as Independent Chair of Islington and Central Bedfordshire Safeguarding Children Boards.

Julie Bindel

Feminist journalist, writer, broadcaster and researcher

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Paula Brown

Save our Eyes and Holbeck Community Forum

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Paula is a committee member at Save Our Eyes, a member of Holbeck Neighbourhood Forum board, and a coordinator of the Holbeck Development Forum. She is on the frontline of campaigning for an end to street prostitution in Leeds.

Jalna Hanmer

Activist, researcher and former Professor of Women's Studies

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Influential by the theory of gender-based violence, Jalna established early Women’s Studies courses at the University of Bradford. Later, she became Professor of Women’s Studies and the Director of the Research Centre on Violence Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University. She helped set up the National Women’s Aid Federation (NWAF) and later the Women’s Aid Federation England (WAFE), and was also part of the organising group for the international conference on multiple forms of violence against women (WOVA) held in Brighton in 1996. She is a founding member of Feminist Archive North. Currently, she is an activist in the fight to see an end to the ‘Managed Approach’ implemented in Leeds.

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Fiona Broadfoot

Sex trade survivor and CEO of Build A Girl

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Fiona is a sex trade survivor, having been trafficked into prostitution at the age of fifteen. She spent 11 years entrenched in the violent world of prostitution, exiting after the murder of her 17-year-old cousin by a sex buyer in 1995. Since then, she has campaigned tirelessly on the issue of violence against women and girls. She co-founded Parents Against Child Exploitation (PACE) and Street EXIT, which offered support to women exiting prostitution with friend and fellow campaigner Irene Ivison. She recently started her own social enterprise called ‘Build a Girl Project’ which is based on survivor-led perspectives, and is deeply committed to supporting and empowering victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and prostitution abuse.

Liz Harsant

Councillor for Hollywells Ward (Ipswich)

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Liz has been an Ipswich Borough Councillor for 16 years, representing Holywells Ward in the South East of the town. She was Leader of the Council at the time of the horrific murders, which provoked Ipswich to adopt its successful multi-agency approach to tackling street prostitution. Liz is very involved in the Raedwald Trust, a Multi-Agency Academy incorporating all the PRUs in Ipswich and dealing with vulnerable and exploited young people. She also chairs the Overview & Scrutiny Committee at the Council

Dr. Jacci Stoyle

Political Campaigner

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Jacci has been a campaigner for the Nordic Model for 15 years. She’s a member of the Human Trafficking CPG, represents the Scottish Episcopal Church on the Anti-Trafficking Group of Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), and is campaigning for the Nordic Model to become policy within the Scottish Lib Dem party. She was the secretary of the Scottish Cross Party Group (CPG) for Commercial Sexual Exploitation, and set up the Paisley branch of Amnesty International, which she chaired for 9 years, taking three resolutions to the AGM calling for a policy on prostitution to end demand and leaving after they announced their policy of decriminalisation.

Liz

Survivor

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Liz’s journey began with a childhood thwarted by domestic violence. Without early intervention, she continued living a life bound to the only reference of men she had observed. Through a hellish journey of grooming, exploitation and violence, she finally landed into lap-dancing, prostitution and trafficking. She finally fought her way out six years ago, and now spends her time studying for a degree and pursuing a career in writing.

Liz also raises funds for those who first helped her escape her ‘dark night of the soul.’ Holding experiential knowledge on healing from trauma from the inside out, she devotes her time to expanding, enriching and healing other survivors through shared ideas and experiences.

You can donate to Liz’s fundraiser campaign for survivors of domestic violence and trauma here: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/8570#/DonationDetails

Dr. Sasha Rakoff

Founder of OBJECT and Not Buying It!

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Dr Sasha Rakoff has been exposing the reality of the strip industry and campaigning against it for many years. In 2010 she headed the pressure group, Object, which changed the law to stop lap dancing clubs being licensed like cafes and instead see them licensed for what they are – part of the sex industry. This year, as director of Not Buying It she spearheaded a ground breaking legal challenge against the industry in Sheffield – exposing how the industry is incompatible with women’s equality (and safety).

Anna Fisher

Co-founder and chair of Nordic Model Now!

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Anna Fisher is the co-founder and current chair of Nordic Model Now! which is a grassroots group campaigning for the abolition of prostitution and for the effective implementation of the Nordic Model (also known as the Sex Buyer Law). She is a survivor of child sexual exploitation and understands the long road to recovery.

Julian Norman

Immigration Barrister

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Julian has fifteen years of experience in immigration law. After ten years working in private practice, initially as a paralegal and then qualifying as a solicitor in 2007 (specialising in immigration law) she was called to the Bar in 2012. Since then, she has continued to build a practice in immigration and also extradition and regulatory work. She is registered to undertake Direct Access work and she is also a qualified mediator.

Amanda Jones

Immigration Barrister

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Amanda is a specialist in immigration, public law and immigration-related crime. She has advised and appeared in numerous immigration matters in the Court of Appeal, and in the Administrative Court on appeals, judicial review and injunctions.

She is instructed in asylum cases and also deals with entry clearance work and cases in which a threat to national security is alleged. She frequently advises on and drafts fresh claims in relation to human rights and asylum after an initial appeal has been exhausted, and has been instructed on a numbers of cases involving breaches of policy and legitimate expectation in immigration law. She also deals with Immigration-related criminal work.

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Nat Graham and Liz Hall

Co-Founder and Co-Director S.L.A.V.E. Project

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Nat has worked for many years with young adults in a variety of settings, including fast paced mental health supported housing. She has supported those who feel dispossessed and hopeless, to understand their own mindset, reconnect to themselves, and has helped them to rebuild a life that has meaning for them.

For 16 years, Liz worked closely with women in the sex industry. In 2007, she was a member of steering group for a voluntary organisation that worked closely with the wider local authority in order to examine the activities of grooming/rape gangs in the UK.

Together, they have recently co-written an education programme which teaches, amongst other things, how to ‘interrupt’ a groomer’s pattern of psychological control, and prevent any intended abuse from becoming a repetitive, entrenched, and even accepted part of an individual’s life.

Janice Williams

Chair, Object!

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A campaigner since the age of 10, Jan has worked with the Campaign Against Pornography, Nordic Model Now and OBJECT, which she now chairs. OBJECT campaigns on the porn, prostitution, Sex Encounter Venues, surrogacy and transgenderism, linking the objection of women which underlie them all. Jan is a single parent of 2 adult children. She’s worked in both the corporate and the public sector, and currently works as a parent coach and funeral celebrant as well as running Death Cafes and managing railway tours.

Karen Ingala Smith

Chief Executive of nia

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Since 2009, Karen has been Chief Executive of nia, an East London based charity providing services for women, girls and children who have experienced sexual and domestic violence. Under her leadership, nia has maintained an undaunted feminist commitment to ending male violence and found innovative and creative ways of responding to the needs of the women and children it serves. nia has thus become a highly regarded organisation championing an integrated approach to addressing all forms of male violence. Its services include East London Rape Crisis; The Emma Project –a unique refuge for women who have experienced domestic and sexual violence; Daria House – a refuge for women who have been sexually exploited with a focus on supporting women who been exploited through their involvement in prostitution; the London Exiting and Advocacy Project supporting women to exit prostitution; and the recently launched Huggett Women’s Centre.

Tom Farr

Human Rights Researcher and Writer

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Tom has worked alongside leading individuals and organisations in the battle against sexual exploitation, including Julie Bindel and Dr Gail Dines. He has also compiled evidence submissions for various parliamentary committees, including the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

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Red Godfrey-Sagoo

CEO,Sophie Hayes Foundation

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.Red is CEO of the Sophie Hayes Foundation, a charity dedicated to the survivors of human trafficking.

She has a long history of fighting social injustice. Her experience leading humanitarian organisations began as Director of Disaster Services for the American Red Cross. Whilst providing essential leadership during a host of national emergencies, she fully embraced the value of strong community relations and collaborations with diverse partners in order to serve the most vulnerable popluations. This understanding deepened during her development of a large programme of educational and food support as the Director of Community Services at United Way, whilst supporting the Olympic World Summer Games in Los Angeles as a Director of the Special Olympics and most recently, as she established the Safe Passage UK programme for the refugee crisis across Europe and as a leader for the closure of the Calais jungle. Red’s passion for equal human rights continues to be the driving force behind her leadership and her support of organisations that challenge discrimination.

Dr. Heather Bruskell-Evans

Author and Academic

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.Heather is a theorist and philosopher who has a particular in the work of Michel Foucault and in feminist philosophy and politics of the body. Having been an academic for nearly three decades, she is also now also working on national and international political agendas driving the rights of women and girls. She is a Trustee of FiLia, a new feminist charity and Director of its Stop Violence against Women and Girls section.

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Dr. Kathryn Hodges

Researcher, Consultant and Trainer

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.Kathryn is an independent researcher, consultant and trainer. Her research explores the journeys of women experiencing multiple and severe disadvantage and the decisions and choices made when seeking help and support. She has had a varied career across social care research and practice, and higher education. She is a registered social worker with the majority of her practice career spent leading substance use services. Kathryn is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery at St. Mary’s University, and the chair of trustees at Women@theWell.

Agenda Titles

Making the Connections: the Dark Shadow of the Commercial Sex Industry (Julie Bindel)

“Stripping the Illusion”: Behind the Legal challenge to Sheffield’s Strip Clubs (Dr. Sasha Rakoff and survivor, Liz)

Panel: A Tale of Two Cities: comparing the different models set up to manage prostitution in the cities of Leeds and Ipswich (Alan Caton, Fiona Broadfoot, Liz Harsant and Jalna Hanmer)

Panel Discussion: Helping Victims of Sexual Exploitation (Fiona Broadfoot, Karen Ingala Smith and representatives from the Sophie Hayes Foundation and Women at the Well)

The inadequacies of the Modern Slavery Act (Anna Fisher)

“Organised Sexual Exploitation in England and Wales”: exploring the findings of the APPG report (MPs including Sarah Champion)

The Murky Underworld of Human Trafficking (Amanda Jones and Julian Norman)

Pornography: its links to Sexual Entitlement, Violence and Exploitation (Tom Farr)

Strategies for Reducing Vulnerability to Grooming and Exploitation (Liz Hall and Nat Graham from the S.L.A.V.E. Project)

Challenging Commercial Sexual Exploitation from within your Own Context (Jacci Stoyle)

Making the links, Breaking the Chains

Pornography, prostitution, child sexual exploitation, sex trafficking; at CEASE we believe all forms of sexual exploitation are linked.

Across every corner of the UK, women are being sexually exploited. Some are trafficked from Eastern Europe in ‘pop-up brothels’, blackmailed into working in brothels by the threat of violence and groomed into providing sexual services to men as children.

Other women who enter the sex Industry through ‘choice’ often have a history of sexual abuse as a child, are forced by desperation, poverty or addiction, or are deceived, manipulated or misinformed.

Choice is a relative term. Violence takes many forms. Just because a woman is paid, or says she consents, doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s not being exploited. Nor does it soften the damage of violation.

All forms of sexual exploitation involve inequality, injustice and the erosion of human dignity. At its heart is the abuse of power: the sexually-exploited are vulnerable, abused and marginalised whilst the exploiters are powerful, privileged and entitled.

Sexual exploitation is a web where each part is interconnected. For example, the $1 billion global pornography industry creates a hyper-sexualised culture that ultimately fuels wider forms of sexual coercion, abuse, CSE, and prostitution. Prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation carry the dark shadow of violence, sex trafficking and human slavery.

We want to see an end to all forms of sexual exploitation. No person should be merchandise. Let’s stand together, make the links and break the chains.

Register today for only £39.

Organisations

Fiona Bruce, MP

“Prostitution and the commercial sex industry are intrinsically linked with modern slavery. As we have heard, the market for commercial sex operates as a pull for traffickers and organised crime groups.”

Report by UN Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Sigma Huda

“It is rare that one finds a case in which the path to prostitution … [does] not involve, at the very least, an abuse of power and or an abuse of vulnerability. Power and vulnerability in this context must be understood to include power disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity, and poverty.”

Catharine Mackinnon

“…when fear and despair produce acquiescence and acquiescence is taken to mean consent, consent is not a meaningful concept.”