Anger from campaigners over Court docket of Safety intercourse employee ruling – Incapacity Information Service

Disabled feminists have criticized a court ruling that found it lawful for a caregiver to allow a young disabled man to pay for time with a sex worker.

The Court has concluded that a nurse would not break the Sexual Offenses Act if they assisted the young man known as C in contacting, visiting and paying a sex worker.

Mr Justice Hayden also ruled that C’s desire to do so was covered by his right to a private life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In his ruling, he indicated that paying a sex worker is not illegal, although activities such as “creating and inciting prostitution to win”, “controlling prostitution to win” and running a brothel are illegal, as is paying a sex worker when she is exposed to “violence, threats, coercion or deception”.

Caregivers can be imprisoned for up to 10 years for inducing or inducing a person with a “mental disorder” to engage in sexual activity.

C, who is autistic and has learning difficulties, told his attorney in 2018 that although he wanted a girlfriend, he “viewed his chances of finding one as very limited” and “wanted to have sex and wanted to know if he could.” Having contact with a sex worker ”.

In his ruling, however, the judge said that while C had the ability to choose to contact a sex worker, he lacked the ability to identify someone “suitable and safe” or to negotiate the financial transaction.

The case was brought to the court by C’s local authority after C’s lawyer told his social worker of his request.

The court heard that such cases are common and “more common among young male clients, especially those living with a brain injury”.

Attorney General Robert Buckland told the court that the state should not “facilitate, encourage or encourage” such measures and that government policies should “seek to protect those involved in prostitution and, in general, actively discourage them”.

However, the judge said that Buckland’s position was “logically unsustainable” because paying for sex is legal and therefore “must not interfere with those who want to participate in legitimate transactions, nor logically those who want to help them.”

He also said that at a later date, the court would have to consider any specific proposals that would be drawn up to allow C a nurse visit once a full risk assessment had been carried out and a care plan had been drawn up.

The court would also have to decide at this point “whether it is in [C’s] in the best interests of pursuing the course he has set out on ”.

The court’s ruling caused anger for many disabled feminists.

One of them, Julie Furlong, told the Disability News Service that the verdict was a “terrible insult” to women, carers and disabled people.

She said: “The sex industry is part of the systemic misogyny that all women and girls live with from birth.

“We are sexualized at a very young age, the porn culture saturates the schools and tells the girls how to look, dress and act. Our body is reduced to consumer goods.

“The vast majority of caregivers are women and they are expected to accept this deterioration for themselves and others.”

She added, “How dare you suggest that you have a disability that makes you unable to develop loving, consensual sexual relationships?

“As women, as workers, as disabled people, we deserve to be treated with humanity, and this judgment shows that there is no tremendous shortage of it for anyone.”

Another disabled feminist activist, Dr. EM * said, “Mr. Justice Hayden ruled that disabled men had both the right and the need to buy women for their own sexual gratification and that their caregivers should facilitate this.”

She said this was “part of re-objectifying women”.

She added, “Nobody should want to deny a disabled person the right to love, physical intimacy, or a relationship.

“However, the sex industry lobby and this ruling are sending the message that disabled people cannot have loving or intimate relationships unless they pay someone to do it.”

She said this was a “hideous idea” and suggested that disabled people are “less and unkind”.

Although the government has been given permission to appeal, a Justice Department spokesman said, “The secretary of state will decide whether or how to proceed with an appeal once we have examined the full implications of the verdict.”

* Not her real name

Image: Red Umbrella by Sonny Abesamis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

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