PA
31 March 2014
On the eve of Tony Benn’s funeral, the House of Commons hosted speakers from the English Collective of Prostitutes, Soho Working Girls, and, er, Hampshire Women’s Institute, whose Jean Johnson has been a long-time campaigner for sex workers’ rights and safety. The meeting, held by the People’s Parliament, was called to oppose proposals that would criminalise the buying of sex.
Would the abstemious Mr Benn have approved of such a meeting? In a diary entry from July 2003, Benn recorded: “A chap called Paul Dunn and his wife Eva drove me to Tolpuddle. Eva is a young Portuguese woman who organises sex workers into a union...
I have to brace myself for the idea that sex workers are organised.”
