About SCASE

The Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation:
works to raise awareness of the harm caused to women through prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation, including stripping, lap dancing, pornography, sex tourism, mail order brides, and trafficking for the purposes of prostitution.

Campaigns for legislative change necessary to: reduce the harm caused through prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation; remove current gender inequality in the law; challenge the behaviour of men who buy sexual services.

The Coalition takes the view that prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation are part of a spectrum of men’s violence against women and children, which includes incest, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence. There are clear links between issues such as childhood experience of abuse and neglect, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness, addiction, and women’s involvement in prostitution.

We oppose efforts to categorise prostitution as ‘sex work’. Legalising or legitimising the activity will not remove the harm caused but would simply legitimise that harm. We do not view prostitution as a choice for women, irrespective of age, and believe that it is contradictory to condemn child prostitution whilst condoning or ignoring adult prostitution. Neither do we recognise the false distinctions between forced and so-called ‘free’ prostitution. All prostitution is exploitative of the person prostituted, regardless of the context, or of whether that person is said to have consented to the prostitution. Sexual exploitation eroticizes women’s inequality and is a vehicle for racism; Black women, minority ethnic women and indigenous women suffer disproportionately.