A former prostitute who walked 800km across France to demand that the government keep its promise to penalize clients ended her protest march in Paris on Sunday.
Rosen Hicher, 57, who campaigns to abolish prostitution, is protesting that a draft law to fine men up to 1,500 euros (US$1,900) for paying for sex was shelved by a committee of the French upper house Senate in July.
Flanked by a dozen current or former prostitutes supporting her, Hicher made a symbolic stop in an upmarket street near the Champs-Elysees where she was first prostituted, before making her way to the Senate to call on legislators “to wake up and finally act.”
Photo: AFP
Prostitution “is not a right: No one has the right to buy a woman or sell her,” she said.
“If we want an end to prostitution, we must penalize clients,” she added at the end of a march that began on Sept. 3 in the western city of Saintes.
The draft anti-prostitution law was initially adopted by the lower house National Assembly in December last year.
However, critics fear the legislation would push prostitution further underground and make the women who earn their living from it more vulnerable to abuse.
Paying or accepting payment for sex are not a crime in France. However, soliciting, pimping and running brothels, and the sale of sex by minors are prohibited.
The new bill decriminalizes soliciting, while shifting the focus of policing efforts to the clients.
The government says it is aimed at preventing violence against women and protecting the large majority of prostitutes who are victims of trafficking gangs.
Pascale Boistard, minister for women’s rights, also joined Hicher on the last stretch of her march.
“The Senate must revisit this law. A large majority of the French are in favor,” Boistard said, hoping that the upper house would re-examine the bill early next year.
Hicher was a prostitute for 22 years before quitting in 2009.
Her arrival in Paris coincided with a column in the Journal du Dimanche weekly calling for the Senate to revisit and even reinforce the bill, signed by elected officials from around France, including Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Two of Hicher’s six children also accompanied her in Paris.
“It’s not over. As long as she doesn’t get what she wants, she will continue,” her 17-year-old daughter said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done