We made time recently to contact MPs and alert them to the chance to improve policy and law related to trafficking and sexual exploitation, and to the importance of funding specialist work with women in prostitution and/or other forms of sexual exploitation if the Government is to halve VAWG in a decade.

We sent a short Submission to the committee of MPs considering the Crime and Policing Bill, which you can read here, and wrote to London MPs about it. We welcomed the Bill’s inclusion of new law to clearly criminalise ‘cuckooing’, a vicious and extremely harmful practice which our caseworkers encounter every day of the working week, and which does serious harm to women who have often already long struggled to secure safe housing before their properties are viciously taken over.

We also expressed support for amendments which have been tabled proposing the repeal of the offence of soliciting; making a new offence of paying for sex; and strengthening law in relation to so-called ‘pimping websites’.

 We also sent evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry on how the Government’s ambitious aim of halving VAWG in a decade should be funded. We said that it is essential that those women who are serially and multiply offended against during their lives are at the heart of prevention and outcomes, and that the specialism around working with women who are being sexually exploited is recognised and sustainably funded. 

We hope for good ongoing dialogue with our elected representatives.