France clamps down on sex work for Olympics

France clamps down on sex work for Olympics
A light show is staged on the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. A crackdown on sex workers during the olympic games has complicated matters for sex workers and pimps in France. (Pool via REUTERS)
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Updated 28 July 2024
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France clamps down on sex work for Olympics

France clamps down on sex work for Olympics
  • Around 40,000 people — the overwhelming majority women — sell or are exploited for sex in France, according to government and charity estimates
  • Under French law, selling sex is allowed, but it is illegal to exploit someone or pay for sex, placing the criminal responsibility on pimps and clients

PARIS: As Paris hosts the 2024 Olympics, undocumented Chinese sex worker Hua says increased police patrols are threatening her livelihood.
“I really feel under pressure, I’m constantly scared. Every day, there are police checks,” the 55-year-old said, using a different name so as not to be recognized.
“So I go out less and less to work.”
Around 40,000 people — the overwhelming majority women — sell or are exploited for sex in France, according to government and charity estimates.
Under French law, selling sex is allowed, but it is illegal to exploit someone or pay for sex, placing the criminal responsibility on pimps and clients.
It is more complicated however if the sex worker is undocumented.
“I’m so scared that I’ll be arrested that I won’t work in the street during the Olympics,” added the divorcee, who came to France seven years ago hoping to earn a decent wage as a domestic cleaner, and has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“If they arrest me, I’ll be sent back to China and they won’t give me medical care over there.”
Inside an office of the Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) charity in the northeastern Paris neighborhood of Belleville, she broke down in tears.
“I don’t understand, what have we ever done to anybody?” said the Chinese woman, who says she sometimes sells her services to nicer clients for just 20 euros ($21) because “they don’t have money, and neither do I.”
In another part of Paris, on a street famous for the sex trade near the city center, Mylene Juste was on the lookout for clients.
She said she was most bothered by new security rules limiting pedestrian and traffic movement around Paris.
“Our regulars won’t be able to make it with all the restrictions in place,” said Juste, 50, a sex worker for 22 years.
“And I don’t think the tourists walking by will be leaping on us. So we’re getting out of here,” she added.

Ahead of the opening ceremony along the River Seine for the fortnight long sports fiesta that took place on Friday, sex workers like Hua and Juste all but disappeared from their usual Paris haunts.
But with most sex trade online these days, police battling sexual exploitation are also focusing their efforts there.
“Clients go onto a website, tick a category, price and time,” a policewoman specializing in the issue told AFP.
It’s like ordering food online, “except it’s girls” who are delivered, she said, asking to remain anonymous because of the nature of her job.
Medecins du Monde, which also tries to support sex workers virtually, says it recently saw more than 46,000 ads in a single evening on one popular website.
Through the charity’s Jasmine project, since 2019 sex workers have reported tens of thousands of “risky” or “dangerous” clients in a bid to warn others about them.

The build-up to the Games also coincided with a key ruling by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued on Thursday, which said France’s criminalizing clients of sex workers does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
The ruling disappointed some right groups who argue France’s policy only increases stigmatization of sex workers.
“Criminalization increases physical attacks, sexual violence, and police abuse of people who sell sex, while having no demonstrable effect on the eradication of human trafficking,” said Erin Kilbride, women’s and LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The French authorities are anticipating gangs promoting women from Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay will continue to advertise during the Games.
They speculate high-end prostitution could be on the rise with all the wealthy visitors expected.
But they also remain worried about an increase in minors being abused in recent years, including vulnerable young girls from the state care system.
Some 20,000 minors are sexually exploited in France, according to rights group Acting Against the Prostitution of Children.
A court in May jailed five men over paying for sexual acts with a 12-year-old girl, in a rare instance of such a case making in to trial.
She was pimped after she ran away from home.
 


Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra

Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra
Updated 4 sec ago
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Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra

Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra
JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers on Friday searched for survivors buried in three cars and bus at the base of a cliff after flash floods and landslides in North Sumatra province killed at least 29 people.
Torrential rain for the past week in the province has triggered flash floods and landslides in four different districts, Indonesia’s disaster agency has said.
The death toll from one landslide on Wednesday on a hilly interprovince road rose to nine from seven, Hadi Wahyudi, the spokesperson of North Sumatra police told Reuters on Friday.
At least five cars, one bus, and one truck were trapped at the base of a cliff following the landslide. On Friday, police and rescuers focused their search for missing people on three cars and one bus buried in mud.
“We still don’t know how many people who were still trapped,” Hadi said.
In other districts, landslides over the weekend killed 20 people and rescuers will keep searching for two missing people until Saturday.
Flash floods hit the provincial city of Medan on Friday although waters have receded in some areas, said Sariman Sitorus, spokesperson for the local search agency.
The floods forced a delay in votes for regional elections in some areas in Medan on Wednesday.
Extreme weather is expected in Indonesia toward the end of 2024, as the La Nina phenomenon increases rainfalls across the tropical archipelago, the country’s weather agency has warned.

UK transport minister quits in new blow to PM Starmer

UK transport minister quits in new blow to PM Starmer
Updated 8 min 25 sec ago
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UK transport minister quits in new blow to PM Starmer

UK transport minister quits in new blow to PM Starmer

LONDON: Britain’s transport minister Louise Haigh has resigned after news reports about a previous fraud conviction involving a company mobile phone, dealing another blow to the new administration of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Haigh said in her resignation letter shared by Starmer’s office on Friday that she was standing down as the issue “will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government and the policies to which we are committed.” (Reporting by William Schomberg in London and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Himani Sarkar)


Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover

Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover
Updated 29 November 2024
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Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover

Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover
  • The figure was the highest in more than three weeks, according to a tally of figures released daily by Taiwan’s defense ministry

TAIPEI: Taiwan said Friday it had detected 41 Chinese military aircraft and ships around the island ahead of a Hawaii stopover by President Lai Ching-te, part of a Pacific tour that has sparked fury in Beijing.
The figure was the highest in more than three weeks, according to an AFP tally of figures released daily by Taiwan’s defense ministry.
China insists self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory, which Taipei rejects.
To press its claims, China deploys fighter jets, drones and warships around Taiwan on a near-daily basis, with the number of sorties increasing in recent years.
In the 24 hours to 6:00 a.m. on Friday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 33 Chinese aircraft and eight navy vessels in its airspace and waters.
That included 19 aircraft that took part in China’s “joint combat readiness patrol” on Thursday evening and was the highest number since November 4.
Taiwan also spotted a balloon — the fourth since Sunday — about 172 kilometers west of the island.


UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
Updated 29 November 2024
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UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
  • South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week

BUSAN, South Korea: Negotiators at the fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution were striving on Friday to speed up sluggish proceedings and reach a deal by a Dec. 1 deadline.
South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week.
Until Thursday, several delegates from around 175 countries participating had expressed frustration about the slow pace of the talks amid disagreements over procedure, multiple proposals and some negotiations even returning to ground covered in the past.
In an attempt to speed up the process, INC Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso is holding informal meetings on Friday to try and tackle the most divisive issues.
These issues include curbing plastic products and chemicals of concern, managing the supply of primary polymers, and a financial mechanism to help developing countries implement the treaty.
Petrochemical-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia strongly oppose efforts to target a cap on plastic production, over the protests of countries that bear the brunt of plastic pollution such as low- and middle-income nations.
While supporting an international treaty, the petrochemical industry has also been vocal in urging governments to avoid setting mandatory plastic production caps, and focus instead on solutions to reduce plastic waste, like recycling.
The INC plans an open a plenary session at 7 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Friday that will provide an indication of how close the talks have moved toward a treaty.


New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry

New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry
Updated 29 November 2024
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New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry

New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry
  • Dozens of sailors were rescued from the HMNZS Manawanui in October after it struck a reef
  • Vessel burst into flames and finally sank south of Samoa’s most populous island Upolu

WELLINGTON: A New Zealand navy vessel plowed into a reef near Samoa and sank because its crew mistakenly left it on “autopilot,” a military inquiry found on Friday.
Dozens of sailors were rescued from the HMNZS Manawanui in October after it struck a reef, burst into flames and finally sank south of Samoa’s most populous island Upolu.
One of just nine commissioned ships in New Zealand’s small naval fleet, the Manawanui had been dispatched to map the ocean floor.
A military court of inquiry on Friday found the survey vessel had been scuttled because its “autopilot was not disengaged when it should have been.”
“Remaining in autopilot resulted in the ship maintaining a course toward land, until grounding and eventually stranding.”
Crewmembers noticed the ship had veered off course and tried to change direction, believing they had lost control due to a “thruster control failure.”
But they forgot to check if the autopilot had been disengaged first, the tribunal found.
Rather than steering away from danger, the ship “started to accelerate toward the reef.”
Defense Minister Judith Collins said the debacle had “really knocked Navy for six.”
“It was a terrible day. The navy and the defense force are not shying away from this.
“It was extremely disappointing. But that’s what has happened.”
The shipwreck settled on a stable section of reef some 30 meters below the surface.
It was carrying 950 tonnes of diesel when it sank, stirring fears of an oil slick that could kill wildlife and taint crucial food sources.
New Zealand’s navy has said previously that the main fuel tanks appeared to be intact.
Salvage crews were working to retrieve the fuel without major leaks.
No one died in the incident, although a small number of sailors suffered minor injuries.