Apologies in advance for the long post. None of what follows has much bearing on the discussion about “
are some SPs being racist” but in terms of the legal definition and Discrimination laws etc I believe this adds some clarity and hopefully resolution?
Ah, this old chestnut, but turned on its head
.
There's been many discussions on here about this (most of them very civilised and unrancorous, PP where art thou?
)
Who you choose to have sex with is separate from everything else in your life. It just is. The grey area if you will, is when having sex is your job. So you end up with a clash of 'Rights'.
The inalienable right of a person to receive the same treatment or a service, regardless of their race/colour/religion.
And: the inalienable right of a woman to choose who she allows between her legs. If you force her to do anything else, that's rape.
Indeed. This was the Peter Purves thread prior to his demise in which I posted this
https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=270524.msg2767814#msg2767814The thread was going nowhere with PP myself and others, so I took it to PM and in an attempt to break the deadlock I contacted the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) saying I wished to make a complaint about being discriminated against by a prostitute because of my ethnicity.
The Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) initially asked me for more details including dates, whether I had seen a lawyer and what outcome was I looking for? (That last one stumped me?)
However they also asked me if it was an escort agency and when I said no was told
"
This would not fall under a sector within the Act because it’s an individual who is offering the service and not an organisation"
I replied saying that I thought the Act applied to sole traders as well as organisations and that an individual offering sexual services for financial gain, even though not part of an organisation, would be classed as a sole trader?
They replied “
Sole traders who are registered are likely to be covered within the Equality Act 2010 and an individual could possibly argue they are receiving a service from them”.
However, due to the nature of the service you are complaining about and all the complex legality’s in the sex industry, including those previously raised by yourself*, you would have to seek independent legal advice about this matter. It would not be something we can assist you with".
* Sexual Offences Act 2003
From this I took it that
(a) The perception is that most individual prostitutes are not registered as sole traders with HMRC and if not, then they are not covered by the Act.
(b) That as Davie, WW and others have said there are a complex number of overlapping laws involved including the Sexual Offences act 2003.
(c) There is some doubt that providing sexual services would be considered a service in the nature of the Act?
(d) That the only way that (c) can be decided legally is for someone to take this to court for a test case (as posted by Gordon Bennett) and to set a precedent based on the conflicting Laws.
(e) That (d) has not happened yet or EASS would have advised me of such.
(f) That (d) is unlikely to ever happen as it is unlikely to be successful.
(g) There is a possibility that Escort Agencies and Massage parlours may be covered by the Act and that the EHRC may have offered further advice? However as others have pointed out we never see escort agencies or parlours stating anything about ethnicity in their advertising.
(h) That said if an individual escort at a parlour refused a client then you are back to the situation in (a) etc
(i) That EHRC don’t want to touch this with a barge pole

Hope this helps?