Rethinking Youth Prostitution: National Provision at the Margins of Child Protection and Youth Justice

In March 2000, the Department of Health and the Home Office issued guidance fundamentally altering policy and practice with regard to young people in prostitution. 1 Instead of being arrested and punished for prostitution-related offences, those under 18 years old were to be thought of as children ‘in need’ and offered welfare-based interventions. The practice that has developed in the last three years has offered interventions that are located within both child protection and youth justice work. This article examines these changes in order to generate insights about the changing nature of youth justice. In particular, it is argued that the drive to manage the risks posed by young people in prostitution to specific organisations, takes precedence over either the desire to care for, or the demand to punish them. Through an analysis of how practitioners and policy makers responsible for implementing this new approach to youth prostitution talk about ‘risk’ and ‘responsibility’, ‘liability’, ‘protection’ and ‘punishment’, the article argues that the contradiction between care and control has been re-interpreted, such that there is noticeable blurring of the boundaries between welfare and punishment at the margins of youth justice work.

Regulating Prostitution: Controlling Women's Lives'

The chapter argues that the women who compose the majority of street prostitutes in Great Britain are currently subject to an interlocking system of regulation that variously defines them as criminal offenders, threats to public health, victims of child abuse, and vulnerable women who must be compelled under the threat of punishment to seek welfare help. Each label or approach to the street prostitute involves a set of interventions aimed at changing or working with different aspects of the women's lives. This produces an interlocking system of regulation, because the interventions are not mutually exclusive. A street prostitute can be defined as both a victim and an offender and as both a patient in need of medical help and a threat to public health. This comprehensive system of regulation means that a street prostitute faces not only a wide range of criminal justice dispositions, but also mandatory participation in programs in which her relationships and the choices she makes in her life outside of prostitution are subject to scrutiny and intervention. Given that street prostitutes are mostly poor women seeking economic survival in a profession that makes them vulnerable to victimization, the current regulatory system is an attempt to control a small group of poor women regarding their choices and relationships as they struggle to survive poverty. Whereas in the 1980s in Great Britain, a woman involved in street prostitution may have faced only a fine, now she is subject to a more extensive range of criminal justice actions accompanied by various government interventions designed to remake her life.

Regulating Prostitution: Different Problems, Different Solutions, Same Old Story

This article looks at three main models of intervention that have informed recent policy and practice with people involved in the sex trade. It reveals the inherent contradictions within attempts to both help and punish workers in the existing prostitution strategy.

Governing Prostitution: New Formations, Old Agendas

Recent governmentality literature distinguishes between government from above and government “from below” in an attempt to avoid “top-down” analyzes of state-centered government and to acknowledge the multiple and diverse ways in which the governance is achieved. By analyzing key shifts and changes in the regulation of prostitution in the UK in the last three decades, it is possible to complicate the distinction between the two modes of government. Whilst some writers highlight the ways in which government from above and below become increasingly blurred, this article argues that although the agendas and modes of government from above and below are difficult to disentangle, the effects on sex workers are not. Regulation remains rooted within coercive and punitive state-centered criminal justice responses, even though organizations “from below” may well be the very organizations tasked by the state with carried out those responses.

Challenging the female underperformance hypothesis

In their recent review of prior studies examining firm performance, Klapper and Parker (2010, p.7) conclude that “women entrepreneurs tend to underperform relative to their male counterparts.” However, Robb and Watson (2011) argue that much of this prior research is based on inappropriate performance measures and/or does not adequately control (due to data limitations) for important demographic differences. Given the conflicting findings reported in the literature, the aim of this study is to replicate the study by Robb and Watson (2011) to see if their findings can be generalized to another geographical location. Our results, based on an analysis of 209 female-owned and 263 male-owned young Australian firms, confirm those of Robb and Watson (2011). We believe that this outcome should help dispel the female underperformance myth; which if left unchallenged could result in inappropriate policy decisions and, more importantly, could discourage women from establishing new ventures.

Vaccination to protect against infection of the female reproductive tract

Infection of the female genital tract can result in serious morbidities and mortalities from reproductive disability, pelvic inflammatory disease and cancer, to impacts on the fetus, such as infant blindness. While therapeutic agents are available, frequent testing and treatment is required to prevent the occurrence of the severe disease sequelae. Hence, sexually transmitted infections remain a major public health burden with ongoing social and economic barriers to prevention and treatment. Unfortunately, while there are two success stories in the development of vaccines to protect against HPV infection of the female reproductive tract, many serious infectious agents impacting on the female reproductive tract still have no vaccines available. Vaccination to prevent infection of the female reproductive tract is an inherently difficult target, with many impacting factors, such as appropriate vaccination strategies/mechanisms to induce a suitable protective response locally in the genital tract, variation in the local immune responses due to the hormonal cycle, selection of vaccine antigen(s) that confers effective protection against multiple variants of a single pathogen (e.g., the different serovars of Chlamydia trachomatis) and timing of the vaccine administration prior to infection exposure. Despite these difficulties, there are numerous ongoing efforts to develop effective vaccines against these infectious agents and it is likely that this important human health field will see further major developments in the next 5 years.

Rolling in the aisles : a comparative study of male and female grocery shopper typologies

The purpose of this paper is to segment male and female grocery shoppers based on store and product attribute evaluations. A rich profile for each segment is developed. Gender comparisons are operationalised and these developed contemporary shopper typologies are further contrasted against earlier works. Data of 560 grocery shoppers was attained by a survey questionnaire. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA were employed to develop specific segments of shoppers. Four distinct cohorts of male shoppers and three cohorts of female shoppers emerge from the data of eight constructs, measured by 46 items. One new shopper type, not found in earlier typology literature, emerged from this research. This shopper presented as a young, well educated, at the commencement of their career and family lifecycle, attracted by a strong value offer and willingness to share the family food shopping responsibilities. This research makes a contribution to segmentation literature and grocery retail practice in several ways. It presents the first retail typology of male supermarket shoppers, employing a cluster analysis technique. Comparisons between male and female grocery shopping typologies are accordingly facilitated. The research provides insights into the modern family food shopping behaviour of men; a channel in which men are now recognised as equal contributors. Research outcomes encourage supermarket retailers to implement targeted marketing and rationalized operational strategies that deliver on attributes of importance. Finally, this research provides the basis for further cross-cultural, cross-contextual comparative studies.

Legal, cultural and practical developments in responding to female genital mutilation : can an absolute human right emerge?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural practice involving the deliberate, non-therapeutic physical modification of young girls’ genitalia. FGM can take several forms, ranging from smaller incisions, to removal of the clitoris and labia, and narrowing or even closing of the vagina. FGM predates and has no basis in the Koran, or any other religious text. Rather, it is a cultural tradition, particularly common in Islamic societies in regions of Africa, motivated by a patriarchal society’s desire to control female bodies and lives. The primary reason for this desire for control is to ensure virginity at marriage, thereby preserving family honour, within a patriarchal social structure where females’ value as persons is intrinsically connected to, and limited to, their worth as virgin brides. Recent efforts at legal prohibition and practical eradication in a growing number of African nations mark a significant turning point in how societies treat females. This shift in cultural power has been catalysed by a concern for female health, but it has also been motivated by an impulse to promote the human rights of girls and women. Although FGM remains widely practiced and there is much progress yet to be made before its eradication, the rights-based approach which has grown in strength embodies a marked shift in cultural power which reflects progress in women’s and children’s rights in the Western world, but which is now being applied in a different cultural context. This chapter reviews the nature of FGM, its prevalence, and health consequences. It discusses recent legal, cultural and practical developments, especially in African nations. Finally, this chapter raises the possibility that an absolute human right against FGM may emerge.

Catapulting into STEM education : female students’ interactions within a middle school engineering project

Despite efforts to motivate students to engage in Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, women are still underrepresented in these areas in the workforce and higher education. Targeting females at high school or earlier may be a key towards engaging them in STEM. In this paper we report on the research question: How do middle school females interact for learning about engineering education? This ethnographic study, part of a three-year longitudinal research project, investigated Year 8 female students’ learning about engineering concepts associated with designing, constructing, testing, and evaluating a catapult. Through a series of lead-up lessons and the four lesson catapult challenge (total of 18 x 45-minute lessons over 9 weeks), data from two girls within a focus group showed that the students needed to: (1) receive clarification on engineering terms to facilitate more fluent discourse, (2) question and debate conceptual understandings without peers being judgemental, and (3) have multiple opportunities for engaging with materials towards designing, constructing and explaining key concepts learnt. Implications for teachers undertaking STEM education are evident, including outlining expectations for clarifying STEM terms, outlining to students about interacting non-judgementally, and providing multiple opportunities for interacting within engineering education.