Douglas Fox and Amnesty International

Douglas Fox has not been a member of Amnesty International for some years and has had zero input on Amnesty's draft policy on sex work. 

Claims that he did are without foundation. 

The decision to undertake a policy review rests wholly with our international headquarters. The process that led to the draft policy began in April 2012 at Amnesty's international headquarters rooted in our experience of work conducted during our Stop Violence Against Women campaign, and our work on poverty and human rights.   

Amnesty is made up of 80 offices around the world, all of which now have the opportunity to feed into the global consultation process. Amnesty UK is one of those 80 offices. Amnesty UK's position on the policy will be decided after a consultation with its 250,000 members. Douglas Fox ceased to be a member of Amnesty some years ago.

A motion to the 2008 Amnesty UK AGM calling for the decriminalisation of sex work was put forward by Newcastle City Group of Amnesty, of which Mr Fox was a member. The policy proposed by the Group was rejected by Amnesty UK’s AGM.  Instead the AGM then took the decision to call for a policy review, a decision that was opposed - unsuccessfully - by Newcastle City Group and Mr Fox. 

The effect of the Amnesty UK AGM decision was to require Amnesty UK's board to ask the governing bodies of the global movement to review our policies. This request was made in  2009 through a motion to the International Council Meeting. Amnesty UK did not call for the decriminalisation of sex work. Ultimately, Amnesty UK did not feel that there was sufficient support for this request, and the request was withdrawn.