Author/Editor: Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and researcher. She has been active in the global campaign to end violence towards women and children since 1979 and has written extensively on rape, domestic violence, sexually motivated murder, prostitution and trafficking, child sexual exploitation, stalking, and the rise of religious fundamentalism and its harm to women and girls.

Julie has authored over 30 book chapters and reports on a range of topics relating violence and abuse of women and girls. She writes regularly for The Guardian newspaper, the New Statesman, Truthdig, the Sunday Telegraph and Standpoint magazines, and appears regularly on the BBC and Sky News. Julie was Visiting Journalist at Brunel University (2013 - 2014) and Visiting Researcher at Lincoln University (2014 - 17). Julie’s book on the state of the lesbian and gay movement in the UK (Guardian books, 2014) has been praised for being thought-provoking and challenging.

Julie is co-founder of Justice for Women, set up in 1990 in response to cases of spousal homicide in which men killed their female partners and were given sympathy and understanding by judges and jurors, in contrast to women who killed their male partners or ex-partners after suffering domestic violence and abuse, and were punished disproportionately by the criminal justice system.

Julie’s latest book, published in ANZ by Spinifex Press, is entitled The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Work Myth. The book is a detailed examination of the global ‘sex workers’ rights’ movement and how the ‘happy hooker’ narrative has come to shape our perceptions - including many women involved in prostitution - of what is misleadingly named as ‘the oldest profession’. In it, she examines the situation in the UK, Netherlands, the Nordic region, Germany, South Africa, East Africa, North America, South America, France, New Zealand and Australia, South Korea, Turkey and India.