2007: against legalising prostitution

As a response to the Suffolk murders, old arguments about legalising the sex industry have emerged. I fear that all the hard work done to convince society and policy makers that legalisation makes things worse for the women, not better, will be further eroded in 2007. There is much evidence about the failures of legalisation from countries such as Germany and Australia that clearly highlights why the future should not bring drive-in brothels, such as the one in Köln, to the UK.

Columnist Vanessa Feltz, who rarely concerns herself with prostitution unless moaning about the prospect of having "hookers and whores" setting up a brothel next door to her, proclaimed recently that: "The argument for legalising prostitution has never been so convincing or so urgent. All over the world, countries recognise the inevitable, bite the bullet and legalise prostitution." She is wrong.

Tolerance zones in the Netherlands, hailed as a great success, are closing down one by one, because they have proved a disaster, with criminality and abuse still prevalent. One third of all window prostitution has also been closed, as the government there recognises that links between the legal sex industry and organised crime is rife.

Where brothel prostitution is legal, trafficking of women increases, and unlicensed brothels operate exactly as they did before. There is no evidence that women are safer working under legalisation, but plenty that it increases demand.

So, in 2007, will men be able to more easily nip out to buy a woman, as easily as picking up a McDonalds? I fear they will, unless we shift the debate away from "the only way to protect women is to legalise", to "the only way to keep women in prostitution out of danger is to assist them out of the industry and lock up the pimps".

Moves to unionise and regularise women in prostitution - to ensure "workers' rights" - are ludicrous, considering the following: most women do not want to be registered as "sex workers" as this can further stigmatise them by creating a permanent record of their prostitution; and what pimp would feel happy about paying taxes? What child abuser would give up selling underage sex? What brothel owner accustomed to raking in thousands literally off the backs of women would give her employment rights? What trafficker of foreign illegal migrants would give up using women who are cheaper and more compliant than local women? And what about the women who are clear that their "job" is abuse, and are desperate to get out? How do those women feel when health workers, the police and others are telling them that they are in a legitimate, non-abusive industry?

My hope for 2007 is that, instead of accepting prostitution as an inevitability, we shift the focus from the women to the men who buy and sell them. Until we shift the stigma and shame of prostitution on to the pimps and the customers, women will face insurmountable barriers to leaving the industry.

Let's ensure that next year we begin to accept that, far from being the oldest profession, prostitution is the oldest oppression. Let 2007 be when we start to do something to help the women get out of prostitution, not, as those in favour of legalisation are proposing, encourage them to stay in.