The global sex industry is estimated to be worth more than #12bn a year. Even that figure is believed to be vastly conservative. The business can be divided into services (prostitution and sex shows) and products (pornography and sex aids). Over the past three days we have been focusing on the former, and prostitution in particular. It is an age-old activity which continues to show a remarkable resilience. At one end of the market it can be hugely lucrative for the discreet call-girls who provide services for businessmen in the world's top hotels. At the other it is a life of misery and depredation for the growing army of Third World sex slaves enticed or forced into degradation and humiliation in far-away lands.
To a certain extent our series has illustrated the gulf between those women who choose to sell sex, making a lot of money out of managing the job efficiently, and those who end up in prostitution to buy drugs after a set of childhood circumstances which denied them a chance in life. It was shocking to learn that a 17-year-old prostitute was going out to see a client despite being seven months pregnant; and that a 14-year-old, six months pregnant, had been working Glasgow's red light area. Such instances offend against any sense of public decency and propriety, the latter case in particular since it involved under-age sex. We know where we stand on such cases. They should not happen. But prostitution is a complex issue even in a small country such as ours, as our series has shown.
For a start, the authorities in our major cities manage it differently. Edinburgh takes a prag-matic approach which we believe is enlightened. The vast majority of its prostitutes work in licensed saunas which, in return for a fee which goes to their owners, offer women a degree of security and a smaller risk of infection than
on the streets. Aberdeen does
not have licensed saunas and although Glasgow does nearly all prostitutes in both cities work on the streets. The police in both cases maintain that they take a flexible, sensible approach to the law as it applies to prostitution: loitering, soliciting, or importuning in a public place. Strathclyde Police were criticised in the past for applying the law too firmly, forcing prostitutes into less vis-ible areas where they were at greater risk of attack.
The criticism was made most recently after the killing of a seventh prostitute in Glasgow. The police emphasise that they liaise closely with prostitutes, in keeping with their duty to protect the public (including prostitutes) by making the streets safer and reducing the fear of crime. But yesterday's Scottish Office report on women offenders clearly implies that as recently as 1995 Glasgow was being over-zealous in the application of the law since, of more than 740 women jailed for minor prostitution-related offences at Cornton Vale, more than 640 were from Glasgow. Ministers want greatly to reduce the number of women jailed in Scotland, a policy which makes sense because incarceration for such offences and others does not make economic sense (the cost of imprisonment outweighs the value of a fine); puts these frequently-unstable women at greater risk to themselves (the report was prompted
by the suicide of seven Cornton Vale inmates, most of them drug addicts); and does nothing to help them conquer their many problems.
At the very least the strategy will offer the opportunity of a better and more imaginative use of resources currently wasted on imprisonment. As far as prostitution is concerned it makes no sense to impose a fine for soliciting, for instance, when the only possible way it will be paid is by working on the streets. Since no change in the law relating to prostitution is envisaged the strategy will put greater pressure on Glasgow's civic authorities, something which Home Affairs Minister Henry McLeish has recognised with the establishment of a high-powered body, chaired by the sagacious Dr Sheila McLean, which will look at alternatives to custodial sentences for women convicted in the city.
What to do about women
convicted of prostitution-related offences will be a major part of the body's work. Given that prostitution is not a problem peculiar to Glasgow (although it is most pressing there) the Minister should seriously consider extending the remit of the group to include other Scottish cities since any forthcoming workable template would be widely beneficial, particularly in places such as Aberdeen which do not use the sauna option. It must be said, however, that Glasgow's particular problems cannot be separated from drug abuse. Roughly 900 of the city's 1000 prostitutes are injecting drug users. They can least afford to be choosy about their clients and frequently undercut the going rate for sex acts to acquire the money for a hit.
They are caught in a vicious circle that dictates that they must go on the streets to earn the money to buy heroin. And they need the heroin to go on the streets. It is to be hoped that the Scottish Office initiative results in an alternative which helps them off drugs. And if that gets them out of prostitution it will be a major success. But it is not, and cannot be, the solution. Prostitution will not be eradicated as long as there are men willing to pay for sex, and women willing to sell it. In Scotland we lack an overall strategy for dealing with it. There are some attractions in making it legal. Registered brothels would guarantee standards of health and safety, could regulate prostitution through the reporting of unregistered operations, and would raise tax revenues for the Government.
But we are not ready for such
a far-reaching option. How, for instance, could we square a commitment to equal opportunities with legitimising the exploitation of women? While we are on the theme, the current law is disproportionately heavy on prostitutes, too light on their clients. And in cities such as Glasgow where prostitutes work the streets it is utterly offensive and humiliating that women going about their legitimate business should be accosted by kerb-crawlers. In such instances the police have a pressing duty to enforce the law. As it applies to saunas, public entertainment licences are granted to premises for recreation or entertainment. The public pays for admission or the use of facilities. Where saunas sell sex in Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders Police take a realistic approach but will act swiftly on suspicion of drug abuse or the involvement of under-age girls. In effect, prostitution has ceased to be treated
as a criminal offence. Edinburgh's is the best option for guaranteeing that the business is safe, clean, and generally inconspicuous.
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