Prostitution - crackdown or tolerance?

A year ago, women in a rural area of eastern England were left in terror after the bodies of five murdered prostitutes were discovered in the space of 11 days, a killing spree unprecedented in British criminal history.

The naked bodies of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls were found dumped around the town of Ipswich, provoking an immense police search, a media frenzy, and sending the country into shock.

But the deaths of the five young women, all under the age of 30 who had turned to prostitution because of drugs, also elicited a wave of sympathy and soul-searching about how the victims from loving families had fallen into a profession which had put their lives in danger.

What should be done remains a divisive issue, with women's groups, backed by academics, demanding tolerance and decriminalisation, while senior government ministers talk about an outright ban, mimicking the policy in Sweden.

Paying for sex in Britain is not a crime, however soliciting for sex or running brothels is illegal.

"I think we do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking, which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it," said Harriet Harman, Women's Minister and deputy Labour Party leader last month.

"That is what they've done in Sweden. My own personal view is that's what we need to do as a next step."

The Home Office has said it is carrying out a short-term review to see what else can be done to tackle the demand for prostitution.

In the aftermath of the murders in Ipswich, the town council announced a new prostitution strategy with the aim of providing help to get women off the streets while getting tough on their clients.

The council says the number of sex workers in the town has fallen so there are just two or three working now while more than 120 men have been arrested for kerb-crawling.

Hannah-Jo Besley, chairman of the Ipswich Prostitution Steering Group, said that five years ago more than 100 women were working as prostitutes in Ipswich and last year there had been a "core group" of between 35 and 40, of which 15 or 16 were persistent workers.

"Because they have not got the fuel of kerb-crawlers because of the huge enforcement we have managed to engage with them a lot better," she said.

But this approach has failed to convince campaign groups and experts on the sex industry.

Cari Mitchell, from the English Collective of Prostitutes, said it would force the problem underground and failed to address the causes that led to women becoming sex workers.

"When the murders took place, there was a public outpouring of compassion and demand that things should change, and people really did grasp that it was because women were criminalised that they were so vulnerable," she told Reuters.

"Despite this, the reaction of the government, Ipswich council and police was to put out a new strategy which in fact primarily included a crackdown.

"That shows what their priorities were," she added, saying there was little in place for women once they had stopped working as prostitutes and no way of keeping tabs on them.

"On the face of it in Ipswich there are fewer women on the streets, but they don't know how long it will last, what the women are doing, and what has happened to all the women," she said.

Many of the women who had moved from Ipswich had gone to other areas, such as nearby Norwich.

She wants the government to follow New Zealand's lead where prostitution has been decriminalised, arguing women would be safer as they can report attacks to police, and clients themselves can go to the authorities without fear of criminal action.

Research by the New Zealand government due out soon was set to be extremely favourable with the conclusion the policy had not led to an increase in prostitution.

Experts agree that outlawing the trade could lead to more harm to sex workers.

"Academic research demonstrates that enforced treatment/ rehabilitation or criminalisation of sex workers (or their clients) is ineffectual at best, and more often dangerous," a dozen leading academics and researchers wrote in a letter to newspapers last month.

"Real political concern to support sex workers is being diverted and proper debate about the current proposals is being stifled by some fundamentalist and some radical feminist organisations interested in pursuing a moral crusade against purchasing sex."

Mitchell said whatever the government did, the world's oldest profession was not going to vanish.

"Men are not going to stop buying sex, it's just going to make it much more difficult and it's just going to drive it underground.

"It just drives it into the hands of gangsters."