P4P News

What can the UK learn from New Zealand's approach to sex workers? Quite a lot, actually. On Wednesday June 25, sex workers and brothel operators mingled in parliament with a range of people – Catholic nuns, public health experts, and politicians – to mark the 5th anniversary of the decriminalisation of prostitution. Even the prime minister, Helen Clark, dropped in to pass comment on the success of giving rights to sex workers.

Throughout the day, participants heard from researchers who had been commissioned by the ministry of justice – included in the legislation was a requirement that a committee, appointed by the justice minister, be established to review the law and to assess its impact on the sex industry within five years. It was no surprise to me that these researchers found overwhelming evidence to contradict the wild claims of opponents to the Prostitution Reform Act. Opponents had claimed that, as a consequence of liberalising the law, brothels would create havoc in every neighbourhood, with thugs moving in to traffic women and children. Yet none of these claims came true.

The overwhelming response to the legislation has been positive. Police have moved from clogging courts with prosecutions for soliciting to preventing violence against sex workers. As one said: Now, if I have any trouble, I can pull out my phone and call the cops, and they will come.

We may be a small country, but we are part of the Asia-Pacific rim with its dynamic migration patterns. Motivated by claims of trafficking, immigration officials have raided brothels, seeking victims. They haven't found any.

The chair of the prostitution law review committee – a retired Police commissioner and one time vice cop – said that people were gobsmacked when he told them the committee had found that many sex workers enjoy their work. Researchers confirmed that many sex workers don't want rescuing – they want rights.

The committee concluded that the act has had a marked effect in safeguarding the human rights of sex workers and improving their occupational safety and health.

I believe the UK could reorient its laws to achieve this reality. And the sky won't fall in.

During the fifth anniversary of the legalization of prostitution in New Zealand, what has come to light are the positive feelings of sex workers who feel protected and safe under the new law.

The Prostitution Reform Act has put health and safety guidelines for prostitutes in place and according to the act, prostitutes must practice safe sex. They are also covered under employment law.

A follow up of the benefits of such an act conducted by the Justice Ministry found that 90% of sex workers were happy with the legislation. More importantly prostitutes were in a better position to bring violence and abuse to notice.

People in this business are now out in the light, there are many people and agencies who are able to help, committee chairman Paul Fitzharris said.

Prostitutes were happy that the law had enhanced their working conditions. A prostitute said: One of the biggest advantages of the law is having legal back-up. From time to time you get clients who want to have sex without protection. Generally they accept [having to wear a condom] but if they try and keep on arguing, you have some basis to tell them to leave.

A celebration is being held at Parliament today to mark the fifth anniversary of the decriminalisation of prostitution.

The day-long programme in the Beehive has been dubbed as Going all the way: an event to reflect on decriminalisation. It will involve panel discussions and will focus on the issues still affecting sex workers.

New Zealand became one of the first countries to decriminalise prostitution on this day in 2003. The new law only just passed through Parliament by 60 votes to 59, with Labour's Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary angering many by abstaining from the final vote.

Women's Institute members have scoured Hampshire's streets and brothels on a campaign to legalise brothels in the county.

Women from Hampshire WI group "kerb-crawled" through Southampton streets as well as visiting some of the county's estimated 600 brothels to see the "horrendous" working conditions for prostitutes.

The women were so shocked at what they found they have launched a campaign to highlight the plight of Hampshire's prostitutes.

As part of their campaign the women have also travelled around the world to investigate prostitution in other countries.

The movement has been spearheaded by WI member and advisor Jean Johnson, and has won the support of more than 7,000 WI members nationwide.

Carl has just made the 15-minute journey across the Öresund bridge to buy sex in Denmark.

I can feel free here, he says, stretching his arms out wide at the bar of the Spunk Club in central Copenhagen on a Saturday night. I can breathe.

In Sweden paying for sex is a crime punishable with a possible six-month jail sentence or a hefty income-linked fine. Perhaps the worst penalty for errant Swedish males is the official court summons addressed to the family home; an embarrassment that has ruptured many marriages.

In Denmark, by contrast, prostitution has been decriminalised. Nigerian and Romanian women competed for Carl’s attentions when he staggered out of the Spunk Club, while a brothel next door bore a sign saying: Here Only Danish Girls.

The builders of the Öresund bridge linking Malmö with Copenhagen has brought two dissimilar and often competing societies into an uneasy proximity.

Denmark, proud of its tolerant traditions, has allowed the hippy colony of Christiania to flourish in the heart of Copenhagen since the 1970s. Now Swedish teenagers are taking taxis over the bridge, stopping off at the settlement, stocking up on marijuana, and driving back home. The Swedes are irritated; the Danes sensitive - police occasionally raid Christiania’s Pusher Street to show that they have not lost control – but ultimately they are not that bothered.

The true flashpoint is prostitution. Nothing better highlights how the model Scandinavian societies are now at odds over the correct road to Utopia. The Swedish law, punishing clients but keeping prostitution legal, is based on the premise that prostitution is a form of violence against women.

Inspector Wahlberg estimates that the number of prostitutes in Sweden fell from 2,500 in 1998 to 1,500 in 2003, and the trend is still downwards.

But there are two problems with this law. The first is that it has taken Sweden even closer to the Big Brother state. Customers are secretly filmed going in and out of brothels. The police then confront them with the evidence. Phone tapping landed a senior judge in trouble with the police after he contacted a young male prostitute; the judge - who had always given mild verdicts in prostitution cases - resigned. But the main problem is that prostitution has gone underground in Sweden.

Thanks to the bridge across the Öresund Strait frustrated clients such as Carl can now travel to Denmark, despite the toll charge of €30 (£24). The bridge was opened the year after the Swedish law came into effect. Since then the number of prostitutes in Copenhagen has doubled to 6,000.

Vile New Labour Trafficking in miserable lives

The Dutch approach to prostitution was observed today by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker during a visit to the Netherlands, as part of the Government's review into tackling the demand for prostitution.

The Government's six-month review began in January with a visit to Sweden to explore the impact of legislation which criminalises the purchase or attempted purchase of sex and decriminalises its sale. The Netherlands takes a different approach and currently has a licensing scheme for brothels, meaning the organisation of prostitution by consenting adults is not a criminal offence.

Ministers, including the Solicitor General Vera Baird and the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality Barbara Follett, used the visit to look at the impact of the Dutch Government's legislation and the effect this has had in terms of the size and nature of the market. The visit will also be used to find out more about the current debate in the Netherlands about whether they should be doing more to tackle demand.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: We have already made considerable progress in terms of shining the light on those who pay for sex, particularly in relation to on-street prostitution. We are now looking at how the problem is being tackled internationally to see what lessons we can all learn from each other.

Solicitor General Vera Baird said: In the course of this review we have seen amongst our European and world neighbours very different solutions to the same problem. We are starting to develop more fully our ideas as to what can work effectively for us.

Deputy Minister for Women and Equalities Barbara Follett said: Men who pay for sex fuel the evil trade of sex trafficking. We support and protect victims, as well as catch and prosecute traffickers; but now we must step up our efforts to tackle the demand side. By visiting other countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, we can learn from how they are responding to this growing international problem, and make sure that we are doing all we possibly can to stop this vile trade.

During the visit, Ministers met:

• The Minister for Justice
• The Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam and officials from the Local Government
• The National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings
• The National Prosecutor on Human Trafficking
• Amsterdam Police
• Representatives from Scharlaken Koord — a support service working with those involved in prostitution
• Representatives from the National Crime Squad and the Human Trafficking Expertise Centre.

Comment: Consulting with Nutters

Thanks to Donald

Just reading about Coaker in Netherlands on his study tour

But why did they meet Scarlet Cord , that is a christian organisation, why didn't they meet the Dutch prossie organisation instead...

Scarlet Cord was founded in 1987. Moved by the fate of the ever increasing number of prostitutes, a few volunteers visited the Amsterdam red-light district every week to reach out to the women behind the windows - not only to have a talk with them, but also to tell them about Jesus, who changes the lives of people.

And for that matter why didn't they talk to any customers either..

Danish newspapers ran an article today that Denmark has rejected the Swedish model banning the buying of sex after considering it for the past few months.

Update: Campaigners

Thanks to Donald

From article (in Danish) in Berlingske

" DF will not support a ban on paying for sex"

That means that a ban is out of the question since not any of the major political parties in Denmark will support it either

This was not the result of a review of prostitution laws, feminazis launched a campaign in March and obviously the fems didn't get enough support.

Danish sex workers did launch a high profile campaign against it with press conferences declaring we're not victims we're women.

An anti-prostitution report is being tabled by the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament (Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality). The report is titled On prostitution and its health consequences on women in Member States [pdf]

It is only 9 pages long and it directly attacks many of the statements made by sex workers in Europe in our Declaration and Manifesto.

The Greens will be tabling a list of crucial amendments to this document.

A Swedish MEP, Maria Carlshamre, is the leading force behind the report.

As background here is Carlshamre's somewhat arrogant response to an mail from Prof. Ron Weizer, USA and Prof. Michael Goodyear, Canada.

Maybe you are not fully aware of the way we work in the European Parliament. I welcome every chance to have a balanced report based on empirical facts. My main priority is to base my work on scientific evidence as far as possible. My basic reference is to the large frequency study by the German government, where women in prostitution report a very much higher level of violence than women in general.

I would be much obliged having studies contradicting me, but so far no one has come up with a single report showing I am wrong. Until then, I will consider all arguments against my position based on nothing but ideology, very far from empirical knowledge.

If your articles contain any new empirical findings I will change my position accordingly.

MEP Maria Carlshamre
ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe

More about Maria Carlshamre: Convicted Liberal defects to feminists

Mary Honeyball is the British MEP is in this committee: Treat prostitution like rape

There are several motions suggesting amendments to this document

The minister of injustice in Norway has proposed criminalizing the purchase of sexual services both at home and abroad.

The law proposes imposing fines and up to six months in jail for anyone convicted of paying a prostitute for sex. The law is in line with a “Sex Purchase Law” passed by neighboring Sweden in 1999, which has been the subject of intense interest in Europe and elsewhere.

Injustice Minister Knut Storberget said in presenting the proposed law: People are not a commodity and criminalizing the purchase of sex would make it less attractive for human traffickers to look to Norway.

I am not sure I like the law. I don’t really know how smart it is to criminalize people for buying sex. But at least that part of the law I respect. The part I have strong objections to, is the part that says that the law should apply to Norwegians visiting other countries as well. This is strange as a legal principle.

I mean, if a Norwegian drive a car at 160 km/hour on a German highway, this is legal in Germany but illegal in Norway. But people do not get punished for it when they return home to Norway. Same for smoking cannabis in Amsterdam. And so on. But now the government proposes that when a Norwegian does something in a foreign country that is legal in that country, he is to be punished when he returns home?

And, in addition to the very strange legal principle involved, there is also the almost impossible situation with respect to implementation. Are Dutch policemen supposed to look out for Norwegians buying sex, when that purchase is legal in the Netherlands?

Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni, who orchestrated his country’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigration, has suggested that by August, prostitution should be legalized in Italy.

Maroni described his country’s current law as “repressive,” saying that prostitution has its “pros and cons.”

He claimed that thousands of people are currently serving jail sentences in Italy for infractions of those laws, and said that such punishment exemplifies an “adolescent reaction” to the sex trade.

Italian poll shows heavy support for legalized prostitution

Italy’s Donna Moderna magazine has published a survey showing that a substantial majority of Italians support the legalization of prostitution.

The survey respondents accepted the argument that legalizing brothels would protect prostitutes and move them off the streets.

The survey found substantial support for two different arguments in favor of legalization: 47% of those polled supported the legalization of prostitution as a means to “clean up the streets” while 38% said the measure would be useful to protect prostitutes from exploitation and violence.

Just 11% of respondents opposed legalized prostitution on the grounds that it would encourage the practice, and a mere 4% opposed the the idea on moral grounds.

Daniela Santaché of The Right Party supports the legalization of prostitution and has promised to collect 500,000 signatures in support of the proposal.

Most Italian political parties oppose legalized prostitution and the government’s undersecretary for the family, Carlo Giovanardi, has suggested heavy fines and the publication of the names of people who pick up prostitutes

Update: Postponed

18th June 2008

An amendment on prostitution presented by the president of the Senate Justice Commission, Filippo Berselli, and much discussed in the past days, is removed from the decree on security.

We have decided to remove all issues not strictly relevant for the measure from the decree explained Berselli.

Changes to prostitution law will now be tabled in a separate government bill on the topic.

Rupert Everett featured in the Sunday Telegraph talking about prostitution and drugs.

After stating prostitution will never go away, Everett said: But try telling Harriet Harman that. The best she can come up with is fining anyone who uses a prostitute. She is a typical New Labour idiot because she is going to force prostitutes back into the parks at a time when it has become more dangerous. I don't think prostitution will ever end, just as drug-taking will never end. Both should be legalised as a way of controlling them. Cut out the middleman. Tax them. Use the money to fund clinics for the victims.

Everett, who now refers to himself as a 'Muscle Mary' (definition: a gay man who spends too much time in the gym), explores the subject of prostitution in a documentary about the maverick 19th Century orientalist Sir Richard Burton, The Victorian Sex Explorer, to be shown tonight on Channel 4.

An anti-human rights group has called on India to criminalise buying of sex and strengthen its anti-trafficking laws.

In a statement issued on the eve of UN General Assembly debate on steps needed to stop trafficking, Equality Now urged Indian government to take steps for early passage of amendments to the 1956 Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), which would involve criminalisation of the buyers of sex.

The organisation regretted that the amendments, which recognised sexual exploitation as inherent in prostitution, were languishing for two years with no end in sight, mostly because of resistance from HIV/AIDS lobby.

The amendments, it said, would decriminalise women in prostitution but criminalise the buyers of prostitution, pimps and brothel owners. The HIV/AIDS lobby believed that targeting demand would curtail use of condom to prevent the spread of the disease, it said.

The most effective way to protect women would be by curtailing the commercial sex industry, Equality Now claimed.

Almost three-quarters of people quizzed by the Lancashire Evening Post say prostitution should be legalised and support a tolerance zone for sex workers in Preston.

The views emerged during a snap survey of 280 readers, following the LEP's investigation into prostitution in the city earlier this month.

Some councillors and residents in the Deepdale and Ribbleton areas of the city, which are affected by prostitution, slammed the stance.

Nutter Labour Councillor Albert Richardson said: These people who want a tolerance zone, I wonder what they would say if it was to be on their doorstep. Would they be so supportive? People keep saying its the oldest profession in the world. Well isn't that a disgrace? How far have we really progressed? Men who use street prostitutes should be named and shamed. They are breaking the law, so why shouldn't they?

Sandra White (Glasgow) (Scottish National Party has laid a motion:

Challenging Man's Demand for Prostitution in Scotland:

That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the report, Challenging Man'
s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland, a collaboration between the Women'
s Support Project in Glasgow and US organisation, Prostitute Research and Education; notes with concern the evidence that men who use prostitutes regularly are more likely to regard other women as “objects” and the link between using prostitutes and sexual violence against women, and believes that the evidence presented in the report will serve to inform and shape the debate and future direction of prostitution in Scotland.

Supported by: Shirley-Anne Somerville, Joe FitzPatrick, Kenneth Gibson, Christina McKelvie, Jamie Hepburn, Bashir Ahmad, Stuart McMillan, Angela Constance, Elaine Smith, Brian Adam, Johann Lamont, Gil Paterson, Bill Kidd, Pauline McNeill

The motion was lodged on Thursday, May 01, 2008.

The mean minded motion refers to the report Challenging Men's Demand [pdf] by Melissa Farley.

A response to the Farley report drafted by some 20 academics and activists (including such familiar names as Michael Goodyear, Ronald Weitzer, and Petra Boynton) has also been submitted to the Scottish Parliament.

Update: Deplorable Report

Thanks to Donald, 30th May 2008

Margo MacDonald has proposed an excellent amendment to Sandra White's mean minded resolution:

S3M-1799.1 Margo MacDonald: Challenging Man'
s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland—

As an amendment to motion (S3M-1799) in the name of Sandra White, leave out from welcomes to end and insert deplores the publication of the report, Challenging Man'
s Demand for Prostitution in Scotland, as it lacks any academic merit, is based on material gathered after payments to respondents, is guilty of bias leading to foolish conclusions and presents the public with a simplistic view of a highly complex subject; notes the outrage expressed by 16 distinguished academics who have joined Dr Jane Scoular, Reader in Law at the University of Strathclyde, in utterly condemning the report, and notes that the academics believe that "this research violates fundamental principles of human research ethics in that there is no evidence of any benefit to the population studied…It seems highly unlikely that the participants were ever informed of the true nature of the research, which could well have influenced their response. This sort of research is dangerous".

The number of sex workers in New Zealand does not appear to have increased since legislation decriminalising prostitution became law, according to a new report.

The Prostitution Law Review Committee was set up to report on the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 three to five years after the Act came into force.

Its report, published today, was based on work carried out by the Christchurch School of Medicine and Victoria University's Crime and Justice Research Centre.

The committee, chaired by former Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Fitzharris, said an accurate count of the number of sex workers was difficult. However, a comparison between the number of sex workers in Christchurch in 1999, before decriminalisation, and 2006 - after the Act was passed - showed the total had stayed approximately the same.

Around 93% of sex workers cited money as the reason for getting into and staying in the sex industry. The most significant barriers to exiting are loss of income, reluctance to lose the flexible working hours available in the sex industry and the camaraderie and sense of belonging that some sex workers describe .

The committee said a Christchurch School of Medicine survey of sex workers found that more than 90% felt they had legal rights under the Act. More than 60% felt they were more able to refuse to provide commercial sexual services to a particular client since the enactment of the law.

Prior to the Act, the illicit status of the sex industry meant sex workers were open to coercion and exploitation by managers, pimps and clients. Research indicated there had been "some improvement" in employment conditions but this is by no means universal.

Generally, brothels which had treated their workers fairly before the Act continued to do so while those that did not continued to have unfair management practices, it said.

Other findings included that the majority of sex workers felt the Act could do little about violence that occurred, although a significant majority felt there had been an improvement since the passing of the Act.

Other recommendations included that the Government provide additional funding to the Ministry of Health to enable medical officers of health to carry out regular inspections of brothels.

It also said the Government should provide funding so that non-government organisations could provide services to the industry, including assistance with exiting for those that wanted to get out of sex work.

Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel said the report showed the Act had had a positive effect on the health and safety of sex workers and had not led to an increase in numbers of sex workers as predicted by critics of the law reform.

For the last few months, Luxemburg has been discussing a applying the Swedish model to the prohibition of prostitution.

In this model, prostitutes are generally viewed as victims of patriarchy and sexual exploitation. Their customer are criminalized via heavy fines or even a prison sentence.

In Luxembourg, a similar model is now planned, both CSV and LSAP (both government political parties) have proposed legislation. No fines but instead community work and/or compulsory education courses on human trafficking, especially women and children.

And a few more stories from Sweden where the fem-nazis have been allowed to run riot

Female pedestrians get road sign recognition

Gender equity hits below the belt for Swedish patients

No more hotel porn for Swedish government officials

Spy cameras are to be used to crack down on kerb crawlers as part of a new bid to repress street prostitution in the Capital.

The city council has received £200,000 from the Scottish Government and plans to spend some of it on the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras.

They will be placed discreetly in prostitution hot-spots and will log all the vehicles that visit them. The information gathered will alert officers to vehicles which are regularly in the area, and ultimately help them build up a case against kerb crawlers.

Officers have refused to reveal the locations being considered for the cameras and it is unclear exactly how the system will work, though they will have to ensure innocent residents are not wrongly targeted.

The initiative comes on the back of new laws brought in last year which made an offence out of "loitering" in a vehicle, with maximum fines of £1000. Persistent offenders can also have their cars confiscated.

Ruth Morgan-Thomas, project manager at Scotpep, a support group for prostitutes, said: We believe this will leave women more vulnerable by pushing them into more isolated areas. If they put these cameras up in one area it will just push the women to another one, because clients will not go there any more.

As anti-prostitution nutters try to thwart sex trade by going after customers, they said they have faced a big problem: researchers have only the crudest grasp of why men buy sex.

A group of 'researchers'—most of them young women—invited more than 100 Chicago-area men who frequently use prostitutes to talk about their attitudes and experiences.

While the survey, which is not peer-reviewed, is likely to draw justifiable criticism from some academics, the project offers a window into the attitudes of men who buy sex in Chicago.

The results show men are often deeply conflicted about their behavior, said Rachel Durchslag, director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, which conducted the survey in Chicago with the Evanston-based Justice Project Against Sexual Harm.

Though most of the men interviewed said they believe there is nothing wrong with prostitution, a large majority, 83%, view buying sex as a form of addiction, according to the study.

Most men said they believed women entered prostitution freely. About 40% of men said they are usually intoxicated when they buy sex.

According to one man who was quoted anonymously in the report, For a small second after I buy sex, I feel happy, and then it's over. It's so fleeting. There's frustration beforehand, and depression afterward [because] it's so quick. Those feelings are always there. They're associated with buying sex.

The survey was designed by anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley, who is controversial because academics have accused her of tilting previous research to support a political agenda. The Chicago study is part of an international project that includes surveys in Scotland, India and Cambodia. Critics of the Scotland survey called Farley's methods unscientific.

Durchslag said the goal of the research is to push for harsher criminal punishment for men who buy sex from prostitutes, she said. Nearly 90% of the men said that they would stop if they felt there was a likely chance they would be caught and prosecuted.

A poster to supposedly get men to think twice about paying for sex with women who may have been trafficked has been launched.

The government pilot in Nottingham and the borough of Westminster tells men sleeping with a woman forced to work in the sex industry makes them a rapist.

The poster, which will be placed in gents' toilets in pubs and clubs, will be supported by an online advertising campaign.

It shows a brothel entrance with the caption: Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist."

It also urges men who discover a woman they believe may have been trafficked: If you're man enough, call Crimestoppers.

'Internal Trafficking' Bollox

More propaganda designed to tag all prostitution as 'trafficking'.

Based on article from the BBC

The BBC has been invited to the set of a film sponsored by the Home Office and other organisations, including the UK Human Trafficking Centre and Streetreach - a support group for prostitutes.

When completed, the film will be shown in schools across Britain to warn youngsters about the recently identified problem of "internal trafficking" in which British schoolgirls are seduced by older teenage boys who then pass them on into prostitution.

Writer and director Virginia Heath says she threaded together real events into a fictional storyline: I did a lot or research. Much of the script comes out of stories told to me directly by some of the girls, or by those who have been looking after them. The whole process of enticement can be exciting for the girl - I wanted to depict that. She's excited because she's exploring new things.

Later, we move to a student house that has been taken over by the film crew. This, explains Virginia, is where the girl, Jade, realises things aren't what they seem with her pimp/boyfriend Raz: It's a crucial turning point in the film. Raz asks Jade to 'Do something nice to my friend.' Jade knows it isn't right but she goes along with it. What Jade doesn't know is that her boyfriend owes money for drugs, and she is his way of paying off his debt. As the camera tracks them, Raz leads Jade up the stairs of the dingy house. They pause and, as an older man waits in an adjacent bedroom, he tells the confused Jade what's expected.

UK Human Trafficking Centre head, Det Ch Supt Nick Kinsella said: This is happening. We're not saying it's happening on every street corner, but it is happening. We wanted to do something for both youngsters and their families so they'd know what's going on and could take reasonable precautions. 'Internal trafficking' prosecutions can be hard to bring to court because often the girls will not give evidence against their pimp boyfriends - either out of fear or misplaced loyalty.

The authorities admit they also do not have a complete idea of the scale of the problem.

When completed, the film will form part of an education pack to be used in schools nationwide and, it is hoped, to teach youngsters not just how to avoid being drawn in, but also what to do to assist those who have. [...And to convince the general population that there is a problem that needs to be solved by criminalising buyers of sex]

Sweden has appointed a special investigator to evaluate the effects of a law that targets the buyers of sex instead of the prostitutes.

Justice Minister Beatrice Ask said the evaluation, to be completed by 2010, is warranted partly because of the growing international interest in the law, which was introduced in 1999.

There are many good reasons to prevent prostitution and the harm it can lead to for individuals as well as for society, Ask said in a statement. An investigation to thoroughly analyze these issues is both important and long-awaited.

Many countries considering a similar law are eager to find out whether it has reduced the sex trade in Sweden, or merely driven it underground.

Buying sex is punished by fines or up to six months in prison under the so-called "Sex Purchase Law." But selling sex is not a crime because prostitutes are viewed as victims.

In January, a high-level British delegation came to study the Swedish approach as Britain reviews its own prostitution laws, which prohibit soliciting and loitering for sex, but not buying sex. Norway's plans to introduce a Swedish-style prostitution law in 2009.

Swedish Supreme Court Justice Anna Skarhed will lead the investigation.

The mean minded Norwegian government proposed on Friday to fine or jail clients of prostitutes for up to six months supposedly in a bid to stamp out human trafficking, and said the law would also apply to its citizens abroad.

Norway signalled in mid-2007 that it would make it a criminal offence to buy services from prostitutes, following the example of Scandinavian neighbour Sweden which introduced a similar ban in 1999.

The amendment will now be put to parliament for approval and if passed will take effect in January 2008, officials said.

Prostitution is currently allowed in Norway although procuring, or "pimping," is illegal. A rise in street prostitution in the capital, Oslo, in recent years has triggered calls for a ban.

Proponents of the measure say it makes sense to try to stop prostitution by punishing those who use the service rather than the women themselves, who are often poor, young immigrants.

Opponents of the ban say it will jeopardise women in the trade by driving prostitution underground where they will be even more vulnerable.

The justice ministry said the punishment could be fines on rising scale according to the offender's financial means or a jail term of up to six months, or both.

Jail sentences of a year could be imposed in aggravated cases involving adult prostitution and of up to three years where child prostitutes are involved, the ministry said.

The number of assaults on prostitutes in Edinburgh has soared in the past year. Attacks reported to support group Scotpep have almost doubled from 66 in 2006 to 126 last year, including eight reported rapes and 55 violent assaults.

Support workers say making kerb-crawling illegal has resulted in the trade becoming more dangerous as prostitutes are forced "underground".

While the figures cover the whole of last year, Scotpep says that it has become even more dangerous for vice girls since the new law came into force last October.

It comes as latest police figures reveal that a total of 24 suspected kerb-crawlers have been arrested and charged in Scotland's capital in the first six months since the legislation came into force.

Some prostitutes are said to have turned to handing out a mobile number to potential clients in order to set up meetings. Scotpep believes this new tactic has left women more vulnerable as they are meeting men in more isolated locations.

Ruth Morgan Thomas, Scotpep's co-ordinator, said: The need for cash to support drug habits has not gone away. Prostitution is being pushed further underground. Women are having to work longer hours and changing the times they work. It makes it harder for us to provide support.

Kerb-crawlers can now face a criminal record and a £1,000 fine.

High-profile police activity has been cited for driving away many men. But those most likely to be violent against prostitutes continue to use their services. Ms Morgan Thomas added: There's been a decrease in those on the street, but not the number selling sex in the city.

If British men persist in enjoying life... we're gonna cut off their bollocks

Most 'experts' in tackling prostitution in Suffolk have been invited to share their knowledge with the Government during an inquiry into the sex industry, it has emerged.

The Home Office has embarked on a six-month review looking at what more can be done to deal with the demand for prostitution in England and Wales.

The review will consider alternative approaches in other countries in a bid to identify possible new legislation.

The Home Office is planning to identify a pool of “external experts” from the police, academic institutions and voluntary organisations to act as advisors on the project - and has confirmed representatives from Suffolk will be invited to take part.

The review hopes to uncover information about the characteristics and demographics of those who buy sex, the context and settings for buying sex, the motivation for it, what deters those who procure sex -such as fear of prosecution, health-related issues and their families' finding out.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: At the moment, we have not decided who the external experts are going to be. Experts from the Ipswich and Suffolk area will be invited to ensure representation is made from across the UK.

A decision on the panel of experts which will assist the Home Office is expected to be announced next month.

The stereotype of the Asian sex slave captures the Australian imagination. When Puangthong Simaplee died in immigration detention in 2001, a story emerged of a girl trafficked to Australia at the age of 12 and forced to have sex as a slave. Her story was given under duress, after the Department of Immigration had taken her into detention, during the first phases of the pneumonia that eventually killed her.

Even when the federal police uncovered the Thai woman's high school diploma, proudly displayed in her family home, and discovered she did not arrive in Australia until aged 21, the image endured of pre-pubescent Asian girls chained to beds in back rooms with barred windows.

Media reports of a thousand sex slaves working in Australia have proved unfounded. But even when the coroner found no evidence that Simaplee was trafficked, the sex industry, not the detention system, continued to be the focus of coverage of her death.

The sensationalism surrounding the sex slave issue has created a government-funded rescue industry. This has diverted the focus from actual cases of trafficking in Australia and prevented an evidence-based response to the problem.

The federal police's transnational sexual exploitation and trafficking team, with the Immigration Department, has swept through the Asian brothels of Australia's capital cities, aided by an anti-trafficking package of tens of millions of dollars since 2003. The Australian Tax Office joined in and media were invited to the raids.

Non-English-speaking sex workers became the most overscrutinised sector of the sex industry. But the "sex slaves" remained elusive and trafficking was difficult to prosecute.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission chimed in with the suggestion to make "consent" irrelevant, but even that could not create victims that did not exist.

The time has come for a new kind of response to trafficking, grounded in labour rights rather than moral hysteria. If the Federal Government wants to improve the conditions of migrant sex workers, it needs to protect their rights as workers.

Introducing a visa to allow migrant sex workers to work in Australia legally for short periods of time would pull the carpet from under the trafficking nexus by allowing women to travel here independently to work. Greater access to generic working holiday visas for sex workers from our region would enable travel for work, without having to resort to a third party or "agent".

Surprise, surprise: not a single case of 'trafficking' was thrown up after raids of all known outlets for off-street prostitution across Sheffield. A previous country-wide trawl, the Home Office claims, netted 88, but even this very small figure is bogus. It includes the 19 'rescued' in Birmingham, all of whom turned out to be immigrants, only six of whom were illegals, and none working against their will.

The police and Home Office went very quiet after these raids; as they did about raids on the Omega 'massage parlour' in Sheffield and a sister establishment in Leeds.

There is no confirmation that a single one of the 88 were actually 'trafficked' at all.

So what are the police up to? The Government's PC rhetoric - false though it is - is that all women must be being forced into prostitution. To further this propaganda, the cross-border movement of prostitutes is misrepresented as 'trafficking', which research shows to be a minuscule problem.

Now the bogus scare about a renewed 'white slave trade' is exposed as just a ruse to justify criminalising men, the latest ploy is to pick a number out of the air (5,000) for supposed domestic sex slavery of under-age girls. Now, this does indeed go on, but nobody - and certainly not the Government - knows the scale of it.

The Western Australia (WA) parliament has passed a controversial bill which will decriminalise brothels and give prostitutes basic working rights, including superannuation and workers compensation.

The bill will see the regulation of brothels and escort agencies in WA, where prostitution is legal but running a brothel is not. Nor is living off the earnings of prostitution.

WA's Liberal Opposition opposed the legislation but it passed with the support of independent MP Shelley Archer in exchange for the promise of drug, alcohol and sex education programs for Aboriginal children in the northern Kimberley region.