Tracy Gilbert

These websites function as massive online brothels. They are the go-to place for traffickers to advertise their victims. I have said it before and I will say it again: pimping websites are making it as easy to order a room and to sexually exploit as it is to order a takeaway. I want to talk about the women who face the devastating consequences of prostitution and sex trafficking for the rest of their lives. In a 2016 inquiry, the Home Affairs Committee found that a number of prostitutes were in a vulnerable position. Evidence from St Mungo’s showed that one in four women living in its housing services was a current or former prostitute. Its evidence also showed that, of its residents who had experienced rough sleeping, one in three was a current or former prostitute. In 2022, Beyond the Streets published a report by Grayce Collis and Dr Katie Thorlby that found that 78% of women actively seeking support to leave prostitution needed support with their mental health, while 71% needed support with their relationships with friends and family, which are often broken, and 63% needed support to access employment and education. Tragically, a database managed by National Ugly Mugs recorded 180 murders of prostitutes across the UK between 1990 and 2016. Evidence from Agenda to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry stated that “Women in prostitution are 18 times more likely to be murdered than the general female population.” Behind those statistics are vulnerable women, who all too often feel there is no escape from the exploitation they face. Fiona Broadfoot told Sky News in 2018 that she was physically abused and exploited by her pimp from the age of 15. She detailed how she was introduced into prostitution within two weeks of first meeting him. She was arrested; her pimp was not. Her criminal convictions have followed her out of prostitution, resulting in employment and education opportunities being snatched from her. Operation Fasthold, a joint operation between Police Scotland and the Home Office, showed that women are trafficked into the UK to meet this demand. In that case, it was mainly women from east Asia, uprooted and coerced into prostitution, afterwards finding themselves at the mercy of our asylum process, stuck in low-paid work or at the hands of another criminal gang. In Edinburgh, over this weekend, 142 women were advertised for prostitution on one website alone. Five of the top 10 adverts are explicitly posted by so-called agencies, so the site does not even try to hide the organised nature of this exploitation. The devastation and exploitation of women continues, and something has to change. The law must deter demand for prostitution and sex trafficking, and reflect the reality that prostitution is violence against women by holding perpetrators and profiteers to account and, crucially, by supporting victims. A growing number of countries and states have adopted this approach: outlawing paying for sex and profiteering from the prostitution of others, while decriminalising victims of sexual exploitation and providing support and exit services. Those countries include France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Their experiences show that demand for sex buyers and the trafficking of women to meet that demand can and must be deterred.