Why are brothels illegal in the uk

If anything were to happen to her at work she wouldn't be able to call the police for fear of being arrested. Sky News sent freedom of information requests to 45 police forces asking for the number of arrests for suspected brothel-keeping offences from January to the end of August Many of the arrests do not result in prosecutions, with figures from the Ministry of Justice revealing that only 48 people were put on trial from to Laura Watson, a spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, has dealt with many cases where the arrest was "ridiculous" and there was "no public interest" in prosecuting the individuals concerned.

She said sometimes arrests were made where it was "just a landlord-tenant relationship" with "no force and coercion", in which the person detained for suspected brothel-keeping was a landlord that had "nothing to do with the running of the business". Earlier this week, a Labour MP called on the government to "criminalise buying sex", a proposal Ms Watson described as "outrageous". Dame Diana Johnson, who leads a group tackling sexual exploitation, said that men in the UK who paid for sex were "fuelling" a "brutal" sex-trafficking trade that was destroying lives.

I worry that they are trafficked. Men come to the house all hours of the day and night. Supporters of the zone point to the lack of arrests of pimps or traffickers as evidence that no criminality is occurring in the zone.

For Basis, the benefits of the zone are that women are no longer being arrested and stigmatised, has better access to its services, and can be helped to find alternatives to prostitution.

But what about the punters? On a street just outside of the zone, a lone man sits in his car, hazard lights on. I asked if he would be happy to talk to me about coming to the zone to pay for sex.

I explained I was a journalist, and he agreed to talk. I like female company so this is a good arrangement. Prostitution in the UK —with the exception of Northern Ireland, where buying sex is illegal—exists in a legal grey area. While the selling of sex is technically legal, plenty of related activities are not, meaning a system of partial criminalisation is in place.

Some of the banned activities include brothel-keeping, pimping, kerb-crawling, pandering and soliciting or buying sex in a public place. It is legislation surrounding these banned activities that has attracted the most criticism—in particular, the criminalisation of brothel-keeping. Under UK law, a brothel is defined as a property where more than one person sells sex.

This means that prostitutes are technically committing a crime if they decide to work together indoors—something which many sex workers choose in order to look after their own safety. A law intended to protect sex workers from being exploited might in fact be endangering them. Many have also criticised the extent to which the police are locally given power over sex-work policy. While charging practice is to prioritise and eliminate sexual exploitation and trafficking, many are sceptical of the power the police is granted when it comes to creating and implementing policy given the leverage that this can potentially give them over sex workers.

Other criticisms have also emerged in relation to the Proceeds of Crime Act , which gives courts the power to confiscate any assets they suspect have been acquired through criminal activity. If a sex worker has engaged in criminalised aspects of sex work, such as brothel keeping or soliciting, they could be wary of reporting incidents to the police for fear of having their earnings confiscated. Among those who have denounced the current UK prostitution laws are feminist organisations, politicians and sex workers themselves.

Also known as the Swedish model or the sex-buyer law, the Nordic model aims to end the demand for, and therefore eliminate, prostitution. As its name suggests, this system has been adopted by many Nordic countries including Sweden, Norway and Iceland, alongside others such as France, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Statistics from UglyMugs — an app where sex workers can confidentially report incidents of abuse and crime — state the number of such incidents being reported has greatly increased since the law was introduced.

They say crime against sex workers has increased 90 per cent, while violent crime specifically has increased 92 per cent. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later?

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