Working the streets is a hazardous "occupation"

In a bid to tackle the sex trade, and the problems such as drugs that have come in its wake, Birmingham City Council is considering using private investigators to collect evidence against pimps and prostitutes.

Seeing your street become a magnet for kerb-crawlers must be the nightmare of all homeowners.

However, is prostitution just another "not in my backyard" issue?

Two-thirds say the sex trade should be allowed to operate off the streets in designated "tolerance zones", according to an NOP survey in 1998.

�2bn industry

Perhaps many of those questioned would be surprised to learn that the street prostitution which dogs Ladywood is already the tip of a flourishing, yet less visible, sex industry.

Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University, has investigated prostitution in the Scottish city.

"There are many more outlets for the sex industry than just the street. There are saunas, massage parlours and escort agencies. Some women work from flats with a list of regular clients. Others are contacted with mobile phones."

Most of these women, not all, come to prostitution reluctantly and with considerable sadness

Professor Neil McKeganey

Adverts in shop windows, phone boxes and even local papers are the discreet signposts to a nationwide sex industry estimated to generate as much as �2bn each year.

In London alone, some 80,000 men are thought to regularly pay for sex. The tiny district of Soho controversially boasts more than 60 flats used by working prostitutes.

Even in a seemingly more business-like environment, Mr McKeganey says the women who work "off street" are no happier than their vilified counterparts.

"Most of these women, not all, come to prostitution reluctantly and with considerable sadness. They say if there were any other way to make the money they do, they would pursue it."

Trapped

Many prostitutes feel trapped in the job, needing to feed their own drug habits - and those of their pimps and partners - or having to repay heavy debts.

Mr McKeganey says a hardcore do have a strong "professional identity" and a "very strong sense of their right to work as prostitutes".

However, moves towards creating "tolerance zones" or normalising the trade are misguided, says Mr McKeganey.

Green light: Some countries have legalised brothels

"It isn't just a job like any other. If only because of the pressures put on many women, by pimps and partners, to sell sex."

Julie Bindel, of the University of London's Child and Women Abuse Unit, also condemns the view that prostitution is just another occupation.

"It's not a victimless crime or a job. It's abuse. Anyone who comes out of prostitution will tell you it's a life of hell. When they're in there, they need to justify it. You couldn't live otherwise."

Exit emergency

Ms Bindel says while efforts to crack down on street prostitution - and particularly the kerb-crawlers who fuel the trade - should continue, a strategy to help prostitutes leave the life is what's really lacking.

"Tolerating off-street venues just makes pimps into 'managers' and punters into 'customers', while the prostitutes find it even more difficult to exit."

[Prostitution] is not a victimless crime or a job. It's abuse

Julie Bindel

Ms Bindel points out that decriminalised brothels in Europe and Australia have not safeguarded prostitutes from violence, coercion or "slavery".

Each year some 700 women are smuggled into the UK to work, often unwittingly and unwillingly, in the off-street trade, according to a Home Office report.

Such activities will continue underground, even if brothels are regulated and licensed, says Ms Bindel.

Scapegoating

A spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) says talk of trafficking is exaggerated as part of an effort to "scapegoat" those "on the game".

"The authorities demonise prostitutes, blaming them for all the problems of the inner cities. They should show concern for prostitutes and stop pitting different sections of the community against each other."

Sign of the times: Advertising the off-street sex trade

While supporting women who want to work on the street, the ECP says operating from a fixed location, with other prostitutes, should be encouraged on safety grounds.

"Studies say women who work on the street are 10 times more likely to face violence."

Whatever their motivation to sell sex, many prostitutes remain confused and embittered by current legislation and "hypocritical" public attitudes.

"Society has an insatiable interest in those who sell sex, while articulating incredibly critical attitudes," says Mr McKeganey.

"They're singled out for vilification, when after all they wouldn't be selling sex if there weren't those willing to buy it in the first place."