Prostitution
Of the estimated 80,000 people
involved in prostitution in the UK, up to 5,000 children may be
involved at any one time, with a female to male ratio of four to
one. [Home Office (2004), Paying the price]
63% of women in prostitution
experience violence. [Barnard. M., Hart, G. and Church, S. (2002)
Client violence against prostitute women working from street
and off-street locations: A three city comparison. Economic
and Social Research Council.]
More than half of women in
prostitution have been raped and or seriously assaulted and at
least 75% have been physically assaulted at the hands of the pimps
and punters. 74% of women in prostitution identify poverty, the
need to pay household expenses and support their children, as
primary motivators for being drawn into prostitution. [Home office
(2004) Solutions and Strategies: Drug Problems and Street Sex
Markets: London: UK Government]
Up to 75% of women involved in
prostitution began when they were under 18 years of age and most
teenage prostitutes are involved in street prostitution, which is
estimated to be ten times more dangerous than working from houses
or flats. [Benson, C. and Matthews, R. (1995), Street prostitution:
Ten facts in search of a policy in International Journal of
Sociology of the Law, Vol. 23, pp395-415]
Victims of child sexual abuse are
27.7 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution as adults
than non-victims. [Widom, C.S. 1995. Victims of Childhood
Sexual Abuse-Later Criminal Consequences. Research in Brief.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, National Institute of Justice].
75% of children abused through
prostitution had been missing from school. [Home Office Paying the
Price, 2004]
Despite the fact that a criminal
record can have life-long consequences for young women, the
Government maintains there are 'compelling arguments' for
maintaining criminal offences for sex workers under 18 years.
[Rees, G. (2001), Working with runaways: Learning from practice,
The Children's Society: London and YWCA: Oxford]
Women in prostitution are 18 times
more likely to be murdered than the general population. [Hard Knock
Life, New Philanthropy Capital 2007]
70% of those involved in street
prostitution have a history of Local Authority care. Nearly half
report a history of childhood sexual abuse. [Home Office: Paying
The Price, 2004]
74% of women involved in
prostitution cited poverty, the need to pay household expenses and
support their children, as a primary motivator for entering sex
work. [Melrose, M. (2002), Ties that bind - Young People and the
Prostitution Labour Market in Britain presented at Fourth Feminist
Research Conference, Bologna: September 2000]
As many as 85% of women in
prostitution report physical abuse in the family, with 45%
reporting familial sexual abuse. [Home Office Paying the Price,
2004]
87% of women in street-based
prostitution use heroin. [M. Hester and N. Westmarland, Tackling
Street Prostitution: Towards an Holistic Approach, Home Office
Research Study 279, London, 2004]
92% of prostitutes stated that they
wanted to escape prostitution immediately. [Melissa Farley, Isin
Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, "Prostitution in Five
Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" (1998)
Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426]
Only 19% of women working as
prostitutes in flats, parlours and saunas are originally from the
UK. [The Poppy Project, Sex in the City: Mapping Commercial Sex
Across London, 2004]
80,000 women work in 'on-street'
prostitution in the UK. The average age women become involved being
just 12yrs old. [Home Office, Paying the Price. A consultation
paper on prostitution, 2004]
In the UK as many as 60 women
involved in prostitution have been murdered in the last 10 years.
[Home Office, Paying the Price: A consultation paper on
prostitution, 2004]
People are much less likely to be
convicted of murdering a prostitute than of any other murder. The
conviction rate of 75% for murder drops to 26% when it comes to
killings of women in prostitution. [Raymond, K., Brothels and
safe red light areas are the only way forward, in The Observer
December 17 2006]
A report in the British Medical
Journal about client violence towards women in prostitution stated
that of the 125 women in indoor prostitution contacted, 48% had
experienced client violence. The types of violence experienced
included: being slapped, punched, or kicked; robbery; attempted
robbery; beaten; threatened with weapon; held against will;
attempted rape; strangulation; kidnapped; attempted kidnap; forced
to give client oral sex; vaginal rape and anal rape. [Violence by
clients towards female prostitutes in different work settings:
questionnaire survey, Stephanie Church et al in BMJ
2001;322:524-525 (3 March)]
The Government's figures for 2002
show that there were 2,678 convictions for soliciting in comparison
to only 993 convictions for kerb crawling. [Home Office
Communication Directorate website]
