MPs call for prostitution to be legalised, but demand tough new penalties on pimps

Laws criminalising women working as prostitutes should be scrapped and replaced with tough new penalties targeting customers and pimps who fuel the multibillion-pound sex trade, a year-long parliamentary inquiry has concluded.

MPs and peers of all parties urge Britain to follow Scandinavian countries by aiming the full force of the law against punters, rather than women who might have been coerced into selling their bodies. The starting-point for legislation should be the premise that prostitution amounts to violence against women and is an affront to sexual equality, their report, published on Monday, claims.

It argues for the introduction of a new “general offence” banning the purchase of sexual services. At the same time, soliciting offences that are currently used to prosecute prostitutes should be removed from the statute book. The sale and purchase of sex is currently legal in Britain, but soliciting, pimping, running a brothel and kerb-crawling are illegal.

Their call comes days after the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly for new laws criminalising prostitutes’ clients. In the report, the all-party parliamentary group on prostitution delivers a damning verdict on the inadequacy of the UK’s prostitution laws, some of which date back to the 1950s.

It warns that legal loopholes enable men to evade prosecution for abusing girls as young as 13 and fail to protect women who have been trafficked into Britain against rape.

The group also claims that a lack of political will to tackle the issue has helped turn this country into a lucrative destination for criminal gangs involved in the sex trade.

The Labour MP Gavin Shuker, the group’s chair, said: “The current UK law is not working. It sends no clear signals about what we consider prostitution to be, in effect prioritising the gratification of punters at the expense of often vulnerable women and girls.”

It concluded that current legislation was “complicated and confusing”, with sex workers, rather than punters, often receiving the fines, antisocial behaviour orders and criminal records.

Read More : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-call-for-prostitution-to-be-legalised-but-demand-tough-new-penalties-on-pimps-9164069.html

This is just going to make things worse Legalising the sex industry in my opinion is the best way to protect women from exploitation and better ensure their safety.

One does have to wonder exactly why the British governmnet saw fit to bring in laws against the sex industry over the past three centuries, when the trade itself had been in place for thousands of years ?

The act of 'prostution' itself has never been a crime in Australia; though there are laws against soliciting, pimping, living off the proceeds (i.e. running unlicensed brothels, or strings of call girls/escorts), and "operating a house of ill repute".

Luckily for us 'lone wolves' of the world, we have no such worries ~ visit our 'wives' for a few weeks a couple of times a year; and then wander off through the hills and backcountry to our hearts' content. It's a ruff life !

Well Bee, you don't seem to know a lot about wolves, who are very caring towards each other, live in packs and any 'outsider' trying to take his pick of the wives would be set upon by Alpha male.