Nurses vote for licensed brothels to protect sex workers

Published on Wednesday 13 May 2009 22:05

PROSTITUTES should be allowed to work in mini-brothels to help protect them from violence, nurses said yesterday.

Such a move would see up to four prostitutes being allowed to work together without fear of prosecution, they claimed

The Home Office backed such a plan in 2006 but it was dropped after opposition from local communities, who feared it would lead to more brothels springing up.

The Home Office also found little evidence that such brothels would be safe.

Yesterday, nurses at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) conference in Harrogate voted by 93 per cent to 7 per cent in favour of allowing such mini-brothels.

On Monday, The Scotsman revealed that nurses wanted local authorities to license brothels in efforts to improve safety.

Introducing the motion, Carol Watts, a nurse from Cambridgeshire, said other countries, including New Zealand, had successful schemes.

She said: "This is not a debate about whether prostitution is right or wrong – it is about whether this legislation will protect sex workers.

"The simple truth is there will always be people who want to pay for sex without commitment, and there will always be women who will do it.

"We should acknowledge that this is part of life and make sure that there are no marginalised women in this country.

"Allowing these workers to have the same standards of safety as others in the community is surely what we should all be responsible for."

She said that if brothels were legalised, it would be easier to give sex advice, condoms and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases to prostitutes.

And she said it would enable health workers to target issues like drug and alcohol dependency.

She said: "Perhaps the stigma of working women will reduce over time, and we will remove our morality goggles."