Margo MacDonald: Sex trade needs to be managed

IT'S been déjà vu week in the Scottish Parliament, all over again.

The same group of Glaswegian gals who tried and failed to abolish prostitution in Scotland found another route into trying to change the law without going to the trouble of drawing up a Bill, putting their propositions on the table and fighting for them.

The high-minded group that includes MSPs, council officials and councillors has latched on to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill and tabled amendments that would create a ridiculous situation were they to pass into law.

Previously, these very judgemental ladies, who leave opponents with the feeling of having met the "unco guid" addressed by Robert Burns, put their energies into Routes Out of Prostitution, a Social Inclusion Partnership with the modest objective of "abolishing prostitution by shrinking the market".

They didn't, of course, but they did succeed in undermining the sensible, pragmatic local policies for the management of street prostitution introduced by the Grampian and Lothian and Borders police forces.

Following the introduction of the law against kerb-crawling, that was only really sought by one district in Glasgow, other aspects of the Act required the Grampian police to discontinue policing prostitution in a manner and in a known red light area that contained the activity, allowed it to be policed without hugely expensive manpower and enabled the anti-drugs, women's and sexual health services etc to meet women working on the streets.

Taxpayers wouldn't be unreasonable if they expected the Routes Out of Prostitution activists and employees to have something to show for the 1.9 million of public money.

Although Ann Hamilton, an executive for a Glasgow council arms-length company, promised two different committees that she would supply them with policy notes and financial details so that the efficacy of the Routes Out service could be evaluated, not a line of hard analysis or column of figures has ever appeared.

So in the absence of proof, what is to inform the policy on what we must now call the Sex Industry?

Routes Out didn't base their opposition to the Expert Committee's suggestion that the buyers and sellers of sex should be treated equally, and only be pursued if the activity of buying or selling sex alarms or causes a nuisance to other people. (The Expert Committee was set up during the last Parliament and chaired by former Assistant Chief Constable Sandra Hood, following the defeat of the Bill I introduced.) Their opposition was based on a complete intolerance of behaviour they classified as exploitative of women.

This attitude still characterises their approach to prostitution, even though the supposed "oldest profession" has undergone very wide-ranging changes in the last five, never mind ten, years.

Since Routes Out started their well-funded campaign, there are fewer women selling sex on the streets of Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Only in Glasgow are the estimated numbers possibly greater than five years ago, and only there are new red light areas in evidence.

In Edinburgh and Aberdeen, women have moved indoors, often to saunas and sometimes into lap-dancing, but more likely into private flats. Contact with clients can be maintained via mobile phones and the internet.

For most uninvolved members of the public, that's all right. Certainly in Edinburgh, sex being sold amongst consenting adults is in the main hidden from public view, and judging from the lack of complaints to the local police, the business is conducted very discreetly. There remains the vestiges of a street scene around Leith, but in the main, there's not much to be seen on the surface,

So why isn't everybody happy? Well, for outfits like Scotpep in Edinburgh, and other support services, it becomes very difficult to reach the women at the right time with the right support package to help them get out of the business as and when they can sustain job training, a personal development course etc. Also, police can lose touch with who's around the paid-for sex scene.

Under the old system, police knew if anyone was trying to use the management zone as a drug market, or if there were under-age girls, or boys come to that, being exploited.

The Glasgow team have a new horror to talk up and campaign against – trafficking. Just as their statistics on the triumphs and failures of the 1.9m, publicly-funded drive to eliminate sex from the streets of Glasgow remain a well-kept secret, so the numbers of women from former Eastern bloc countries and the Far East coerced into working in brothels in Scotland remain pure conjecture.

It's time the Scottish Parliament told these campaigners that, sadly, history shows traded sex as part of the human condition, and has potential for great wickedness, cruelty and criminality – therefore it will be managed in everyone's best interests.