Prostitution laws

Published on Thursday 10 December 2009 20:53

While I have some sympathy for the motives of those who would introduce legislation to ban prostitution (your report, 9 December), I fear their efforts are misguided.

First, it is highly unlikely to achieve its objective. Past efforts to ban the oldest profession have been doomed. Even John Calvin, in the near-theocracy that was 16th-century Geneva, found that no sooner had he made a public disgrace of prostitutes and driven them beyond the city walls than they returned with staggering alacrity. Such laws simply do not work and any law which cannot be enforced is, by definition, bad law.

Second, driving prostitution underground would increase the risk of ill-treatment and exploitation prostitutes face.

Prostitution will disappear only when there is no longer any demand for it and the only way to achieve this is through educating sections of the male population to understand that the exploitation of women demeans both parties.

DAVID HAMILL

Viewforth Place

Pittenweem, Fife

Ruth Morgan-Thomas is, undoubtedly, correct in asserting that the desire to criminalise people who pay for sex is driven by (pseudo) morality and ideology.

Attacking the demand side of prostitution will lead to its becoming nastier and more criminal than it already is; it will go underground. Those who want this would be as well making laws about the setting and rising of the sun, such is their detachment from reality. Legalise, regulate and tax – if necessary.

And since when did Strathclyde Police see shaping public opinion as part of their brief? I thought their job was to apprehend criminals.

DAVID MILLAR

Tytler Gardens

Edinburgh