'We were treated like animals': Woman opens up on life as a prostitute in Edinburgh brothel

A woman has spoken out about the horrors of being repeatedly raped and “treated like an animal” while working in an Edinburgh brothel.

Fiona Broadfoot was first trafficked into prostitution at the age of 15. She spent 11 years as a prostitute, worrying every day that she would be murdered by the men who paid for her body.

Fiona Broadfoot spoke first hand of the horrors of prostitution | TSPL

“I was in a brothel in Edinburgh where there was heroin use going on and heavily pregnant women,” Ms Broadfoot said. “We were told by the man running it that we should wash the customers’ penises rather than using condoms and if we refused, we were kicked out.

“We all stayed in the same bed and breakfast next door to his residential home with his family. We were treated like animals and this was all licensed by Edinburgh City Council, but not one person came to check on us.

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“These were not dirty old men in raincoats. They were teachers, doctors and lawyers, and they could do exactly what they wanted because there was no accountability.”

She said the men who pay women for sex in Scotland are “invisible”. Research suggests around 4 per cent of Scottish men have paid for sex in the past five years.

Ms Broadfoot is now calling for MSPs in Scotland to support proposals from Alba MSP Ash Regan to overhaul prostitution laws by introducing what is known as the Nordic model.

This model would see the selling of sex decriminalised and the buying of sex criminalised.

Ms Broadfoot, who runs Build A Girl, a group that helps women exit prostitution, said: “Every day I experienced rape by ordinary men whose lives were not impacted for one second like the women and girls they used.

“I was criminalised, but the perpetrators who bought me, the men who trafficked me and the men who profited off me were not. In the Edinburgh brothel the men came in on their lunch hours, dinner hours, or on the way home to their families and children.

“They are hidden and there are thousands of them. I cannot even begin to think about the amount of men who bought my body and used it for their sexual gratification.”

Ms Broadfoot added: “These men live amongst us. Prostitution is the most dangerous life to lead because every single man you meet could murder or rape you.”

Edinburgh Council has been approached for comment.