Consenting sex is not a crime. Criminalising clients will not stop prostitution; it will push it further underground, making it more dangerous and stigmatising for sex workers.
Most sex workers are mothers, mostly single mothers driven into the sex
industry by lack of economic alternatives to prostitution: unemployment, poverty, low and unequal wages. Many are young women trying to pay extortionate rents, university fees, debts . . .
Where is End Demand's outrage at UK benefit cuts and
sanctions which are hitting mothers and children hardest, at mothers skipping meals to feed their children or having to resort to food banks?
What they say about the Swedish model is misleading and hides the truth: 25% of Swedish single mothers
now live in poverty compared to 10% seven years ago; sex workers who are mothers face losing their children; sex workers facing violence are now too afraid to go to the police for protection as the stigma of prostitution has increased.
The All
Party Parliamentary Group on prostitution which last year recommended the criminalisation of clients, refused to look at any of that. They have also refused to disclose how many of those who submitted evidence to them actually agreed with the
criminalisation of clients. John McDonnell MP has asked to see the submissions but the APPG has been unforthcoming so far. They also refused to look at how decriminalisation was working in New Zealand, and its positive impact of sex workers' health and
safety.
End Demand quotes Alan Caton, Suffolk's former Chief Superintendent. But the murders of five women in Ipswich in 2006 were preceded by a police crackdown. So were the murders of three women in Bradford in 2009-2010. Sex workers were
hounded and forced out of their established red light areas into bleak industrialised areas, away from the concerned eye of the community.
We are not the only ones to have noticed that crackdowns endanger women's lives. Mariana Popa, a young
immigrant mother, was murdered on the streets of Ilford, London, last October, in the wake of a police crackdown against clients. Following her death, senior police officers raised concerns that operations to tackle prostitution are
"counterproductive" and likely to put the lives of women at risk .
Chris Armitt, the national police lead on prostitution in England and Wales, also called for a review of enforcement tactics aimed at prosecuting prostitutes:
We are not going to enforce our way out of this problem. It simply won't work. I feel it would be good to allow a small group of women to work together, otherwise it creates a situation where they are working away from
other human support. I think the disadvantages of working alone outweigh the advantages.
While more and more time and resources are being diverted into policing prostitution, rape and child abuse continue on a mass scale despite
thousands of victims coming forward. Where were the police when children were being abused in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, and in children homes all over the country? Where were they when women and their children were killed by violent partners and
ex-partners? Where are they now when the same perpetrators continue to avoid prosecution? What is their connection to the perpetrators whose crimes they have aided and abetted?
Increasing the powers of police to deal with prostitution has already
resulted in more arrests, raids, stealing and seizing the earnings of sex workers, and other abuses of power and corruption. No one who is calling for the criminalisation of clients has shown any interest in this.
The North of Ireland Assembly has
just voted to criminalise clients. But Scotland has refused and so has France. It is time to look at decriminalisation and that's what we are campaigning for.
The Times reports that new laws which have made it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland have resulted in just one arrest.
Sex worker support groups said that the figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, proved that the measures
could not be enforced.
The legislation, which came into effect in June means that sex workers are no longer able to make basic security checks such as getting to know who their customers are. Meanwhile it has the potential to destroy the lives of
men and their families just for wanting to get laid.
The Northern Ireland justice minister has said he disagrees with plans to make it illegal
to pay for sex in the Republic after The Times reported that just one man was prosecuted under similar legislation in the North.
David Ford said the laws, brought in after a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly in June, were the result of populism rather than practicalism
and are not useful.
Consenting sex is not a crime. Criminalising clients will not stop prostitution; it will push it further underground, making it more dangerous and stigmatising for sex workers. 
The Times reports that new laws which have made it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland have resulted in just one arrest.