Ipswich

[catgate]

Does anyone else feel that this country is a mess, when these girls have to resort to prostitution in order to feed their rabbits?

[jdtate101]

Because no matter where in the world .. there are always vulnerable people (ie in bad circumstances for whatever reason), and people who will take advantage of them !!

[Nigel]

Because no matter where in the world .. there are always vulnerable people (ie in bad circumstances for whatever reason), and people who will take advantage of them !!

... and others who will make bad puns about it

[nordle]

catgate, its no laughing matter, please. They need the money to fund their horse riding attire

In some areas of America, brothels are allowed to exist, resulting in increased security, network of support, regular STD testing etc etc

I'm afraid I'm from the bleeding heart, soppy lefty liberal side, and assume that we should recognise, as with many aspects of policy, it should be to make the best of a bad situation.
ie try to minimise the criminal element and actually regain some sort of control.

Apparently one girl from our school (10yrs ago), is extremely happy and well adjusted individual who is making a fortune (not from street tricks though). So not every case is a sad tale of neglect and addiction.

One of the many ironies, a local brothel was closed down, but not before Her Majesty's Revenues and Customs sent them a large income tax bill and the local authority charged them business rates before kicking them out.

The older I get, the more I see, the more people I speak to, the more I think that making something illegal simply makes a not great situation into a much much worse one, where we (society) have to clean up the mess (physical+mental), pay the bills, and many scummy people making millions from it.
I'd much rather the scummy government made millions from it..... not that I'm a fan of the government! Lesser of two evils.

[catgate]

I was struck yesterday by the muddled thinking of our government (or lack of it). The minister said she was going to bring in legislation so that men using prostitutes could be prosecuted. (It is apparently now perfectly legal to pay for sex). However this would then leave this situation quite the reverse of the drug situation, where those selling their wares on the street, the pushers/purveyors are the prime criminals, and are prosecuted, and the users are the "victims".

[rossi46]

I'm not sure how they'd police the 'paying for sex' situation, men have been doing it for years. My house is full of new stereos, expensive perfumes and jewellery.

It's the price we pay for a regular seeing-to

[catgate]

I see the girls are called "sex workers" working in the "sex industry" ! Does this mean drug peddlers are "drug workers" in the drug industry?

[towy71]

Those girls were unfortunates, victims of two sorts of bastards and a stupid society that values anything but our true worth.
rossi46
you're a very shallow chap

[catgate]

What I can not fathom is why, when I was a teenager, 60 years ago, and there was no welfare state, there did not seem to be any need for girls to go out "on the job", to the extent that seems to exist today. Granted there was no drug problem, but that is only due to a more "affluent" society.

[towy71]

up until the late sixties there were heroin addicts that had a clean reliable source of their drug, the NHS through their own GP, but there were some London "specialists" that over-prescribed and the rules were changed

[nordle]

Unforunately the high (relative) price (£) of heroin combined with humans ease to get addicted to it mean they must fund 10-20k/year which equates to something like 40-80k of stolen goods per year per addict. The numbers are staggering. So it's not too long before many users become pushers and the giant pyramid selling scheme gets larger exponentially.

Heroin used to be free, and its again whats the best path of a bad job. Keep it illegal, keep the price high, keep crime rates up, keep millions of untaxed £ going into the pockets of people who will do anything to protect _their industry_.
Or do we say, get them registered and get it on the NHS again. But this time, far less crime, dedicated areas (affectionaly called shooting galleries), access to support staff who can actually pave a way forward to get people off it.

Or do we continue to keep our heads shoved firmly in the sand.

[nordle]

PS. Being male may sway my judgement, I hope not. But criminalising the men, to me, seems a backward step. Your just driving it further underground, how can that possibly make it any safer for the girls?

And as I mentioned earlier, an ex middle class intelligent school friend enjoys her _work_, enjoys people, and gets paid extremely well. Although I can see this is a world apart from the Ipswich streats, I doubt she would be overly happy with her clients being criminalised however.

Exploitation is bad, no doubt, but who's exploiting who in this situation

[catgate]

Exploitation is bad, no doubt, but who's exploiting who in this situation.

Given a little time Gorden will find a way to do so! (In an environmentally friendly way of course.)

[nelz]

What I can not fathom is why, when I was a teenager, 60 years ago, and there was no welfare state, there did not seem to be any need for girls to go out "on the job", to the extent that seems to exist today.

I think the operative word here is "seems". There wasn't the same sensationalist new coverage that society likes to beat itself up with today.

[MartyBartfast]

What I can not fathom is why, when I was a teenager, 60 years ago, and there was no welfare state, there did not seem to be any need for girls to go out "on the job", to the extent that seems to exist today.

I think the operative word here is "seems". There wasn't the same sensationalist new coverage that society likes to beat itself up with today.

Agreed, prostitution has always been rife (it is the oldest "profession" after all). But these days you get to see girls on the news, & in the papers regularly. 60 years ago the only way you'd ever get to see or hear about prostitutes would be if you actually came across them in person, which would be a pretty rare occurence (unless you lived in a sea port or similar).