Don’t be in any doubt that the human trafficking of women for sex, the modern-day slave trade, affects every town and city in Scotland.
This violent and degrading crime is everywhere, in the most unlikely suburban settings, as well as the seedy back streets.
Behind plain, anonymous doors, women are imprisoned and brutalised. Their bodies sold for profit to satisfy men who neither know nor care for the consequences.
We should no longer pretend that this has nothing to do with us or that slavery doesn’t happen on our doorstep.
Because prostitution, or keeping a brothel, is illegal but paying a woman for sex is not, there are few restraints on demand in this illegal market.
Standing the out-of-date laws on their head and criminalising the men who purchase sex would yield instant results.
Adopting the so-called Nordic model of criminalising the purchaser moves the risk, the onus and the humiliation on to the punter and makes them pay.
This has to be accompanied by routes out of prostitution for women and protections for the trafficked victims who are often “recycled” through the trade by pimps and slavemasters.
In countries where the criminality is linked to the purchaser the demand for prostitution is reduced.
The approach is not a silver bullet to the criminal slavers but anything that stems the brutal trade in women from poor countries to gratify men from rich countries should be backed.
