Difficulties faced by residents of 'red light' districts in the UK Essay

Difficulties faced by residents of 'red light' districts in the UK - Essay Example Based on the statistics provided by the Metropolitan Police in London there are around nine boroughs in which prostitution on the streets occurs which actually causes problems to the local residents. In addition to this the Metropolitan Police Service did expose that there are almost certainly 800 saunas, massage parlors and escort representations in London in which almost 5,000+ women work and provide sex services.2 These women have actually been forced or victimized into prostitution.3 Actually street prostitution and connected drug activity can induce real agony for local residents. Of late politicians and police commandants are made more responsible to residents by the local CDRPs (Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships). Prostitution has now turned out to be a foremost trouble in the UK as individuals at a very young age involve themselves in the profession. This profession not only affects the individual involved but their family, children and the local residents are also af fected. Legalizing this profession would not be advantageous since the individuals who are involved will find it very hard to come out of the profession. Apart from this legalizing would also make it a tolerable alternative of occupation. The result is that the dark side of this occupation that is – abuse, coercion, lack of choice – is cloaked under a layer of decency, a facade which those profiting from high benefits persistently uphold. Nearly 81% of women who work in brothels in the UK have come from overseas4; and most of them must have been trafficked. Present UK statute law has nothing to say about off-street prostitution. The present law submissively and unconcernedly approves this view of the trade. Provided that the law does not censure the misuse of prostitution there will always be a requirement for women to prostitute and when this demand is not met by the women who have previously been cajoled into prostituting themselves, coercion or forcing others into t his trade by the powerful will not stop. UN Special Reporter for Human Trafficking Sigma Huda pointed out in a latest report: â€Å"It is not necessary for demand itself to lead to trafficking; rather, it is sufficient that the exploitation fostered by the demand leads to trafficking†¦ The demand side of trafficking is not, therefore, properly understood as the demand for a trafficking victim’s prostitution, labour or services. Rather, demand must be understood expansively, as any act that fosters any form of exploitation that, in turn, leads to trafficking.†5 What is a brothel? Prostitution cannot be termed as illegal at a brothel provided the sex worker does not manage or even run the brothel. When a woman uses her house alone for prostitution, is not a brothel. This was established in (Gorman v Standen6, Palace Clarke v Standen7). On the other hand, where rooms or flats in a single building are leased independently to different individuals who provide sexual se rvices; it may be dealt as a brothel but only if they are in actual fact working jointly. In Donovan v Gavin8 it was demonstrated that the leasing of single rooms in a house under freestanding occupancies and to different prostitutes does not inevitably rule out the house, or portions of it, from being a house of prostitution. Communities & Street Prostitution Street prostitution changes