Policing and Crime Bill

I have put my name to this amendment. We have heard the legal arguments and I want to advance a little more evidence. A very interesting study, at which I have had an advance look, will be published on 10 July. It has been commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council at the University of East London and is entitled Migrants in the UK Sex Industry by Dr Nick Mai. There are many conclusions but the ones relevant to this discussion show why it would be so difficult for a client to know. Not all prostitutes are women who have been trafficked; we often think of them as helpless victims who have been kidnapped. Dr Mai found that many of the people interviewed were from relatively privileged backgrounds who had aspirations to improve their living conditions. They had employed traffickers to help them come to this country. They paid money to be trafficked. Are they victims? They were self-determining; they chose that for themselves, partly because for those with undocumented status, the sex industry provides a way of working away from the public eye as it is largely informal. There were many more findings of that nature. So knowing whether someone is actually a victim and is being coerced is not that simple. The second finding that has some bearing on this debate is that less than 10 per cent of the people interviewed had experience of exploitation. In all those cases, the clients played a key role in their strategy for escape. Women count on their clients, and if the clients are criminalised, they will not be able to help.