This report is dedicated to the many women who have lost their lives as a result of prostitution. Thank you to all the prostitution survivors who generously gave up their time to talk to us. Sarah Mills painstakingly trawled data, found needles in haystacks, and kept a sense of humour and cool head throughout. Louise Hinchliffe created the database and provided technical expertise. Nicky Pruss conducted interviews with women survivors of prostitution.
Without the men who telephoned brothels and obtained the crucial information on which this report is based, it would have been impossible to conduct this survey. Their work was often unpleasant and disturbing, but they behaved ethically and sensitively throughout the process. As the Chief Executive of Eaves, an organisation which deals with the consequences of male violence towards women and children, I welcome this report into the largely-ignored off-street sex market in London.
Prostitution helps to construct and maintain gender inequality. To achieve gender equality we need to start from the understanding that these differences are social, not biological, constructions.
We need to develop diverse kinds of interventions to challenge and change these perceived, artificial differences. Nowhere is the inequality more stark than in the case of prostitution, where the roles of women and men are constructed as fundamentally different, in ways that support and maintain gender inequality.
For example:. Women in prostitution are routinely regarded by many as dirty, promiscuous, worthless and as having chosen their fate, therefore not even deserving the status of victim. This means they are robbed of ever being seen as survivors when they do manage, against all the odds, to escape the abuse of prostitution. We are told that prostitution is a choice, and that just a few women may have been forced.
