| Men in Glasgow spend an estimated �6.6m a year on prostitution, visiting saunas, private flats and escorts, it was revealed yesterday. Peers and MPs were told that despite the best efforts of the police, council and voluntary organisations, the sex industry in the city was expanding with lap-dancing clubs and other services opening up. Giving evidence to Westminster's joint committee on human rights, Ann Hamilton, of the corporate violence against women section at Glasgow City Council, said it was difficult to build a true picture of the extent of the problem because the sex industry was very much "underground". However, Ms Hamilton said one analysis suggested 264,000 visits to prostitutes at a cost of �6.6m a year "on saunas, flats, escorts . . . and other take-away sex services", an average spend of �25. She said as long as there was a market for sex in Glasgow, there would be a market for trafficking vulnerable foreign women into the city. "We know of 112 foreign women involved in prostitution in Glasgow, and that will certainly be an underestimate," she said. "Through third-party reporting and general contacts, we have concerns about the welfare of 46 of those women with specific reference to trafficking." Women from Lithuania, Albania, China, Thailand, Eastern Europe, Sudan, Kenya, and Hungary were currently being prostituted in the city. "We know a lot about how the women suffer. What we don't know a lot about is the men who are buying their services," Ms Hamilton said. "We have anecdotal evidence of brothels sharing women, moving them from city to city, from Glasgow to Edinburgh or Newcastle." The committee, which is conducting an inquiry into human trafficking, heard how Glasgow was one of the leading cities in its approach to tackling human trafficking. Three years ago, the council established an inter-agency working group involving the Scottish Executive, Strathclyde Police, the NHS, immigration services, Women's Voluntary Network, Scottish Refugee Council, and Glasgow asylum support service. Ms Hamilton said: "Training and awareness for police staff is very important. Police have gone into a number of premises and the women have said what they have been told to say - that they are there of their own free will, that they are not in danger, that they have a boyfriend. If they took that on face value, they wouldn't stay and find out the full story." Ms Hamilton said the situation was improving. "Through our project, the police are more likely to get the full story, but it is an issue of resources." Elsewhere yesterday, a British actress spoke out against human trafficking, calling it one of the most "fantastically difficult problems we face today". Julia Ormond was speaking in Bangkok, Thailand, in her capacity as United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime goodwill ambassador for the abolition of slavery and trafficking, a position she has held since December. She follows in the footsteps of other stars such as Angelina Jolie, who has lobbied widely on behalf of the UN to publicise the plight of refugees. Ormond opened a three-day regional conference on human trafficking, a crime which has a low profile but is particularly widespread in south-east Asia. |
