Ms Maeve Lewis:

I have no doubt that a small percentage of those engaged in prostitution freely chose to do it. This year there was a notorious interview on the Marian Finucane programme with a woman who called herself Scarlet, a middle class woman who had fallen on hard times and engaged in prostitution without being part of an organised business. I have no doubt that may happen and that an educated person can make such a free choice. However, from our experience in One in Four, when clients talk about their experiences of prostitution, they speak from a position where they had no choice. We must be careful not to patronise people who experienced sexual abuse in childhood, but when people have such low self-esteem, look at themselves with such contempt and have been conditioned to be compliant with the sexual desires of others from childhood, I strongly argue that until a person has had the opportunity to work through all of this, she is not in a position to make an informed decision on such a serious life choice as moving into prostitution.