Dr. Derek Freedman:

The stereotype of a person who engages in prostitution or sex work is that he or she has been driven into the work because of a severe need or want and that there is exploitation. I heard an interesting plenary talk at a meeting of the International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections, IUSTI, in October by Professor Sevgi Aral, who had studied in the Ukraine. Her report was interesting and the findings were stunning to me. She reported that rather than being recruited by pimps, the girls approached the pimps asking to be put on their books because they wanted to work.

There is not one universal model. The workers do not fit the stereotypes. The way some of the girls who were workers spoke at the meeting in the Department of Justice and Equality in October was not talk of being exploited. I do not believe that all of the workers fit into this stereotype. There is a much wider spectrum of people doing sex work. Some people may be doing it and not even know in certain social contexts.

The second point refers to what the Deputy described as happening in Stockholm. About 20 or 25 years ago, during a World Health Organization fellowship in Stockholm, I saw the way the systems work there, and they are admirable. It was very interesting. In the late 1970s and early 1980s in particular there was tremendous social support. In the hospitals in Sweden I saw some of the worst cases of deprivation, including cases of skin ulcers and frostbite, that I have ever seen, because people who had fallen through the network had fallen to the ground and there was no support. If someone was in the system it was fantastic but if he or she fell out of the system it could be much worse than anything one could imagine. I would be afraid the same thing would happen here. When I was in Sweden we saw the wonderful clinics, the systems and the contract tracing but if someone fell out of that system he or she could be lost. I am afraid the Deputy may have been shown the system but perhaps not what happens in the apartments, hotel rooms and so on. There is a much wider context. It may not be quite as ideal as what he was shown, and nothing I have heard from my colleagues who work in STI clinics - which are at the hard edge in terms of seeing people who avail of services - tells me there has been any major change.