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A prostitute waits for a customer on the streets of Holbeck. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
On a semi-industrial estate in Holbeck, on the edge of Leeds city centre, an experiment in tackling the problems of prostitution has just been given the green light. For the last six years, a mile-wide zone — which creeps across both residential, industrial and derelict wasteland — has provided legal amnesty for both kerb crawlers and the women they buy. The Managed Approach costs Leeds taxpayers an estimated £300,000 annually to maintain and, following the publication of a new report, it is set to become a permanent fixture.
Set up by West Yorkshire Police (WYP) and Leeds City Council (LCC), the rules look simple: women can ply their trade within a certain area, between the hours of 8pm and 6am, without fear of arrest. Men can openly solicit sex from cars or on foot, so long as they stay within the boundaries of the zone. The area is policed, and a well-funded service provides condoms, tea and support for the dozens of women who are probably prostituting in order to buy drugs, whether for themselves or their partners.
Several security cameras cover the area, and a number of yellow bins are visible, in which the women and their punters are encouraged to drop used condoms. Every day, cleaners arrive to remove last night’s debris — which usually includes needles and other drug paraphernalia, empty booze bottles, vomit and items of women’s clothing.
There is ample evidence from residents and other sources that prostitution has bled outside of the zone and into surrounding areas, and that a number of houses on the outskirts have become brothels. There are regular sightings of punters having sex with women in public, including in residential gardens, and women are often heard screaming while being attacked. I have spent time on the zone since 2014, and have spotted pimps, traffickers and drug dealers in and around the area. Many of the zone’s residents, including some of the women who work there, disagree with the recent report that the Managed Approach has been a success.
Campaigners against the zone believe that police and other agencies care little for the safety of the women, now they are supposedly “contained”. Speaking to residents, police, the women and the punters, I have developed a bleak impression of the situation. The punters, many of whom travel from outside of the city, are able to buy a woman with the same ease with which they might pick up a burger, often treating them like meat. “Because they can’t get arrested, they think they can do anything they liked,” says Angel*, a woman who sold sex on the zone during 2018. “I’ve been raped, and one man pissed all over me once and took a photo.”
Sammy*, who was pimped on her 17th birthday straight into the zone by her “boyfriend”, tells me that the police “don’t give a fuck about the women”. She says: “One night I was screaming my head off when a nasty punter got really rough with me, but these two coppers just walked past. All they want is to shove us away from the city centre so we don’t put off the tourists and those going out for meals.” Established local business owners in Holbeck have reported that trade is down because many potential customers avoid the area.
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SubscribeWell said. The overriding problem with these “areas” is that they legitimise the issue of prostitution, together with all the abuse and degradation it involves. Because they are set up and managed by the authorities, it implies that the authorities approve of what happens there.
I can understand how such areas might seem superficially attractive. Councils receiving complaints about street prostitutes must be tempted to shift the problem into manageable and controllable situations, but in the process they will inevitably be seen as condoning prostitution and the circumstances which lead it’s victims to endure it. Surely the efforts of the authorities could be better used in tackling the issues which drive people into prostitution, and supporting them with practical alternatives?
Women are not “driven ” to prostitution. Women may choose it as a way of easily acquiring money in comparison with other possibilities, or (particularly in the case of street prostitutes) as a way to gain an income above benefit levels they don’t have to declare, and without having to go into formal work. Exploiting the natural male desire for partners in number is exploitation OF men, not BY them.
It can be both: exploitation of vulnerable men’s loneliness, and exploitation of vulnerable women’s poverty. The exploiter in both cases is the pimp.
Pimps are normally ‘madams’, former prostitutes, who run parlours or agencies, and usually are empathetic facilitators for women who have chosen to become sex workers but don’t want to go entirely independent, often for security reasons.
They can be, but “normally” is too rose-tinted.
Not so. The women who run escort agencies have to be very good at selecting girls who are right for the job.
Steve whilst much of what your saying makes sense, there’s a much darker side to prostitution, many may choose to do this ‘work’, others are less fortunate. A number of underage (white and Sikh) girls are pimped by their Muslim grooming gang ‘boyfriends’, and also used as currency within their ‘boyfriends’ community. The Triads actively target young Chinese students attending University in the UK, the University sector even when they’re told just holds it’s nose and takes the fee’s, once recruited by their ‘boyfriends’ and often hooked on drugs by them they’re pimped out within the Chinese community. Similarly the young women coming from Eastern Europe looking for work are also dragged into forced ‘indentured’ prostitution, often to service those from a similar origin, threatened with extreme violence if they attempt to escape. The broad brush strokes by both sides miss these very real issues that for many is not a choice of ‘profession’.
As a man you are not likely to be or have been in a position where you have been ‘driven’ or even ‘dragged’ into the profession.
Guffaw! As a male you’re much more likely than a female to have to work in something you don’t want. Do you know anything about the world of work?
As a woman you would be extremely unlikely too.
As a man I could be ‘driven’ or ‘dragged’ into servicing ageing women, or to be a homosexual prostitute.
I can’t imagine how, but then neither could all bar a minuscule proportion of women.
You misrepresent the vast bulk of prostitution as being what pertains to but a tiny minority.
As a woman likewise. You are not likely to be or have been in a position where you have been ‘driven’ or ‘dragged’ into the profession if you’re a woman either.
The vast majority of sex workers are working at their own initiative to exploit the evolved universal male desire for sexual partners in numbers.
With respect, you’re talking complete bollocks.
Why has no resident of Leeds started a private prosecution against the City for aiding and abetting prostitution.
Because a case can’t be made, and because Leeds residents are sensible folk with a balanced understanding of pros and cons, not hate-mongering ideologues.
the overriding issue is that your comments legitimize the idea of non consensual police interventions in sex workers lives…together with all the abuse and degradation these interventions (eg raids deportations evictions etc) involves.
Because authorities such as police can (and do) break their way into sex workers work places (/homes)
& once inside they might film sex workers without consent, detain sex workers, even transport us without consent/by force across national boundares while holding our passports. this seems to imply that if we do face exploitation or abuse at work, that the the authorities approve of what happens there.
I cant understand how such ideas might seem superficially attractive. Councils receiving complaints about street prostitutes must be tempted to actually understand the situation and learn from history-why cant they show some restraint and self control, and for once actually refrain from telling “residents” that the “probnlem” can be moved on…
Surely the efforts of the authorities could be better used in tackling the issues which drive people into expanding police and prison budgets and supporting them with practical alternatives so they can live a more healthy life?
Thank you for writing such an excellent article on an important subject. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that the criminalisation of the pimps and punters rather than the girls (and boys) caught up in the endless cycle of drugs and violence that accompany the trade would be a good first step, especially as it as been shown to work well in other countries.
It has NOT been shown to work in other countries. On the very contrary, it is decriminalising all round that has been shown to work. Just as with the drugs trade, prostitution is driven by the suppliers, and if you want to stop the trade rather than simply perpetrate sex discriminatory hate-mongering, then the only realistic chance would be to target the suppliers. This is what the authorities do in the case of illegal drugs. A focus instead on drug users would be an impossible task, as has long been shown, right back to the 1920s and the US experience of ‘prohibition’.
I think you should read the article and the post to which you are replying again, and more carefully.
Come again? I know this topic inside out, and the author of the author of the article has a long track record of extreme feminist bigotry.
If you know this topic inside out, then you know that the Netherlands has abandoned its much-vaunted experiment, having acknowledged that it has increased the involvement of organised crime and the exploitation of women, rather then easing it. As the author pointed out.
It has NOT been shown to work in other countries. On the very contrary, it is decriminalising all round that has been shown to work. Just as with the drugs trade, prostitution is driven by the suppliers, and if you want to stop the trade rather than simply perpetrate sex discriminatory hate-mongering, then the only realistic chance would be to target the suppliers. This is what the authorities do in the case of illegal drugs. A focus instead on drug users would be an impossible task, as has long been shown, right back to the 1920s and the US experience of ‘prohibition’.
Spot on Julie.
Holbeck was always the ar*ehole of Leeds from when I was at school there in the 1940s & 50s. I now live in the area of Southampton surrounding Derby Road, which had similar issues in the 70s & 80s with the same dreary procession of councillors from all parties advocating the latest trendy Amsterdam-type solutions. Thankfully they were resisted, gentrification and well-organised Sikh, Hindu and Muslem residents groups working happily together saw off the pimps and thugs. Police helped somewhat by publishing the names of punters pulled over by police patrols. We surrender to those people at our peril as people in Leeds will discover.
You’re confusing street prostitution as it used to be — un-managed and on-street as a main form of it — and now, where prostitution overwhelmingly is off-street (through on-line contact), leaving any residue of the on-street form manageable, to be confined in a small non-residential area. Certainly, if there’s spill-over to a residential area then that needs to be complained of.
Being from that area of Southampton I have family connections in the Derby Road area, we would walk through between pubs and be asked if we were looking for trade by the toms, never any trouble and once they knew you weren’t a punter they’d leave you well alone. The area however went down hill after the vibrant, majority Christian, West Indians were forced out, now if you need a Fire appliance you have to hope there’s not one of the areas entitled Muslim’s parked across the Fire stations appliance doors, again, while walking through the area at night would be considered ill advised at best now too. Of course the most expensive bordello in the area back then was located not in Six Dials, but on Hocombe Road, Chandlers Ford, staffed, reportedly, by bored IBM staffers wives who’d make thousands ‘entertaining’ rich Arab’s during the Southampton boat-show, where they’d take over an entire floor in the Holiday Inn on West Quay Road. As for singing the praises for the Police, they weren’t totally squeaky clean, blind eyes when it suited, especially for one of their own, now theirnblind eyes are for the Muslim grooming gangs operating in the city…
You’re confusing or conflating the very different situation decades ago with the present. Indoor prostitution grew enormously, first as parlours then escort agencies providing ‘incalls’ and/or servicing independents. Street prostitution is a minuscule proportion of prostitution nowadays, so easily can be managed in a small non-residential area. If it spills over into anywhere residential then certainly residents should complain. There isn’t the problem there used to be.
Thanks Julie Bindell – again a voice of reason on a cruel sea navigated by many a ship of fools*. I don’t agree with the case against safe zones as its made here, because the Leeds experiment is not really a safe zone for sex workers, its more a safe zone for pimps and drug dealers, plus their natural allies in the police. What seems to work better is a safe zone with regulation and health care facilities and visible police presence – women officers included, this helps scare away the rogue pimps and traffickers. When combined with assisting sex workers who want to leave this is probably as good as it gets. Germany, Finland, Switzerland and Austria seem to fare well on this. Spain also has areas where harm minimization appears to work well – ie cops and locals look out for sex workers as much as they do for the rest of the community. * To add spice to an otherwise pretty dry commentariat perhaps there should be a contest for the most metaphors mixed per sentence? or most Grateful Dead lyrics?
I don’t really have any views on the subject except to say that if many of the women are trafficked, this is made a lot easier by the open borders that Julie and co love so much.
I’m not aware that Julie Bindel is a promoter of ‘open borders’.
surely legalised brothels is the answer? the low life associated with this trade would be out of a job?
Netherlands tried it. They have abandoned it. As has pretty much every other country that has gone that route.
Thank you, Julie, for your tireless work on this ancient problem.
Or, instead of experimenting with these models that don’t work, they could go with the well established model that has worked for decades in Nevada: legalize brothels, and require health and safety standards to be upheld.
I’ve been spending my winters in Pahrump, NV, where two brothels have operated for many years (a third opened but went bust after a few years; a middle-aged woman who cut my hair told me once, “Don’t go there, the girls in there are skanky”), and most of the locals are quite proud of the Chicken Ranch and Cheri’s, that sit side by side at the end of Homestead Road. The brothels produce valuable economic activity in an area that agriculture abandoned due to lack of water, and the women who work there are respected members of the community.
A local museum includes a replica of a brothel in frontier days, and the operator of one contemporary brothel even got elected to the state legislature at the last election. (He died of a heart attack before the election, but the voters still chose him over his opponent!) .
What was Leeds Police, Council and the Authors Position on the abuse meted out to underage children by Muslim abusers.
over 8,500 underage victims in the UK since the early reports first surfaced.
The situation only began to be addressed under the Cameron Government.
Even now the Left are more concerned about well, any group other than the children.
If prostitution is bad can it be stopped ?
If it is bad and cannot be stopped should anything be done ?
Should police intervene if they think sexual activity is too rough ?
If streets are clean and we do not see hypodermics, and used paraphernalia do we still read articles like this one ?
No.
Yes.
Yes. Certainly, if violence is being done to anyone certainly.
Yes. We need more than clean streets with violence out of sight.
One solution to part of the problem could be the introduction of a basicincome.org – it is those like Standing and Bergman who see such a scheme as being of considerable benefit to women, especially those in abusive relationships and may well help others to exit themselves.
I thought we had its called benefits
Ah, yes, solve one problem with an even more catastrophic problem.
Leeds resident here. I do not have any problem with the Managed Approach in principle. Thatis to say I accept that women (and men if it comes to that) should be free to sell sexual services without being harassed or prosecuted or looked down on. I absolutely will not join with those who think that buying such services should be criminalised. They represent a free exchange, which in a relatively free economy and society should be accepted as a legitimate economic activity.
BUT I think there are some problems of execution, and I cannot see how to solve them all.
First, Holbeck is not a purely non-residential area, and I entirely understand the objections of those who live there.
Second, violence has by no means been eliminated. We have had one murder, and there have been other instances of violence.
Third, and presumably linked to the previous point, enforcement of the rules by the police seems patchy at best.
Fourth, I have seen videos which seem to support the claim that there is a lot of rather ugly debris left out of doors as a result of the sexual activities.
The best suggestion I can make is to relocate to a truly non-residential area (if we can find one) and patrol more aggressively to ensure that so far as ever possible the sex is confined to indoors – licensed brothrels, in effect, which I regard as the most civilised solution available.
What is the point of a discussion board that isn’t so much of a discussion as an exercise in censorship whereby many perfectly erudite posts don’t get through, presumbly because of the narrow bigoted, extreme-political yet standard views of those responsible for ‘approving’ each post? The whole point of a discussion forum is to look at usual assumptions and check if they are valid, and to look at counter points that may suggest a better way forward.
People need to call it out when people including feminist make up nonsense words such as ” paid rape ” another famous feminist stated as fact ” all penetration it rape”. That being said the fact is that prostitution should be much better regulated for no more reason than some woman use it as a large man may trade his health for money in a physically hard or dangerous job. No longer can people be paid to dig coal without safety equipment or concerns nor in perpetuity for past deeds. Why can we not protect the vulnerable women properly and stop pretending that all sex is unwanted. Stop making this political please
What do female academics have to say? A zoo analogy comes to mind.
This is plain cowardice. The police know the traffickers but do nothing. The police know the drug pushers but do nothing. If we had a proper legal system we could clear this problem but we don’t. We have a system imported from the planet woke.
Completely false. Two very major police-led multi-agency nationwide operations over several months in search of ‘trafficked’ women found … none. The arrests they made were for illegal
immigration, not because any women were in prostitution involuntarily.
‘Trafficking’ is almost non-existent in the UK. Presumably there is some, but it is on a scale completely dwarfed by women simply choosing to do sex work.
I appear to be the only person commenting here who admits that (thankfully) he know almost nothing about prostitution.
Although I was born and bred in Leeds, I don’t either. But the general mansplaining about ‘willing girls’ and women choosing to sell their sex has made me very angry.
I can understand why. We are all buying and selling to a degree, every time we enter into a relationship with another person, but the balance of power between the parties is crucial. To describe girls as being “willing” negotiators is, in most cases, a misuse of language that borders on the insulting. What next the “willing” serf?
I thought that the sex trade was legal in Amsterdam as early as the ’60’s?
Criminalising prostitution is difficult ” even if you come up with a law that says it’s illegal to sell or pay for sex, it’s not illegal to give someone a gift and then have sex with them (or vice-versa), nor is it presently illegal to make pornographic films, which essentially entails paying actresses to have sex. I believe I’ve previously read that in the United States, in places where prostitution is illegal, it isn’t uncommon for “punters” to bring a video camera for that very reason.
I think we need to be realistic ” the “Nordic” model won’t stop people from trying to sell their bodies, but it will drive the entire thing further underground, making everything far more dangerous and providing even greater gains for criminal enterprise. It certainly won’t dissuade the truly awful end of this, the people traffickers. If anything, they’ll make higher profits and the potential for blackmail is higher too.
As usual, written by someone who knows damned all about prostitution quoting people who know damned all about it either. Let’s start with the first item of ignorance. There is absolutely no shortage of women want to exchange sex for money. There is a vast oversupply. There is a vast under supply of men wanting to exchange money for sex.
Followed to it’s logical conclusion that would mean there is no need for trafficking, so are you saying (a) there is no trafficking or (b) women who want to sell sex need help to get to the marketplace? The implication in your comment is that you’re an expert, so which side of the supply demand equation are you on?
And, by the same logics, since everybody is entitled to receive unemployment benefits, there is no need to steal, therefore no stealing… oh, wait!
As usual Julie you have collected a lot of wind to imply there could be a storm but no real evidence of an actual cloud in the sky. However, your narrative is consistent. Women are victims, nasty horrible men who have sex with them are just bloody awful. Can you find even a single woman in the UK who is responsible for what she does with her vagina?
good news if you want to resist uk’s represive sex laws imposed by “pie in the sky nutters” I like BERLIN myself on the fuggerstr a gay bar ” men for boys,boys for men” 2 hotels round the corner 1 hour 20e,why is germany so progresive ? and relatively free of fuckwits ?
So this gets rid of the idea of trafficking, forced prostitution etc You’re trying to sell a service. The buyers are looking to get a good quality of service. A willing girl will always provide a better service than one that’s forced. Competition has already forced prices down to the level of the money the service providers need to live. You can’t compete in that market & show a profit.
It’s actually the measures taken to restrict or prevent prostitution cause the dangers. You’re never going to get rid of the business. It started the day after they invented money. The more you push it underground the more opportunities there are for the crooks to move in.& control it.
Julie Bindel again here misrepresents prostitution, as she does most things men-women. Extreme feminism is not an objective perspective, being the core of ‘identity politics’, which arose as a Left backlash against ‘the workers’; ordinary men.
Prostitution is the exploitation OF men BY women: the natural male universal desire for partners in number is exploited by women for money.
Any other form of cashing-in on natural inclination would be seen for what it is, but here, because of the very deep-seated prejudice rooted in the foundational fact that the female is the limiting factor in reproduction, we over-protect women and view males as culprits irrespective of circumstances.
As for the notion of Bindel’s that prostitutes themselves refer to what they do as “paid rape”, who is she kidding?! Sex workers / prostitutes / escorts are sick of political activists pretending to represent then when they do the very opposite. The prostitutes’ themselves, through their own organisations, are what we should be listening to — and their customers too.
Reading the article was obviously surplus to your requirements as your mind was clearly made up before it was even published.
Your ‘projection’ there.
I know this topic inside out, having long researched it.
The very last person from whom to get any objective view of prostitution in Julie Bindel. Ask any sex worker.
Who is Bindel trying to kid that prostitutes themselves refer to what they do as “paid rape”? Sex workers / prostitutes / escorts have long been sick of extreme-political activists pretending to represent then when they do the very opposite. The prostitutes’ themselves, through their own organisations, are what we should be listening to — and their customers too. Anti-prostitution activists could not care less about the women involved. Indeed, it’s a resurrection of ‘letting the side down’ re keeping sex unavailable except for a much higher price, but far more pathological and driven by hatred towards men.
Julie Bindel always wholly misrepresents prostitution. She’s a hate-mongering extreme-feminist.Prostitution is the exploitation OF men BY women: the natural male universal desire for partners in number is exploited by women for money.Any other form of cashing-in on natural inclination would be seen for what it is, but here, because of the very deep-seated prejudice rooted in the foundational fact that the female is the limiting factor in reproduction, we over-protect women and view males as culprits irrespective of circumstances.
Prostitution is the exploitation OF men BY women…exploited by women for money…we over-protect women and view males as culprits irrespective of circumstances.
Wow. Just wow. And this was an article about pimped women who have sex with men on the streets,often to pay for drugs and probably 99+% of the time to fund a pimp. I wonder how many of those women feel over-protected.
Can you not even get to first base in basic logic?!
Do you know anything about the world of sex work?
The vast majority of sex workers do not have pimps.
The tiny minority of sex workers who work on the street are very largely occasional, and if they have anyone looking out for them it’s usually another sex worker or a friend. For sure there’s a minority who will be regular and to fund drug addiction — exploiting for money male desire for sexual partners in number.
It is an article purporting to be about prostititon but in fact is a deliberate misrepresentation to fit an extreme ideological position.
As with most things, you are both right, on the extremes, but missing the middle. Which is where there is no exploitation of either sex. Just a fair transaction. Unfortunately, there’s very little of the middle happening. Whatever policy we enact, it should aim to expand the middle.
The reality of the great bulk of prostitution is freely chosen, internet-facilitated, off-street: independent and escort agency work, plus ‘parlours’. The tiny proportion on-street is the very bottom end of the market that has almost dissappeared.
I don’t doubt it. But you describe the transaction there as merely exploitative. How so? Maybe some weaker men are taken for a ride, but otherwise it’s a fair negotiation, no? In fact, prostitution may be one of the few arenas where their is an honest and real understanding. Because, in our society, there are much more effective and socially acceptable ways for a woman to use her sexual powers to control, ie. exploit, a man, and he won’t even know it.
I disagree that there is very little of “the middle” happening, as Steve Moxon’s reply below tesitfies, it’s just that the middle is “boring” and not worth a moral crusade in a day and age when power means controlling behaviour.
Okay, I’ll buy that. Good point.
I agree entirely. But of course an aeticle whose headine refers to ‘paid rape’ is never going to take so realstic a view.