My name is Laura Lee and I am in independent escort based in Glasgow with twenty years experience in the sex industry. At present, our wellbeing as sex workers is being placed under threat by the proposed introduction of "the Swedish model", by Labour MSP Rhoda Grant.
The Swedish model will effectively make it illegal for a man to pay for my services, although legal for me to advertise and work. Grant is pushing forward this measure because she believes that prostitution is violence against women and inherently harmful and dangerous.
Like this writer, they made an informed choice to enter the industry and enjoy their work. I have visited a lot of the saunas in Edinburgh and spoken first hand to the women therein, and they are very angry that this proposal will deny them the choice to work of their own free will, and take away their independence not to mention their source of income.
One of the chief forms of evidence Grant is seeking to rely on is a paper written by Margaret Melrose which claims that 75 per cent of all women surveyed entered the industry whilst underage. On the face of it that is a horrifying statement to read, but the truth is that the survey was conducted on 47 street sex workers, ALL of whom were underage at date of entry, which gives us seriously skewed data, especially since we now know that on street prostitution represents between 5 and 20 per cent of the sex for sale industry in the UK.
The other 80 per cent you rarely get to hear about because we are the woman beside you in the queue at Asda, that woman you see at the school gates every day, just ordinary women making a living and paying our bills. For a more extensive repudiation of the questionable statistics used by proponents of the Swedish model, I refer you to the excellent response of Dr. Brooke Magnanti. Certainly, there are ancillary issues alongside some street sex workers such as drug addiction and poverty, however - the solution then is not to ban prostitution, but to address the base issues.
