In Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), the act of engaging in prostitution or exchanging various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, and pimping, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015.
Though laws regulating sex work exist, they are not always strictly enforced, with some reports in March 2016 of police forces turning a blind eye to brothels. Since then, however, there have been reports of crackdowns on brothels in the UK. Many brothels in cities such as Manchester, London and Cardiff operate under the guise of "massage parlours".
Although the age of consent is 16 throughout the United Kingdom, it is illegal to buy sex from a person under 18 where the perpetrator does not reasonably believe they are 18 or over.Legislation In England and Wales, it is an offence to pay for sex with a sex worker who has been "subjected to force", constituting a strict liability offence – wherein the client of a sex worker can be prosecuted for the offence, even in the absence of fault or criminal intent to force a sex worker to provide sexual services for them.
Extent The total number of prostitutes in the United Kingdom is not known exactly and is difficult to assess. At the beginning of the 21st century a rough estimate of 80,000 was widely quoted. In 2009, authorities and NGOs estimated that about 100,000 persons in the country were engaged in prostitution. Research published in 2015 indicated that there were about 72,800 sex workers in the UK; 88% were women, 6% men and 4% transgender men and women. for the Office for National Statistics According to a 2009 study by TAMPEP, of all prostitutes in the UK, 41% were foreign; however, in London this percentage was 80%. The total number of migrant prostitutes was significantly lower than in other Western countries, such as Spain and Italy, where 90% of all prostitutes were migrants. The migrant prostitutes came from: Central Europe (includes Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic) 43%, the Baltic states 10%, Eastern Europe (includes Romania and Bulgaria) 7%, the Balkans 4%, other EU countries 16%, Latin America 10%, Asia 7%, Africa 2%, North America 1%. Thirty-five different countries of origin were identified. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, prostitution contributed £5.3 billion to the UK economy in 2009. In 2015, the HMRC set up a dedicated "adult entertainment task force" to collect unpaid income tax from, among others, online escort agencies.
The sex trade in the UK takes diverse forms, including street prostitution, escort prostitution and prostitution conducted from premises. The premises used include massage parlours, saunas, private flats and Soho walk-ups. In 2003, undercover police visited the lap dancing club Spearmint Rhino on Tottenham Court Road in London and claimed that it was a front for prostitution. In 2008, a study compiled by the Poppy Project found brothels in all 33 London local authority areas. Westminster had the highest number with 71, compared with 8 in Southwark. For this study the researchers had posed as potential customers and had telephoned 921 brothels that had advertised in local newspapers. The researchers estimated that the brothels generated between £50m and £130m a year. Many brothels operated through legitimate businesses which were licensed as saunas or massage parlours. However, the vast majority were in private flats in residential areas. The report found 77 different ethnicities among the prostitutes. The study has been called "the most comprehensive study ever conducted into UK brothels" but its methodology has been criticised, and it has been rejected by sex workers' activists and academic studies. Brothels in the UK are often small; Cari Mitchell, speaking for the English Collective of Prostitutes in 2008, said that "most brothels are discreetly run by two or three women, sometimes with a receptionist, or one woman, usually an ex-sex worker who employs two or three others". There were 55 prosecutions for brothel-keeping in 2013–14 and 96 in 2014–15. In 2017, it was reported that some properties were being rented for a short time for use as "pop-up" brothels, sometimes in isolated areas.
Surveys indicate that fewer British men hire prostitutes than in other countries. Estimates of between 7% (1991 data) and 11% (2010–2012 data) of men in the UK have used the services of prostitutes at least once, compared to 15%–20% in the USA or 16% in France. The authors stress the difficulty of finding reliable data given the lack of prior research, differences in sample sizes, and possible underestimates due to the privacy concerns of survey respondents.
A 2004 survey of street-based sex workers found that the average age of entry into prostitution was 21. In March 2015 the University of Leeds, funded by the Wellcome Trust, published one of the largest ever UK surveys of prostitutes. It found that 71% of prostitutes had previously worked in health, social care, education, childcare or charities, and that 38% held an undergraduate degree. A study published by Swansea University in March 2015 found that nearly 5% of UK students had been involved in sex work in some capacity, including prostitution. Most students went into sex work to cover living expenses (two-thirds) and to pay off debts (45%). About 70% of sex workers were indoor workers.
In 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee conducted its first ever enquiry into the sex industry. Evidence submitted to the enquiry indicated that Britain had about 70,000 prostitutes who earned an average of £2,000 a week. Submissions said that sex workers in Britain charged an average of £78 for services and had around 25 clients per week. Around a quarter were said to be street prostitutes, the rest working from brothels and massage parlours. Reasons for choosing to work in prostitution included homelessness and addiction to drugs. In addition, an increasing number of single parents were said to be opting to work as prostitutes to provide for their families. The committee recommended that, given the current absence of robust data on the subject, the Home Office should commission a research study to inform future legislation.
History One of the earliest pieces of evidence for prostitution in the country was given by the discovery on the banks of the River Thames of a Roman spintria, a small bronze token, depicting a man and a woman engaged in a sexual act. Some scholars have suggested that spintriae are brothel tokens, used to obtain entry to brothels or pay prostitutes.
Medieval period Many of London's medieval brothels were in Cock Lane, as well as the part of Southwark that was under the jurisdiction of Winchester Palace, the residence of the Bishop of Winchester. In 1161 a parliament of Henry II introduced regulations allowing the Bishop to license brothels and prostitutes in the area, which became known as the Liberty of the Clink. As a result, brothels multiplied in the Bankside part of the Liberty. They were popularly known as "stew-houses" as many were also steam-filled bath houses. The bishop was their landlord, and they were often shut down when Parliament was in session for the sake of appearance. Records of court proceedings indicate that priests, monks and friars were among their clients. The brothels had to allow weekly searches by constables or bailiffs, and could not charge prostitutes more than 14 pence per week for a room. Opening was not permitted on holidays, and forced prostitution was prohibited. Prostitutes were not allowed to live at the brothels or to be married, and they were required to spend a full night with their clients. These were the earliest laws in medieval Europe to regulate prostitution, rather than suppressing it, and they provided a significant income for the Bishop. It is thought that the prostitutes, known as Winchester Geese, may have been buried in unconsecrated land at the Cross Bones burial ground.
A series of regulations followed aimed at restricting London's prostitution to Southwark and narrowing its appeal. In the City of London in 1277, prostitutes who worked in brothels were prohibited from living within the city walls. Nevertheless, there are indications that prostitution took place in the City in areas such as Farringdon Without, a frequent haunt of "common women", and also in the neighbourhood between Cheapside and the church of St Pancras, Soper Lane, a notorious district of sexual vice including one street called Gropecunt Lane. In 1310 Edward II ordered the abolition of London's brothels.
Most other towns and cities in medieval England had brothels, and in some places the brothels were official and publicly owned. Prostitutes were generally only allowed to ply their trade on specified streets or in designated areas. Sumptuary laws were often passed requiring prostitutes to dress differently from other women who were considered "respectable". Laws varied from town to town, and prostitution in a particular locale was either regulated, allowed de facto if not de jure, or outlawed. The regulation of prostitution in England lasted until 1546, when a fear that brothels were contributing to the spread of syphilis resulted in Henry VIII issuing a royal proclamation. This outlawed all of the brothels in England and ended "toleration" for prostitutes, who were referred to as "dissolute and miserable persons".
17th and 18th centuries
The presence of prostitution in London in the 17th and 18th centuries is shown by the publication of directories. The Wandering Whore was published in the Restoration period, and listed streets where prostitutes might be found and the locations of brothels. A Catalogue of Jilts, Cracks & Prostitutes was published towards the end of the 17th century and catalogued the physical attributes of 21 women who could be found about St Bartholomew's Church during Bartholomew Fair, in Smithfield. Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies was published in the second half of the 18th century as a pocketbook. It described the physical appearance and sexual specialities of about 120–190 prostitutes who worked in and around Covent Garden (then a well-known red-light district) along with their addresses and prices.
Bullough argues that prostitution in 18th-century Britain was a convenience to men of all social statuses, and an economic necessity for many poor women, and was tolerated by society. Nevertheless, a ban on brothel-keeping was included in the Disorderly Houses Act 1751 as part of legislation against public nuisance. Towards the end of the century, public opinion began to turn against the sex trade, with reformers petitioning the authorities to take action.
19th century
The evangelical movement of the 19th century denounced prostitutes and their clients as sinners, and society for tolerating it.Also available as: Bullough, Vera L. (1987), "Prostitution and reform in eighteenth-century England", in The Vagrancy Act 1824 introduced the term "common prostitute" into English Law and criminalised prostitutes with a punishment of up to one month hard labour."...every common prostitute wandering in the public streets...and behaving in a riotous or indecent manner...shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person." The act also made it a crime for a man to live on the earnings of a prostitute (often known as "living off immoral earnings").
Victorian morality held that prostitution was a terrible evil, for the young women, for the men and for all of society. One of the first pieces of legislation introduced in the Victorian period to restrict prostitution was the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, which made it an offence for common prostitutes to assemble at any "place of public resort" such as a coffee shop.