Ruthless Scots trafficking case sparks calls to prosecute people who pay for sex

People who pay for sex should be prosecuted, according to a Scottish charity.

CARE for Scotland says the purchase of sex should be criminalised – an approach already taken in Nordic countries.

A Scots charity’s call for a reform of prostitution laws comes after three people in Scotland were jailed this week for a combined 20 years for involvement with human trafficking and prostitution in flats in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A string of women, mainly from east Asia, were exploited by a crime mob to provide sexual services in Glasgow, Edinburgh and throughout the UK.

Louise Davies MBE, Director of Advocacy and Policy at CARE, said: “Awful cases like this underline the need for a change in approach in Scotland.

“Sex buyer laws target those who pay for sex – primarily men – and in doing so, directly challenge a demand for sexual services that fuels criminal industries like human trafficking. Purchase of sex laws have been successfully embedded in several countries including France, Sweden, Norway, and Northern Ireland. Scotland should join them.

“To provide a disincentive to prostitution and drive down demand for sexual exploitation, the courts should punish sex buyers. Men seeking to pay for sex with vulnerable, often exploited women – including women who have been trafficked – face no disincentive to their actions if they do not face the threat of criminal action.

“Convictions can be obtained through routine policing techniques, as evidenced abroad and in parliamentary research. In Sweden, convictions rose steadily as the country’s law was embedded, from 10 in its first year of operation, to 326 in its eleventh year. Scotland can introduce a similarly robust scheme that makes a real difference.

“We would urge the Scottish Government to introduce legislation that punishes men who pay for sex, creating a clear deterrent and making it clear that this exploitative manifestation of gender-based violence has no place in a modern Scotland.”

Xiao Min, 38, Qin Huang, 31, and Guolei Huang, 35, were sentenced this week after being snared as part of the joint Police Scotland and Home Office probe Operation Fasthold.

At the High Court in Glasgow on Tuesday, Min was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after he pled guilty to a charge under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act, which included the “aiding and abetting of prostitution”.

Qin Huang was sentenced to eight years after she admitted to the same crime. The charge spanned between December 2018 and September 2021.

Guolei Huang was locked up for four years and three months. He had previously pled guilty to being involved in the management of a brothel at three of the flats.

£200,000 had been spent on ads on the Viva Street adult site by a so-called “business agency”.

Young women, mainly from east Asia, were exploited by a criminal gang to provide sexual services in a scheme described as “degrading” by a Scottish judge.

Sitting at the High Court in Glasgow, Lady Justice Poole said: “Brothel keeping and trafficking women for prostitution involves the deliberate degrading of fellow human beings.

“Prostitution is a dehumanising experience. Women often end up being deprived of the ability to act in their own interests. They are valued not as people, but as a potential source of profit.”

Often, women who are trafficked are kept as slaves and kept in horrific circumstances purely for criminals to profit from their misery.

In Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), the act of engaging in sex as part of an exchange of 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, pimping and pandering, are illegal.

In February, the Scottish Government announced a new national hub that will “bring together specialist services which support women affected by commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) – linking them more closely with local services, such as housing, health and social security”.

The government stated that: “Lessons learnt from the piloting of the Strategy will help inform any future legislative considerations, including whether to criminalise the purchase of sex.”

CARE for Scotland has accused Ministers of ‘dragging their heels’ on the issue, as the government has long recognised prostitution as a ‘form of violence against women’.

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