Scandal reignites paid sex debate

A PROSTITUTION scandal involving three French football team players has reignited a debate on legalising brothels.

Sidney Govou, Karim Benzema and Franck Ribéry were among people questioned by police about a prostitution ring linked to a night club in Paris.

The scandal has hit the national team just ahead of June’s World Cup and has stirred up the debate on legalising prostitution.

MP Chantal Brunel in March chaired the first meeting of a committee looking into reopening brothels in France – they were outlawed in 1946.

France last legislated on prostitution in 2003 when then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy brought in a law against soliciting. Ms Brunel admitted she voted for it but said it had been a mistake.

“Prostitution is more discreet but it has gone underground as it has moved out from the town centres,” she said, adding that conditions for women working on the edges of towns had deteriorated – there were more prostitutes linked to people trafficking, and more violence.

Ms Brunel believes legal brothels would enable women to work in safety with medical and social support.

She proposes an arrangement where the women would be shared tenants, tax payers and without their earnings passing via pimps.

According to a recent survey by the newspaper Le Parisien, 59% support the idea and only 10% oppose it.

However associations connected with prostitution were largely opposed.

Bernard Lemettre, president of Mouvement du Nid, which helps people come out of prostitution, said people only supported brothels because they did not know about the violence involved. However Claude Boucher of Le Bus des Femmes, which helps working prostitutes (and opposes brothels), said “real prostitutes” should not be confused with “sex slaves” exploited by criminals. Prostitutes just “wanted to do their job in peace, and legally” – referring to the anti-soliciting law.

Sex-workers’ union Strass say the experience of countries like Germany and Holland is that brothels end up under the control of pimps. “We don’t want to be under the orders of a boss,” said spokeswoman “Mistress Gildas.”

Head of anti-prostitution body Fondation Scelles, Jean-Sébastien Mallet, said: “Every ten years someone has the same idea – if the brothels were closed it was for a good reason.”