Population: 

60 million

Number of prostitutes:

80,000

Of which migrant:

20,000 (but 60% in inner cities)

De Jure

Prostitution:

"Prostitution itself is legal, but several related activities are outlawed. It is illegal to solicit, to advertise or to run a brothel."

Trafficking:

No specific legislation, but covered by sex-related acts (see new legislation proposed 2002)

De Facto

A team of officers of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) investigated 75 brothels in Soho, central London. They found that they had a combined turnover of £ 1 m a month, with each woman earning £ 350 a day on average. 76% of the brothels were staffed by foreign prostitutes, mostly from Albania and Lithuania.

In a survey of sex establishments carried out by the Metropolitan Police, a dramatic rise in the number of immigrants working as prostitutes in central London was registered.

According to the NCIS, the police service in general regards prostitutes as victims of crime and prosecution is usually reserved for the most persistent offenders, as a last resort where all other options has failed.

The Home Office is also considering introducing a new criminal offence of bringing a woman into the country to work as a prostitute, which will carry a fine and imprisonment (see proposed bill .pfd)

"…when trying to establish whether they [foreign women] are legitimately in the country, how they got there, and where they came from… If they cannot produce papers or a passport, the police are obliged to take them to a police station and hand them over to the immigration authorities (they are thus treated as illegal immigrants, not as victims of sexual abuse).  In most cases these women are victims of a much larger trafficking operation, and the traffickers can control entire groups of women . Often they own the leasehold on a number of flats, and can move the women around to avoid suspicion"