United Kingdom
In the UK, prostitution itself is legal, but associated activities such as kerb crawling, soliciting in public, keeping a brothel and pimping are not; and the Policing and Crime Act 2009 makes it illegal to pay for sex with a prostitute who has been "subjected to force" and this is a strict liability offence (clients can be prosecuted even if they didn’t know the prostitute was forced). (see Prostitution in the United Kingdom).
Many illegal brothels are disguised as "massage parlours".
In 2005, it was reported that, in Manchester, there were around 80 "massage parlours" which were fronts for prostitution and that the police ignored those establishments, focusing instead on reducing street prostitution.
On October 12, 2005, the Evening News reported that "A self-confessed pimp walked free from court after a judge was told police had 'turned a blind eye' to organised prostitution in massage parlours in Manchester."
In December 2007, the Manchester Evening News removed all advertisements for massage parlours from its personal columns. The move follows a meeting between ministers and newspaper and advertising industry representatives. It followed comments by Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, in the House of Commons on October 25 that some local newspapers were promoting slavery by running sex adverts for foreign women.
The meeting between the government and news and advertising industries - chaired by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker - included Ms Harman, Margaret Hodge, a junior minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Solicitor General Vera Baird, Newspaper Society Director David Newell, Christopher Graham from the Advertising Standards Authority, Baroness Buscombe of the Advertising Association and Roger Wisbey of the Committee of Advertising Practice.
Mr Coaker said after the meeting, on November 1: "We agreed a number of important steps today, and will continue to work together.
"The Government will continue to work with the Police and Local Authorities, and the Newspaper Society has committed to strengthen its guidance to local papers on what adverts to accept, and to raise awareness of this link to trafficking.
"This is just one strand of a range of initiatives, which together will work to eradicate this intolerable trade once and for all."
Read more about this topic: Massage Parlor
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