‘We need to target men who use the services of prostitutes’

MEN who seek out the services of sex workers should be targeted in a bid to crack down on the problem, according to a senior councillor.

Alan Ross, community safety and public protection convener f or Dundee City Council, also said more should be done to educate men who pay for sex as to why what they are doing is wrong.

Mr Ross spoke out following a special investigation by the Tele in which one woman on Arbroath Road offered our reporter sex for £40 to feed her drug habit.

It followed a public meeting on Monday at which Arbroath Road residents told police and other authorities that the areas around their homes had become a “red light zone”.

Mr Ross said: “The solution is about targeting the people using these women for sex.

“A strong message needs to be sent that people should not pay for sex.

“We need to speak to the men using these women and try to educate them as to why their behaviour is wrong as well as using the law to punish them.

“It is the abuse of vulnerable women.

“Our approach at this time remains about helping these women and offering them advice, whether that’s from the police, the council or charities, to help them get out of this way of life and support them.

“One of the key focuses also has to be targeting the people using these women for sex — because without them there would be no prostitution.”

Mr Ross said women who find themselves working as prostitutes often find themselves doing so because they have no other option.

He said: “It’s not a career anyone would go for by choice — these women do it because they are vulnerable and desperate.”

Mr Ross even suggested there could be an argument for a “tolerance zone”. Such areas, where prostitution is allowed under local by-laws, have proved controversial in the past.

Certain streets in Aberdeen’s docks area became tolerance zones for five years to try and protect women working in prostitution.

Mr Ross said: “What we don’t want is to drive it underground or simply move it elsewhere — that’s not addressing the problem, just displacing it.

“I would anticipate that people would be opposed to tolerance zones and worry that it would pander to the issue and give it a legitimacy.

“We would need to see the evidence from Aberdeen and other areas where this has been tried and whether it improved the situation.”

Main picture: Councillor Alan Ross in Arbroath Road, where concerns have been raised over prostitution. Inset: Our reporter Steven speaks to prostitute Steph.