I found a new false statistic recently. 60% of prostitutes are enslaved, so they say. There is only one researcher who is saying this, Melissa Farley, but Radical Feminists tend to believe what she says. As do the Evangelicals. I saw this statistic in a transcript of what the MSP Ash Regan was saying in the run up to the vote in the Scottish Parliament on her bill to bring the Nordic Model to Scotland.
So this is what is being said in the Scottish Parliament. They don't seem to be doing any fact checking. This seems to be a deficiency in both the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament. People are being told different things by the two different sides and they don't know what to believe.
There are four different researchers who have come to similar conclusions to each other about trafficking. They come out with a figure of around 15%. Trafficking does not mean enslavement. It doesn't mean that a woman was kidnapped on the streets of Shanghai, bundled into the back of a car, smuggled into the UK in the back of a lorry and kept behind bars.
Trafficked can mean different things depending on how you decide to define it. It usually means someone who has come to the UK wanting to make money through prostitution. She will come here on a tourist or student visa. She may not be able to stop when she chooses to though: the employer may be keeping her passport or other documents, there may be a debt to pay or there may be a fear of deportation. Most trafficked women are not physically coerced or deceived.
The four researchers whose work we need to examine are:
- Ruth Breslin of the SERP Institute in Ireland
- Project Acumen in England and Wales
- Professor Ko-lin Chin interviewed Chinese nationals
- Dr Nic Mai interviewed in depth 100 migrant sex workers in London
1. Ruth Breslin of the SERP Institute (Sexual Exploitation Research Programme)
In their Statement on the Review on the Operation of Section 7A of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, they state "Based on the evidence The SERP Institute has gathered, dating back to 2015, we have established that approximately 10-15% of women in prostitution in Ireland fit the ‘classic’ definition of trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation recognised in Irish law, while approximately 5-10% describe having entered prostitution by choice, in circumstances where they had other choices available to them."
Ruth Breslin used to work for Ruhama and Eaves, so she can hardly be described as belonging to the 'pimp lobby' that Ash Regan talked about in the Scottish Parliament.
2. Project Acumen
Project Acumen, conducted by the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)in 2010, estimated there were 30,000 women in indoor prostitution in England and Wales. 17,000 of these were migrant women. Of the migrant women 2,600 (15%) were assessed as trafficked. Another 9,600 (57%) were assessed as vulnerable. 32% were neither trafficked nor vulnerable.
3. Professor Ko-lin Chin
He is a Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University–Newark. Professor Ko-lin Chin interviewed 149 migrant sex workers from China. They were Chinese nationals but worked in other Asian countries or in the US. He wrote in his book Going Down to the Sea that 15% of the women were 'not free to move around or quit sex work because her travel documents are kept by her employer or debtor'. He also wrote that only 1% were 'forced, deceived or coerced'.
4. Dr Nic Mai
In his study Migrant Workers in the UK Sex Industry Dr Nic Mai concluded:
"Approximately 13 per cent of female interviewees felt that they had been subject to different perceptions and experiences of exploitation, ranging from extreme cases of trafficking to relatively more consensual arrangements. Only a minority of these, amounting approximately to 6 per cent of female interviewees, felt that they had been deceived and forced into selling sex in circumstances within which they felt they had no share of control or consent."
It is interesting that all four researchers come to roughly the same conclusion, one that is very different from that of Melissa Farley. You may say that even if it is only a minority of prostitutes who are trafficked we should try to eliminate prostitution. Trying to eliminate it though does not work. It makes things worse, especially for the most vulnerable women. There are other ways to reduce trafficking, in prostitution as well as in other sectors.
Why is the truth so important? People like Ash Regan are told that their Nordic Model law will harm women, that it makes it more difficult for sex workers to choose their clients carefully to avoid danger. They fear detection by the police and so spend less time screening. If you believe that most sex workers are enslaved, then you don't believe that they choose their clients. So the whole concept of screening is meaningless.
Ash Regan has said that we have to legislate for the majority and not the minority. "The 2 per cent are probably the elite, at the very top of the market, and they are comfortable with the choices that they are making. I am not disputing that those women exist, and that they are in prostitution because they have made that choice. However, as legislators, we have to remember that they are not the majority, and their experience is not the same as that of the majority of people in prostitution." She is wrong, the majority are not trafficked, let alone enslaved.
This is the 'pyramid' that Ash Regan was so keen to tell her fellow MSPs about.
With the four other researchers they explain how they got their results, and who the results apply to. Project Acumen and Professor Chin say their figure of 15% refers to migrant women in the specific countries they did the research.
That's one way you can tell good research. Be very specific about which type of sex worker and in which countries. Explain how you got your results. Project Acumen, Professor Chin and Dr Mai interviewed many women. I don't find Melissa Farley credible, I think she is politically motivated, I don't believe she has the best interest of women at heart.
These are the paragraphs from the transcripts of what Ash Regan told the Scottish parliament. They can be found on the Internet here, here and here. Criminal Justice Committee Meeting date: Wednesday, November 26, 2025. I have emboldened what I think is important.
"Screening is a myth. I come back to the figures again; I think that I mentioned them last time I was in front of the committee. There are the various proportions of women: the 2 per cent, the 38 per cent and the 60 per cent. The 2 per cent are probably the elite, at the very top of the market, and they are comfortable with the choices that they are making. I am not disputing that those women exist, and that they are in prostitution because they have made that choice. However, as legislators, we have to remember that they are not the majority, and their experience is not the same as that of the majority of people in prostitution. They might be able to screen, take a very small number of clients, make a lot of money and then leave the industry after a few years—but, as legislators, we need to consider the reality for the majority of women who are in prostitution." page 11/12 of the Official Report
The myth of screening has developed a life of its own. If you are trafficked, as we understand the majority of women in Scotland who are working in prostitution off street to be—that is what I am attempting to target with the bill—and you are being coerced and controlled by a pimp, you will not have the opportunity to screen your clients. You will not know who is about to come through that door next, you will not know what has been advertised that you are supposed to be doing, and you will not get most of the money for it either. page 11/12 of the Official Report
The women’s identities are often online, because of the review sites with pictures and so on. However, these men are very much in the shadows. They value their anonymity. It is laughable to suggest that there is any kind of meaningful screening. Do not get me wrong: I think that the women who attempt to screen will do so, because they are trying to survive in a system that is stacked against them. However, there is no meaningful screening that goes on. Most women in prostitution do not have the ability to decline punters. page 11/12 of the Official Report
"As I said, we have a pyramid that I can share with the committee. It covers some of the figures that I have set out already. The 2 per cent at the top of the pyramid are the sexually exploited elite. I think that the people in that 2 per cent would say that they made a choice to go into prostitution, and it is their choice to do that. Next is the 38 per cent. We start to see the choices and agency of the people in that group reducing quite dramatically. They are forced into prostitution by things such as inequality, poverty, racism, sexism and lack of opportunities. Next is the 60 per cent—the majority, obviously. There is a high number in that group, and they are enslaved. They are there against their will; they have not made the choice to go into prostitution. Sex buyers quite often report on punters sites that they suspected that somebody was trafficked but that they did not do anything about it and carried on with the transaction anyway." page 25/26 of the Official Report
Estimates of the percentage of migrant sex workers who are trafficked.
| name | region | percentage | organisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruth Breslin | Republic of Ireland | 10-15% | SERP |
| Project Acumen | England and Wales | 15% | ACPO |
| Ko-lin Chin | South-East Asia and the USA | 15% | |
| Nic Mai | Central London | 13% |
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