Gordon Brown has set himself on a collision course with the legal establishment over plans to give civil servants and government agencies the power to remove people’s passports without going through the courts.

Senior legal figures, including two former attorney-generals and a lord chief justice, have expressed deep concern about preparations to adopt new powers to confiscate passports. They warn the government not to use reform of prerogative powers as an excuse to force through a “serious” curtailment of long-standing freedoms.

They have attacked proposals in the child maintenance bill, now going through Parliament, to allow civil servants to prevent errant fathers who refuse to support their children from travelling abroad.

They warn that it could set a dangerous precedent, and say in a House of Lords report: The freedom to travel to and from one’s country is a right of great significance and should only be curtailed after a rigorous decision process . . .

Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, and former attorney-generals Lord Morris of Aberavon and Lord Lyell of Markyate criticised the move to bypass the courts in a report. They not only say the proposal is “undesirable” but have questioned whether it is “constitutionally appropriate”.

The Lords constitution committee, of which they are members, warns that it is undesirable to extend the circumstances in which passports may be withdrawn administratively.

Although football hooligans and drug dealers can be forced to forfeit their passports, the decision would follow court orders. In other cases, such as in child protection cases and cases involving serious crime, people can be forced to surrender their passports only after a court decision or as part of a police investigation.

Harriet Harman holds that a Swedish-style law against buying sex is necessary to stem demand for sex workers trafficked into Britain. She was supported by former Europe minister Denis MacShane, who insisted there are 25,000 sex slaves in the UK. This is a startling assertion - 25,000 is more than the entire workforce of Debenhams. How is it that this vast number of women and girls are so readily available to male clients and yet simultaneously so difficult for the police to detect?

When 515 indoor prostitution establishments were raided by police as part of Operation Pentameter last year, only 84 women and girls who conformed to police and immigration officers' understanding of the term "victim of trafficking" were "rescued". At this rate, the police would need to raid some 150,000 indoor prostitution establishments to unearth MacShane's 25,000 sex slaves. The fact that there are estimated to be fewer than 1,000 such establishments in London gives some indication of how preposterous MacShane's claim is.

Abuse and exploitation undoubtedly occur in the UK sex sector, but only a minority of cases involve women and girls being imprisoned and physically forced into prostitution by a third party. More usually, those who are vulnerable are working to pay off debts incurred in migration, or to supplement paltry single-parent benefits. Their vulnerability is in large part a consequence of government action and inaction - its failure to regulate the sex sector, its immigration and welfare policies etc. And raids by police and immigration officials normally result in their deportation or prosecution for benefit fraud, not in their assistance or protection.

The government's concern about sex trafficking appears to have helped immigration officers meet their targets for deportations without protecting sex workers. Evidence from other countries (including Sweden) suggests that a policy of suppression, whether focused on clients or sex workers, can have very negative consequences for those who trade sex. But in place of serious debate based on independent research evidence, we are offered hyperbole and emotive rhetoric about sex slaves. We need to move beyond this and think not only about how to offer those who currently work in prostitution protection, but also how to ensure them rights.

One of the most daring adult clubs in Osaka's Minami entertainment district has been shut down in what many say is the first strike in a campaign to clean up the area.

Six of the hostesses and a male customer of the "sexual cabaret club" Impulse were arrested last month for indecent exposure after the workers allegedly labored while entirely nude and the patron exposed his genitals.

As soon as you enter the club, a hostess will give you a hot towel that she has already used to swipe her private parts. You can start fondling the hostesses' breasts as soon as you sit down, but that's nothing. You immediately get a drink, but it's a hostess's urine served on the rocks. They also serve tidbits sprinkled with cuttings of the workers' pubic hair, the employee of an adult entertainment introduction service tells Shukan Jitsuwa. They also had a service where the ice served in drinks is first inserted into the hostess's private parts. They just kept on getting wilder and wilder and I think they went too far in the end.

Impulse was among the most popular establishments in Minami. Some say the arrests at Impulse signal the start of a clean-up of the entertainment district.

Sure, it stretched the limits, but it never really went beyond them. It didn't provide any sexual services that resulted in ejaculation and if there was any nudity going on, it was never anything more than a quick flash, the operator of a call girl service says. Even its most raunchy stuff wasn't that serious. I think the arrests have been made to send a message to others.

Britain's minister for women wants to make it illegal to pay for sex - but there's no way such a law could be enforced.

Earlier this month Harriet Harman, the minister for women, signalled a new government offensive against the freedom of the individual. On December 20, Harman announced that she was considering the introduction of legislation to criminalise payments for sex: Do we think it's right in the 21st century that women should be in a sex trade, or do we think it's exploitation and should be banned?

Well, of course, put like that it's easy to see what answer Harman is expecting to the "very big debate" she has now apparently promised to launch early in the new year. No one - surely - is in favour of "exploitation", so - surely - we must all favour making it illegal for a man (or, less commonly, a woman) to pay for sex. An open and shut case - surely.

But the issue is much more complicated than Harman wants us to believe.

Sex is - like it or not - a commodity and paying for it is an economic transaction which, like any other economic transaction, involves a buyer and a seller. A man wants to enjoy a woman's body, and once he finds a woman willing to sell her body, temporarily, for this purpose the two parties to the transaction strike a price. The price is paid and the service is delivered. This - basically - is what prostitution involves.

I am not for one moment ignoring the exploitation that prostitution might involve. It might involve, as Harman says, the international trafficking in women by criminal gangs. It might involve slavery. It might involve sex with persons under 18 years of age. However, all these activities are already prohibited by law, as they should be.

But prostitution itself is not at present illegal. An indeterminate number of women - and men - in this country appear to follow successful careers as professional prostitutes. That is entirely their business, and the business of their clients. The state has no right to intervene, save to collect the tax due on the income lawfully generated.

The criminalisation of prostitution is most unlikely to be enforceable. The history of prohibition in the USA (1918-28) shows us that where there is a demand for a commodity, otherwise law-abiding people will go to any lengths to ensure a supply. If Miss Harman has her way, the police in this country would be engaged in a war they could never win, and would soon lose public sympathy, as in the USA, which no doubt explains why the Police Federation is so lukewarm to Harman's initiative.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith, in endorsing this initiative, claimed to recognise "that there is considerable support for us to do more to tackle the demand for prostitution". I know of no such "considerable support" but, in any case, "the demand for prostitution" emanates (does it not?) from basic sexual instinct. Exactly how does Miss Smith propose to tackle this "demand"? By adding bromide to our drinking water? I think not. But I do fear that some men, unable to cope with their sexuality, and facing prosecution if prostitution is criminalised, will engage instead in acts of unspeakable violence.

Is that what Smith and Harman really want? If so, they are certainly going the right way about it.

A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2005 pointed out, little is known about the men who pay for sex.

That study found that the proportion of British men who reported paying for heterosexual sex had increased from 5.6% in 1990 to 9% in 2000. Of these, the largest group were in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, living in London and either single or divorced.

...

Disconcertingly, the men to whom I spoke suggested that lack of any emotional obligation is one of the most appealing attributes of paying for sex. It’s just a case of getting something out of the way, says Tom, who after his fifthencounter described how he felt a very cold reaction, very emotionless — you’ve lost that pent-up aggression and you just want to get out of there.

I have felt more guilt after one-nightstands than I have felt after going to a prostitute. As long as prostitution is done in a legal and consensual way, there is almost more honesty in it than in picking up a girl in a bar, where you are toying with people’s emotions and giving false impressions in order to get something physical.

In the real world — that is, the world where sex stems from boy-meets-girl rather than boy-pays-girl — there are always emotional obligations attached, no matter how casual the liaison. Neither Sam nor Tom is an emotional vandal, the sort of man who swaggers blithely through women’s lives with a philosophy of love ’em and leave ’em.

They see themselves as the good guys, the ones who don’t want to lie, cheat and make promises that they can’t (or won’t) keep to have sex. So, with what seems perverse logic, they sleep with prostitutes instead.

With a prostitute you both know what you’re doing it for. She’s doing it for the money, you’re doing it for sex. I’ve had guilty feelings [after visiting a prostitute] but never the same as I’ve had with a one-night stand.

...

The cold truth is that many men today, regardless of how eligible, rich and dashing they may be, don’t go to prostitutes because they can’t get laid. They go because, frankly, it’s an easier way of getting laid.

See full article

Re the Criminal Injustice amendment to ban the buying of sex in designated zones:

It is not a piece of legislation yet. Just a few batty amendments from a few batty MPs. And Harriet Harman, who isn`t the responsible minister, attempting to create a policy where none existed before. For me, the telling point is that Coaker and his colleagues have not associated themselves with Harman`s suggestion. In fact the department was fairly quick off the blocks to pour cold water on it (in the friendliest way).

The thing is that none of these ideas are new. The CJIB amendments would apply some odd version of a control order to people buying sex in designated areas. Total batshit, and the police would not be in favour in the slightest. Designating "areas of safety" would have the effect of making the non-designated areas into "red light zones". That idea has been thought through before and rejected.

The department knows there are only three choices:

a) Do nothing and leave the current hotch-potch of legality/illegality in place.

b) Criminalise the trade in sexual services.

c) License and regulate the trade in sexual services.

The department is studiously not saying what their prefered approach is, which is, as I`ve said, telling. About 12 months ago there was a similar fact finding visit to the US to look at the implementation of a "Megan`s Law" for notifying the public as to the whereabouts of sex offenders. At that time, the Home Office, including the Home Sec. was saying that they did intend to copy the US and have a "Sarah`s Law" in the UK. The fact finding visit would simply be a means of determining HOW to implement it. There was lots of press trumpetting and N of the W headlines raising expectations that lists of paedos would be pasted up outside your local Town Hall. But I think the junior minister who went to the US must have seen just how badly Megan`s Law works at actually protecting anybody, because in the event we have had no such law here in the UK and the whole thing has disappeared from view.

If anything, Harman`s pronouncement, and the odd set of amendments from these publicity hungry MPs suggest to me that the government is looking at anything but a suggestion like Harman`s. Most rational heads seem to think that the experiment in Sweden has done little if anything to protect sex workers and that since the law change, prostitution in Sweden is just as widespread but not as visible.

We will see as this thing unfolds, but my money is on; a) Do nothing.

The Representative Carmelo Lazatin has proposed a bill to the Philippine House of Representatives that would impose fines on individuals participating in online sexual activity.

Called An act prohibiting cyber sex, prostitution and pornography in the Philippines, providing penalties for its violation and for other purposes, or House Bill (HB) 3190, the legislation would prohibit cybersex — defined as sexually explicit online activity between two or more individuals — as well as prostitution or forms of pornography broadcast on the Internet.

Lazatin’s proposal calls for any financier, manager, producer or promoter of a “cybersex operation” to be penalized with jail terms of from 20-30 years, and fines from more than $12,000, but not more than $25,000.

Other offenders would be subjected to possible jail terms of between 5-10 years and fines of $6,000 to $12,000.

Non-resident aliens convicted of violating regulations would face the same penalties and fines with deportation immediately following completion of their jail term, and would be barred also from re-entering the country.

Offenders would also risk loss of any property used in the commission of related crimes.

In the bill, “cybersex” was defined by Lazatin as any form of Interactive prostitution, pornography and the performance of a sexual act or other obscene or indecent act, between or among those belonging to the same or opposite sexes, using, as primary channel, the cyberspace.

The usual Labour nutters have proposed a typically mean minded amendment to the Criminal Injustice Bill currently passing through parliament.

Fiona Mactaggart
Barry Gardiner
Denis MacShane

To move the following Clause:

1. A local authority may designate any part of its area as a zone of safety.
    
2. A chief officer of police may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, designate any area as a zone of safety.
    
3. The Secretary of State may approve a designation under subsection (2) if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the incidence of prostitution in the proposed zone has contributed to an increase in criminality in the locality.
    
4. It, in a zone of safety, a person (A):
   (a) intentionally obtains for himself the sexual services of another person (B),
   and (b) before obtaining those services, has made or promised payment for those services to B or a third person, or knows that another person has made or promised such a payment, the local authority or the chief officer of police may apply to a magistrates’ court for an order forbidding A from doing those things again anywhere.
    
5. In subsection (4)(b) “payment” means any financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods and services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount.
    
6. The Secretary of State may by regulations made such supplementary provision about orders under subsection (4) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
    
7. Regulations under subsection (6) are to be made by statutory instrument and are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
    
8. A person who is the subject of an order under subsection (4) and who fails to comply with the terms of that order is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale or to a community punishment order or to both.’.

UK men who use prostitutes could soon face a fine or even jail under new plans to make it illegal to pay for sex.

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman, who is also women’s minister, confirmed the Government is studying the law in Sweden, where prostitution was recently made illegal.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, Harman said she supported criminalising men who use prostitutes as a means of tackling the rising problem of sex trafficking.

She went on: I think we do need to have a debate and unless you tackle the demand side of human trafficking which is fuelling this trade, we will not be able to protect women from it.

That is what they’ve done in Sweden. My own personal view is that’s what we need to do as a next step. Do we think it’s right in the 21st century that women should be in a sex trade or do we think it’s exploitation and should be banned? Just because something has always gone on, it doesn’t mean you just wring your hands and say there’s nothing we can do about it.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and junior women’s minister Barbara Follett are due to visit Sweden and Amsterdam to examine the systems there.

And a powerful group of Labour MPs have tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which comes before Parliament in the New Year, giving local councils the power to declare certain areas no-go zones for prostitution. Men who paid for sex with prostitutes within the zones would be liable for prosecution.

The amendment is being sponsored by former Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart, along with senior Labour backbenchers Denis MacShane and Barry Gardiner.

The English Collective of Prostitutes attacked Harman’s support for the Swedish system and urged her to look at New Zealand’s system of legalising brothels instead.

Spokeswoman Cari Mitchell said: The 1999 law introduced in Sweden which criminalised men who buy sex, who on conviction face six months in jail, has forced prostitution further underground, made women more vulnerable to violence, driven women into the hands of pimps and made it harder for the police to prosecute violent men and traffickers.

Ministers are visiting Sweden and Amsterdam but New Zealand’s experience of decriminalising prostitution, where women are now more able to come forward and report violence, is being ignored.

Amsterdam authorities said they will introduce new measures to crack down on pimps and stop the exploitation of prostitutes.

Under the proposed policies, brothel owners, escort services and so-called "security" firms that work with prostitutes will be forced to seek a license and will be subject to financial auditing, the city government said in a statement.

The proposal, which must be approved by the City Assembly, is part of a larger strategy to reduce criminality associated with prostitution, the city said.

The removal of the ban on brothels in 2000 that made prostitution legal hasn't achieved what was expected. (Instead) it gave free reign for the exploitation of women in the sex industry, the statement said.

It added that it hoped to increase the legal age for prostitution from 18 to 21.

The documentary, My Boyfriend, the Sex Tourist was shown on Channel 4 this week. There is now a follow up poll on Channel 4's Talking Points section:

Most of item tries to reprehensibly tie adult sex tourism with the issue of child prostitution. It may be worth voting in the poll just to register a disagreement with the moralists always trying to label adult sex seekers as paedophiles.

The Sex Tourism

Your chance to have your say about sex tourism

What is sex tourism?

Travelling to a foreign country with the express intention of having sex with local prostitutes, usually involving the handing over of money or gifts in return. In many of these destination countries prostitution is legal, so there's no law preventing specialist resorts and 'hotels' from openly advertising the 'services' on offer on the internet. Figures of Western adults travelling with the explicit purpose of having sex with consenting adults in their destination country do not exist.

Should sex tourism be banned?

Comment: Voodoo

Thanks to Martin

Venezuela not a good advertisement but programme was ok overall--choice and number of women was limited--the mix of voodoo and catholic was intriguing

Thailand was ok expected heavily biased but wasn't - I think the no cameras rule may have helped

A The British government should take a stand against men who travel abroad to buy [adult] sex

Selling sex to male foreigners is an all too common occupation for many young women in poor and developing countries. Prostitution is a horrible job - we know this from the countless stories from the women involved. But now there is an emerging market in the "girlfriend trade", where men do not just buy sex, but have a woman thrown in for the duration of their stay.

Director Monica Garnsey travelled to Venezuela and Thailand to look at the growing demand for "commercialised love". Her two-part documentary, My Boyfriend, the Sex Tourist, is told through the stories of the women for sale. With the UK government currently considering whether or not to criminalise the buying of sexual services, is this not the moment to push for UK men to be deterred from buying sex abroad? Sex tourism deters regular tourism, adversely affects the economy, and leads to abuse and degradation of the women caught up in it.

At Total Satisfaction, a resort on an island off Venezuela, white, middle-aged men arrive alone. As well as the sun, sea, sand and constant flow of alcohol, they are waiting for the line-up which greets all newcomers. Euphemistically known as an "audition", several scantily-clad women come running to the bar when the bell rings. If they are not chosen, they do not make any money, so they do their best to look enthusiastic and keen. Whoever is picked by a customer is required to move her belongings into his room. "She will spend the full 24 hours with you and will satisfy your every need and desire," reads the blurb on the website.

Sex tourists in Thailand often go further than buying a "girlfriend" and look for a wife. For the women in the Thai sex industry, the prospect of a foreign husband and a nice house in the west is a far better prospect than dire poverty. But the fact that some women are desperate enough to sell themselves to such men is no excuse for us to accept the fact that thousands of British men take advantage of their lack of choice. If a man cannot acquire a girlfriend the old-fashioned way, he should accept that it is unlikely a beautiful young woman in a far-away country will want him as her personal sex-god. The UK government should take a stand against men who travel abroad to buy sex, as it allows poorer countries to sell its women like cheap, holiday tat.

Police in Dubai say they have raided 22 brothels, arresting 247 people.

A total of 170 prostitutes and 12 pimps, mostly from China, were arrested along with 65 clients of various nationalities.

The police chief said such raids were a frequent occurrence but were not usually announced to the media.

In March, UAE police announced they had deported about 4,300 prostitutes from Dubai during 2006.

Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim said: We cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour that is against human moral ethics and our religious beliefs.

Foreign workers and expatriates make up over 80% of the 4 million inhabitants of the UAE, and men outnumber women by about three-to-one. Somehow with ratios like that then surely prostitution will continue unabated in UAE.

A group of mainland Chinese tourists fed up with being forced to shop till they dropped mutinied on a beach in Macau, triggering a three-way fight with guides and police riot squads.

In the latest of a series of incidents arising from tour guides' practice of taking commission from shops for sales to their groups, the day trip ended in running fights along Hac Sa beach, an idyllic spot on the South China Sea.

Before the 124 tourists were led away by officials from the Central Government Liaison Office in Macau, they had confronted their guides, injured policemen and even triggered a separate brawl between mainland and local tour leaders.

The group was part of an 800-strong party in all from Tangshan on a day trip from Hong Kong, but after visiting one or two local sites and a number of shops, were told they had not spent enough by their local guides.

They were told they had to visit either a casino, or an expensive floor show, to earn the operators their commission. At some point during subsequent negotiations, the 124 were deposited on the beach and their buses driven away.

The first fight was between the mainland guides, who were trying to confront their local colleagues, and a handful of police. Then 40 police officers armed with shields and batons arrived, as the tourists intervened, they said, to protect the mainland guides from police.

Television footage showed police swinging at the tourists, some of whom were elderly, with batons.

The incident follows a crackdown by the authorities in Hong Kong in response to complaints from mainland tourists that they are overcharged by shops in cahoots with local tour guides.

America has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared, he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.

The government has launched a root-and-branch review of prostitution laws, which will examine the effects of Sweden's policy of prosecuting men for buying sex.

Home office minister Vernon Coaker has told MPs he will travel to Sweden and the Netherlands in the new year to study how different regimes have affected demand, amid growing pressure for radical action to curb the growth in sex trafficking.

The Guardian revealed in September that ministers were considering radical proposals to criminalise buying sex, but Coaker's remarks are the first public acknowledgment of the discussions. The review will take around six months and look at the experience of several countries.

MPs want the change introduced in an amendment to the criminal justice bill going through parliament, which is backed by Fiona Mactaggart, until recently the Home Office minister responsible for tackling the sex industry. We would not have expected to be in the House of Commons in 2007 talking about modern day slavery, Coaker told the bill committee.

He said ministers had concerns about whether the Swedish system might make prostitutes more vulnerable, but there was considerable support to tackle the demand for prostitution and trafficking.

Re the article on Japanese panty bars

There was once a pub in Manchester  where panties festooned the ceiling - quote taken from a travel website:

Tommy Ducks used to be famous for having a ceiling festooned with the underwear of it's female clientele. The tradition was that if you were a female, you had to donate the underwear you were wearing if visiting Tommy Ducks for the first time.

Unfortunately, Tommy ducks is no more. It is an EX duck. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet its maker. It is pining for the fjords. It was bulldozed in the early nineties to make way for the car park of the Bridgewater Hall.

An Italian sweet shop owner has been fined after making chocolate copies of a local porn star's proudest asset.

Bologna police told Teresa Conti to melt down the chocolate version of blue movie actor Rocco Siffredi's penis.

They said numerous passers by with children had complained of the confectionery organs on display in the window.

She was fined £150 for promoting indecency.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has vowed to stop temporary visa-holders from working as prostitutes.

Under existing laws, women whose visas have work rights attached are allowed to work in the sex industry.

Most commonly, this involves women from Southeast Asia who are able to enter Australia on a range of temporary visas and legally work, including working holidaymaker and student visas, Andrews said in a statement. The coalition believes that it is morally inappropriate for temporary visas to be used as a means for people to enter Australia with the intent purpose of working in the sex industry, including in legal brothels.

Andrews said a re-elected coalition government would amend migration regulations to prohibit the practice.

Japan has come up with a fine idea for a fun bar, a 'panty bar'.

It is a place where one drinks, gets drunk, and then drops one's inhibitions. Particularly when women drop their underthings.

Shukan Taishu's reporter was spotted this unfamiliar term, which appeared in a cryptic classified ad in one of Tokyo's evening tabloids. The ad simply read: Panty bar. Lewd women. Exhibitionism. Peeping.

This particular panty bar, according to our reporter, operates on a members-only basis. The first-time outlay comes to 15,000 yen, with each subsequent visit 10,000 yen.

The establishment is lushly carpeted, requiring arrivals to remove their shoes at the entrance. Instead of chairs, there's a sunken well in the floor, similar to the "hori-kotatsu" in Japanese-style restaurants, which enables patrons' legs to dangle beneath while seated at the counter. It seats a maximum of 10.

In addition to the counter, the room features a "show space" the size of a queen-size bed. Red and yellow lamps are strategically positioned to create an erotic ambience -- suggestively subdued, but by no means too dark to conceal the activities therein.

The reporter plopped himself down beside an unaccompanied woman. Glancing up at the ceiling, he saw it was festooned with women's panties of all sizes, shapes and colors.

Oh those? says the proprietor. They were all left behind by our customers. Would you like to take a whiff? Some are still fairly fresh, if you get my drift...

And Kyo-chan, as the woman's name turned out to be, required very little encouragement. Goaded on by the proprietor, she sloshed down the remaining contents of her scotch and clambered over to the show space, gesturing for our reporter to follow. Whereupon she hiked up her skirt, revealing diaphanous panties, beneath which an abundant black bush beckoned.

The reporter was soon running his fingers up and down against her crotch, and felt secretions -- first heat, followed by considerable moisture -- percolating within.

Do you want to see more? she asks in a husky voice. She slid the material to one side and spread herself invitingly. His finger took the plunge.

Just as there are exhibitionistic women who will bring themselves to orgasm before a panting male audience, there are women who, after losing their inhibitions to strong drink, seem to have no objection to snatching a strange man's schlong and giving it a friendly fondle. That's the kind of promiscuous place a panty bar is.

The female patrons of this particular shop are known to be somewhat domineering, and there have been occasions when, encountering a male of masochistic proclivities, the two will engage in a full-fledged SM session.

There's something about my place that really brings out people's suppressed libidos, The proprietor winks.

Sweden has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution by imposing a ban on the purchase of sexual services, the first of its kind worldwide.

It's 9 p.m. in Stockholm and Malmskillnadsgatan Street is dead. The road, infamous for being one of the city's main drags for street prostitution, used to be packed with women, but tonight only three women are working the street.

The ban is hardly controversial in Sweden these days. According to opinion polls, 80% of the population agree with the ban. When a majority consisting of social democrats, greens and leftists ratified the ban on purchasing sexual services in the Swedish parliament in 1999, conservatives were the legislation's main opponents. They argued that the ban would drive prostitution underground and make life more difficult for the women.

We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground, says Police Inspector Jonas Trolle. We only have between 105 and 130 women -- both on the Internet and on the street -- active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000.

Despite the prostitution ban, the number of convictions in Sweden is surprisingly low. Although a handful of pimps are sentenced to several years in prison each year, customers have so far managed to get away with fines and having their names entered in police registers. The purchase of sex is difficult to prove, says Trolle. Johns have to be caught in the act. Besides, he adds, it has taken time for members of the police force to accept the law. The number of convicted johns has climbed from 11 in 1999 to 108 in 2006.

Prostitutes themselves are, for the most part, opposed to the criminalization of their customers. They feel that they are being pushed into the role of victim and that the ban robs them of their livelihood. One working girl said: When things are slow, the way they are tonight, I'm also willing to go with guys who want to get a little rough with me and don't want to use a condom. I need the money.

Another said that she has been around long enough to remember the days before the ban on purchasing sex was introduced. The nice customers are afraid of being caught, she says. All that's left are the more troubled ones, those with whom you have to drive far out of the city so that they'll feel safe from the police. It puts you at their mercy.

Health care professionals have mixed feelings about the ban. Cases of abuse and rape have increased considerably. The rate of sexually transmitted diseases has also gone up among streetwalkers because the lack of johns forces them to have sex without a condom, says Helena Cewers, a nurse who has been working for more than 15 years in an admission clinic for drug-addicted women in Malmö and knows almost every hooker in the city.

A "cycle-sexualist" caught half-naked in a private locked room in compromising position with his bicycle has been put on probation for three years.

The man's unlikely perversion paled into insignificance compared with the corruption of justice inflicted by all those involved on the persecution and sentencing.

The victim of the persecution was naked from the waist down and when the women unlocked his bedroom door.

The police were called and at a hearing last month the unfortunate man was placed on the sex offenders' register after admitting a sexual breach of the peace.

The case has prompted criticism of "loony British laws", but he ended up in court because the "shocked" cleaners said they had knocked repeatedly before opening the door.

The Ayr sheriff court on the west coast of Scotland was told that alcohol was the cause of his problems, and he was placed under the supervision of a social worker and warned that if he re-offended he would be sent to prison.

Sheriff Colin Miller added: In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind, but this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a 'cycle-sexualist'.

The man's solicitor Gerry Tierney described his client as a "sad little man" who was trying to tackle his drink problem. He added: When the cleaners came in, he thought he was having fun with them. He does not think it is funny any more, and he has had to move home three times because he has been targeted because of the offence.

Travellers face price hikes and confusion after the Government unveiled plans to take up to 53 pieces of information from anyone entering or leaving Britain.

For every journey, security officials will want credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights.

The e-borders system will monitor every passenger travelling into or out of the country

The information, taken when a ticket is bought, will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.

Anybody about whom the authorities are dubious can be turned away when they arrive at the airport or station with their baggage.

Those with outstanding court fines, such as a speeding penalty, could also be barred from leaving the country, even if they pose no security risk.

The information required under the "e-borders" system was revealed as Gordon Brown announced plans to tighten security at shopping centres, airports and ports.

Travel companies, which will run up a bill of £20million a year compiling the information, will pass on the cost to customers via ticket prices, and the Government is considering introducing its own charge on travellers to recoup costs.

The measure applies equally to UK residents going abroad and foreigners travelling here.

The information will be stored for as long as the authorities believe it is useful, allowing them to build a complete picture of where a person has been over their lifetime, how they paid and the contact numbers of who they stayed with.

Restrictions on hand luggage carried on to passenger planes will be lifted from January.

Starting with several airports in the New Year, we will work with airport operators to ensure all UK airports are in a position to allow passengers to fly with more than one item of hand luggage, Gordon Brown said.

Do you realise that if you get pregnant . . . It will be the closest thing to work I’ve done in my life?”

A court in Spain has convicted Manel Fontdevila, cartoons editor of the popular satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, and cartoonist "Guillermo" of "damaging the prestige of the crown".

Both men received a hefty 3,000-euro (£2,100) fine.

Their offence was to have published a cartoon last July making ribald fun of the heir to the Spanish throne, and of the government's scheme to encourage women to have more babies by giving mothers a special payment for each new birth.

Judge José María Vázquez Honrubia ruled that the two men vilified the Crown in the most gratuitous and unnecessary way. He said that they could serve 10 months house arrest if they refused to pay.

The public prosecutor, Miguel Angel Carballo, had demanded a fine of €6,000 each.

Torres and Fontdevila said the sentence was "unfair and subjective" and they planned to appeal.

Do you realise that if you get pregnant . . . It will be the closest thing to work I’ve done in my life?”

A court in Spain has convicted Manel Fontdevila, cartoons editor of the popular satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, and cartoonist "Guillermo" of "damaging the prestige of the crown".

Both men received a hefty 3,000-euro (£2,100) fine.

Their offence was to have published a cartoon last July making ribald fun of the heir to the Spanish throne, and of the government's scheme to encourage women to have more babies by giving mothers a special payment for each new birth.

Judge José María Vázquez Honrubia ruled that the two men vilified the Crown in the most gratuitous and unnecessary way. He said that they could serve 10 months house arrest if they refused to pay.

The public prosecutor, Miguel Angel Carballo, had demanded a fine of €6,000 each.

Torres and Fontdevila said the sentence was "unfair and subjective" and they planned to appeal.

Outrage was mounting at the 1999 hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building, where congressmen were learning about human trafficking.

A woman from Nepal testified that September that she had been drugged, abducted and forced to work at a brothel in Bombay. A Christian activist recounted tales of women overseas being beaten with electrical cords and raped. A State Department official said Congress must act -- 50,000 slaves were pouring into the United States every year, she said. Furious about the "tidal wave" of victims, Representative Christopher H. Smith vowed to crack down on so-called modern-day slavery.

The next year, Congress passed a law, triggering a little-noticed worldwide war on human trafficking that began at the end of the Clinton administration and is now a top Bush administration priority. As part of the fight, President Bush has blanketed the nation with 42 Justice Department task forces and spent more than $150 million -- all to find and help the estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of forced prostitution or labor in the United States.

But the government couldn't find them. Not in this country.

The administration has identified 1,362 victims of human trafficking brought into the United States since 2000, nowhere near the 50,000 a year the government had estimated.
Ronald Weitzer, a criminologist at George Washington University and an expert on sex trafficking, said that trafficking is a hidden crime whose victims often fear coming forward. He said that might account for some of the disparity in the numbers, but only a small amount.

The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they've been able to make is so huge that it's got to raise major questions, Weitzer said: It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion.

The Council of Europe has adopted a resolution on 4th October 2007 that is very much relevant to moves to criminalise prostitution for customers. Much of the resolution is to do with actions against trafficking and child prostitution but the relevant sections about adult consensual prostitution is very positive

From Prostitution – which stance to take? Resolution 1579 (2007)

4. Regarding voluntary prostitution, defined as prostitution exercised by persons over the age of 18 having chosen prostitution as a means to make a living of their own accord, the Assembly notes that the approaches adopted in the 47 member states of the Council of Europe vary widely. Historically, three different approaches can be defined, prohibitionist, regulationist and abolitionist. Sweden has recently invented a new approach which is generally defined as neo-abolitionist.

5. About a third of Council of Europe member states (17) subscribe to the prohibitionist approach, which prohibits prostitution and penalises prostitutes and pimps alike (although not necessarily clients). A substantial minority of member states (9) subscribe to the regulationist approach, which seeks to regulate rather than prohibit or abolish prostitution. The relative majority of member states can be considered abolitionist (20), which means they seek to abolish prostitution by penalising procurers and pimps rather than prostitutes. Sweden’s neo-abolitionist approach takes the abolitionist logic one step further and penalises the clients.

6. As an organisation based on human rights and respect for human dignity, the Council of Europe should take a stance on prostitution which reflects its core mission. Basing one’s judgment on respect for human dignity does not mean taking a moralistic approach, however. It means respecting people’s decisions and choices as long as they harm no-one else.

...

11.3. concerning voluntary adult prostitution, Council of Europe member states should formulate an explicit policy on prostitution; they must avoid double standards and policies which force prostitutes underground or into the arms of pimps, which only make prostitutes more vulnerable, instead they should seek to empower them, in particular by:

11.3.1. refraining from criminalising and penalising prostitutes and developing programmes to assist prostitutes to leave the profession should they wish to do so;

11.3.2. addressing personal vulnerabilities of prostitutes, such as mental health problems, low self-esteem and childhood neglect or abuse, as well as drug abuse;

11.3.3. addressing structural problems (poverty, political instability/war, gender inequality, differential opportunity, lack of education and training), including in countries from which prostitutes originate, to prevent people being “forced” into prostitution by circumstances;

11.3.4. ensuring prostitutes have access to and enough independence to impose safe sexual practices on their clients;

11.3.5. respecting the right of prostitutes who freely choose to work as a prostitute to have a say in any policies on the national, regional and local level concerning them;

11.3.6. ending the abuse of power by the police and other public authorities towards prostitutes by developing special training programmes for them.

80% of the Council voted in favour (and of those who voted against it, 1/3 came from Sweden...It caused an uproar in Sweden that 1 Swede voted in favour)