by Anne StClair

Created on: September 02, 2008   Last Updated: December 21, 2008

Should women who are arrested for prostitution have their names published? The idea is presumably that if the names are published then prostitutes will think twice about what they are doing, but the problem with the idea is that many prostitutes are desperate and have already thought long and hard about what they are doing. They are the real victims of prostitution.

Another kind of person that may become a prostitute is someone who is obsessed with sex. Would publishing their names discourage them from further prostitution? Possibly, but it may also become a badge of honour for such people, and might encourage them even more! If these people were likely to be embarrassed by their names being published, they would not be prostitutes in the first place.

Prostitutes either have little or no choice, or they have no qualms about how they make their money. In either case, they would not be likely to be affected by having their names published in the paper. The only people this could deter is women who are living double lives, such as women who look outwardly like happily married women with families, but who are involved secretly in prostitution, but it is usually desperation that drives them to prostitution in the first place.

Naming women prostitutes has actually been tried. See this article, for example. Naming the prostitutes meant that they were presented as criminals. It was a violation of their civil rights and it directly endangered the women and exposed them to the possibility of harassment or worse.

It is therefore unlikely that publishing the names of the women would have much effect on the prostitution rate, but it could endanger them.

Publishing the names of their customers, however, is a different story. Just imagine it: you open up your local newspaper to read as you munch on your breakfast, and there on the front page is a list of people who have paid prostitutes for sex. Included in the list could be the local bank manager, teacher, priest, doctor, policeman, politicians, the baker, butcher, and the guy next door.

Prostitution would probably die out almost immediately. If prostitution is illegal, it goes both ways, and it must surely be illegal to be a customer. Unlike the prostitutes, paying customers can hardly be considered victims, and therefore if anyone's name is published it should be their names.

If the intention of society is really to put an end to prostitution, then it makes more sense to leave the prostitutes (male as well as female) alone, and pursue the customers instead. Publishing the names and addresses of prostitutes would in many cases only serve to exacerbate their victimisation, and might actually increase prostitution, since the customers would know exactly where to go to find the prostitutes.

Prostitution, like any other business, operates on the principles of supply and demand. There will always be a supply of people so desperate, so drug addicted, so sex-obsessed, or with such low self-esteem, that they will offer themselves for prostitution - often because they have nothing else to sell but their bodies, and see no other way to make money. It is the demand end of the equation that should be tackled. The customers are rarely desperate, and would usually care a great deal if their names were published in the local newspapers.

The only way that prostitution will ever be wiped out is if the customers are named and shamed. They should be made to suffer the consequences of their actions. There will always be a supply of women who see no choice but to turn to prostitution, but they are the victims. If there were no customers, then prostitution would disappear.

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