Prostitutes may be your next door neighbours

London: Hundreds of prostitutes across London will be allowed to work in mini-brothels in a relaxation of the laws on selling sex announced on Tuesday.

Up to three women typically two prostitutes and a maid will be permitted to use flats or other properties to offer sexual services.

The new law will replace existing rules which make it an offence for two or more women to operate a prostitution business from any premises.

Ministers have abandoned plans put forward by former home secretary David Blunkett in 2004 for licensed "toleration zones" where prostitutes could work legally on the streets.

The new changes are intended to move prostitution off the streets and make life safer for prostitutes and other women living in red-light areas blighted by kerb crawlers, pimps and drug peddlers.

Overhaul

They are likely to prompt protests, however, in districts which already suffer from disturbance caused by prostitutes working in residential flats.

Other measures announced yesterday by Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart in a sweeping overhaul of the laws include a new power for courts to impose compulsory drug treatment orders on street prostitutes.

There will also be more arrests of male kerb crawlers, with persistent offenders losing their driving licences. Those convicted of kerb crawling could be "named and shamed" or offered re-education programmes instead of prosecution.

Calls for the wholesale legalisation of prostitution have been rejected for fear that this would be seen to endorse the sexual exploitation of women.

"Prostitution blights communities and the lives of those who participate," said Mactaggart, whose officials estimate there are 80,000 women selling sex across Britain, many of them in London.

"We will not eradicate prostitution overnight, but we should not turn a blind eye. I want to see a tough approach to kerb-crawling, combined with much better work to prevent children being drawn into prostitution and to give those involved a route out."

Disruption

The most controversial measure will be the decision to allow up to three women to work as prostitutes together in a property.

The aim is to make life safer for prostitutes, who are most at risk of attack on the streets or when working alone in flats, and to reduce the number of women working in redlight areas such as King's Cross and Paddington.

However, residents living in buildings where prostitutes operate may face increased disruption into the early hours.

A new penalty of compulsory drug treatment is a response to evidence that 90 per cent or more of street prostitutes use heroin or crack cocaine. Ministers believe fining them is counter-productive.

New law

Kerb-crawlers will be named and shamed

-- Up to three prostitutes will be able to work legally to sell sex from a property.

-- Persistent male kerb-crawlers could have their driving licences confiscated.

-- Offenders could be named and shamed.

--Courts will be allowed to impose compulsory drug treatment orders on prostitutes. The aim is to remove the need for street prostitutes, many of whom are on heroin or crack cocaine, to sell sex to fund their drug habit.

--Toleration zones will not be permitted.

--Soliciting for sex will still be illegal and prostitution will not be decriminalised.