Hull MP calls for an end to 'women for sale' local press ads

Hull North MP Diana Johnson has asked Hull's leading local newspaper to stop carrying ads selling sexual services, which may be a cover for illegal people trafficking.

Ads in local papers are one of the most common means of men contacting women to buy sex. Many of these ads refer to women as being from abroad and there is mounting concern that some of the women advertised in classified advertising sections of local newspapers are victims of the international sex trade.

Human trafficking takes many forms and blights the lives of men, women and children in many different continents. Britain is a major focus for the global trade of sexual exploitation of women by traffickers who trick or abduct young women and force them into prostitution. People trafficking is a contemporary manifestation of the slavery against which Hull MP William Wilberforce campaigned 200 years ago.

The Government recently published a report entitled Women Not For Sale, which researched into small ads in local and regional newspapers advertising sexual services. The Newspaper Society is drawing up guidance for local papers on advertising, including on what type of ads to refuse.

Some regional newspapers, including the Manchester Evening News and Reading Post, have already said that they will no longer accept this kind of advertising. Diana Johnson MP recently wrote to the Editor of the Hull Daily Mail asking whether he would be joining these newspapers in ending the publication of small ads selling women for sex.

At an International Women's Day event at Hull's Goodwin Centre last Saturday (8 March), which was attended by Foreign Office Minister Meg Munn MP, Diana encouraged Hull people to also write to the Hull Daily Mail demanding an end to small ads selling sex. A model letter asking the Hull Daily Mail for an end to small ads selling sex can be downloaded from the 'Petition and letter campaigns' section of Diana's website at www.dianajohnson.co.uk.

Diana Johnson MP said: "After a long campaign 200 years ago, Hull MP William Wilberforce and his allies won public and Parliamentary support for the view that it is wrong to make commercial profit from buying and selling slaves.

"I hope that Hull's local newspaper will agree that it is similarly indefensible in the 21st Century to make money from advertising an exploitative trade that sells trafficked women for sex.

"The Hull Daily Mail gave excellent support and coverage to last year's Wilberforce 2007 events, which promoted the campaign against modern day slavery. I am asking the Mail to think about the consistency of its actions - and to stop carry ads that sell women for sex. By halting these ads, the Mail will be a welcome ally in fighting the criminal trade of modern-day slavery and trafficking."