Share via Email On a first meeting with Roger Matthews, professor of criminology at London's South Bank University, he does not come across as an obvious friend of radical feminism. It is easier to imagine him on a bar stool than in a lecture theatre, and he admits he would rather be at a football match than a political meeting.
In fact, everything about his brusque, down-to-earth manner belies the fact that his groundbreaking research on street prostitution has been cited worldwide - most recently by the Home Office during its ongoing consultation into the sex trade. As Matthews explains in his new book, Prostitution , Politics and Policy, he is entirely against liberal solutions to prostitution. The liberal approach is to think of the trade as simply another form of work, to be "non-judgmental" in dealing with it, and to set up areas, such as "tolerance zones", where women can work without fear of arrest.
The Netherlands is among countries that have set up these zones, which are usually on the edge of industrial estates. The theory is that, without the fear of a police swoop, women will have more chance to size up customers, thus improving their safety. Matthews completely disagrees with the notion of legalisation. Instead, he says, the punters should be deterred from buying sex, women in prostitution should be decriminalised, and a radical welfare strategy should be put in place to help them out of the trade.
In the book, Matthews describes most women he has met on the streets as "extremely desperate, damaged, and disorganised". Matthews is resolute. If the term 'victimisation' is to have any meaning, then those involved in prostitution must be prime candidates. A friend of one of the murdered women testifies that the victim's life was a constant cycle of drugs, homelessness and sexual violation. Numerous studies on women in street prostitution highlight the fact that most are dependent on heroin, crack cocaine, or both, and that all but a tiny minority want to stop selling sex.
After the first murder in Ipswich, Matthews saw a TV interview with Paula Clennell, in which she said she had to carry on selling sex because of her drug habit, but would be more careful. A few days later she was dead. Ipswich showed us that we need to be geared towards helping the women get off the streets, not making it easier to stay in prostitution. Over the past decade, at least 89 women in prostitution have been murdered, and that number is thought to be a low estimate.
