By Lin Taylor
LONDON, April 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – On average at least two people a day are arrested in France for buying sex under a new law which criminalises paying for sex and punishes clients rather than sex workers, an international charity said on Thursday.
Since the French law to reduce sex trafficking was enacted a year ago, 937 people have been arrested for buying sex, according to the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP), which consists of 18 global charities providing support to victims of sexual exploitation.
“Sex buyers are now recognised as people who sexually exploit women in vulnerable situations with their financial power,” said CAP Chief Executive Gregoire Thery in a phone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“The aim is to reduce the scale of prostitution, pimping and trafficking in France. To remove the repression of victims, and remove the impunity of the exploiters.”
Thery said there are between 30,000 and 40,000 sex workers in France – nearly 90 percent of them are victims of human trafficking, mainly from Bulgaria, Romania, China and Nigeria.
