Sir, – Perhaps the answer to David Walsh's concerns (January 3rd) is that trade unions and other such organisations should never get involved with issues outside their area of competence and interest and should not take a stand on issues such as this on the simple basis that their members will be as divided as the general population and taking a position can only represent a portion of the membership.
Prostitution it seems has “always” been part of human activity and I guess always will be, but that does not diminish in any way the abhorrence with which the vast majority of people view it, people who recognise how demeaning it is for both parties but particularly for the women concerned and the brutality and cruelty involved in forced prostitution which only expands when the legal brakes are removed. Witness the recent experience of Germany where organised crime has found it a very lucrative trade.
It is easy and convenient to dress up a reluctance to legislate to reduce prostitution as a matter of freedom and choice, but freedom and choice are relevant to very few; what is involved here is an effort to protect the majority from coercion. The sex trade in all its forms is full of victims. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK DAVEY,
Dublin Road,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.