We know that a number of those arrested have fled to UK because of the war in Kosovo and have made asylum claims. Some are rape victims. Some have young children. From our experience, the draconian voucher and dispersal system deprives asylum seekers and their families of enough to eat and other basic necessities of life. It is hardly surprising if some women end up as sex workers to feed their children and themselves.

Having forced women into destitution, the government first criminalised those who begged. Now it is trying to use prostitution as a way to make deportation of the vulnerable more acceptable. We will not allow such injustice to go unchallenged.

Niki Adams
Legal Action for Women
Tony Benn MP,
Ian Macdonald QC,
Gareth Peirce
and other legal and immigration professionals

For this dehumanisation of women we have to thank people like Julie Bindel of North London University, quoted in your article, who reduce to pornographic flesh the sex workers they research. Bindel seems particularly concerned about interracial sex: "... the men [in Cambodia] want white women, the men [in Thailand] want black women". What if some gentlemen prefer blondes and others brunettes? Is this a reason to persecute women, or even men? Surely the crime of trafficking is violence against women, not sex with men.

We recently objected that some projects, some funded by the Home Office, are not independent of the police and are being drawn into "intelligence gathering". While we picketed the Home Office following the Soho raids, they evoked no protest from these projects - some girls' jobs are more important than other girls', especially if the others are "foreigners".

Nina Lopez-Jones
English Collective of Prostitutes