To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the evidential basis is for her Department’s position that 80 per cent. of women working as prostitutes have been trafficked into the UK; and if she will place in the Library a copy of such evidence. (247522)

It is not the position of the Home Office that 80 per cent. of women working as prostitutes have been trafficked into the UK. Tackling the Demand for Prostitution: A Review stated that there were an estimated 80,000 people involved in prostitution in the UK, and that the most recent Home Office analysis (from 2003) had estimated that up to 4,000 women in the UK had been trafficked for sexual exploitation.