Prostitution in the United Kingdom
In Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), the act of engaging in sex as part of an exchange of various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015. Though laws regulating sex work exist, they are not always strictly enforced, with some reports in March 2016 of police forces turning a blind eye to brothels. Since then, however, there have been reports of crackdowns on brothels in the U.K. Many brothels in cities such as Manchester, London and Cardiff operate under the guise of "massage parlours". Although the age of consent is 16 throughout the United Kingdom, it is illegal to buy sex from a person under 18 where the perpetrator does not reasonably believe they are 18 or over. In England and Wales, it is an offence to pay for sex with a sex worker who has been "subjected to force", constituting a strict liability offence - wherein the client of a sex worker can be prosecuted for the offence, even in the absence of fault or criminal intent to force a sex worker to provide sexual services for them. Extent The total number of prostitutes in the United Kingdom is not known exactly and is difficult to assess. In 2009, authorities and NGOs estimated that approximately 100,000 persons in the country were engaged in prostitution. Research published in 2015 indicated that there were approximately 72,800 sex workers in the UK; 88% were women, 6% men and 4% transgender. According to a 2009 study by TAMPEP, of all prostitutes in the UK, 41% were foreigners; however, in London this percentage was 80%. The total number of migrant prostitutes was significantly lower than in other Western countries (such as Spain and Italy where the percentage of all migrant prostitutes was 90%). The migrant prostitutes came from: Central Europe (includes Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic) 43%, the Baltic states 10%, Eastern Europe (includes Romania and Bulgaria) 7%, the Balkans 4%, other EU countries 16%, Latin America 10%, Asia 7%, Africa 2%, North America 1%. Thirty-five different countries of origin were identified. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, prostitution contributed £5.3 billion to the UK economy in 2009. In 2015, the HMRC set up a dedicated "adult entertainment task force" to collect unpaid income tax from, among others, online escort agencies. The sex trade in the UK takes diverse forms, including street prostitution, escort prostitution and prostitution conducted from premises. The premises used include massage parlours, saunas, private flats and Soho walk-ups. In 2003, undercover police visited the lap dancing club Spearmint Rhino on Tottenham Court Road in London and claimed that it was a front for prostitution. In 2008, a study compiled by the Poppy Project found brothels in all 33 London local authority areas. Westminster had the