-A study on trafficking, migration and sexual exploitation in 5 countries demonstrated that “so called "safety policies" in brothels did not protect women from harm. Even where brothels supposedly monitored the "customers" and utilized "bouncers," women stated that they were injured by buyers and, at times, by brothel owners and their friends. Even when someone intervened to control buyers' abuse, women lived in a climate of fear. Although 60 percent of women reported that buyers had sometimes been prevented from abusing them, half of those women answered that, nonetheless, they thought that they might be killed by one of their "customers".”
Janice G. Raymond, "10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution", Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW)
- Women do not escape violence in legal brothels. One example comes "from the classiest brothel in Melbourne, The Daily Planet, which was launched on the Stock Exchange in February 2003. The Daily Planet has alarm buttons in the rooms that women can press to call the bouncer. Unfortunately women only press these once they have been hit. A bouncer at the brothel interviewed in the local paper explains that he runs up and breaks the door open when the bell rings (the locks are flimsy) (Everything But the Girls. The Sunday Age 31/05/98). But the damage has already been done. There is no way to prevent women being hit in the best run brothels and it is, according to the bouncer’s account, not uncommon."
Sheila Jeffreys, "The Legalisation of Prostitution : A failed social experiment", Feb.2004 speech, Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations, New York 5/03/03
-“Women in brothels or clubs are not encouraged to complain about violence to pimps/owners. Sometimes, they are fired for these protests, even after being raped. In 2000, a dancer in San Francisco was raped in a private booth at the Mitchell Brothers strip club. When she complained to the owners about the rape, they fired her. ...In 2004, a woman prostituting at a Nevada brothel filed civil lawsuits against a john who assaulted her and against pimp Dennis Hof because he failed to call police and because the panic button in her room was not working (Associated Press, 2004)."
Melissa Farley, " "Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart": Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized," Violence Against Women, Vol. 10 No, October 2004, p 14-16 http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/FarleyVAW.pdf