there’s Toynbee Hall’s “It’s just like going to a supermarket” (…I’ve never been to a brothel, but I must say that if it’s anything like the aisles at ASDA I don’t think I’ll plan to…)
http://www1.toynbeehall.org.uk/news_item.asp?section=29&itemid=1024&itemTitle=New+research+on+men+who+buy+sex+%96+%93it%92s+just+like+going+to+the+supermarket%94

…and I don’t know the Australia study but my guess is that Sheila Jeffreys will have had something to do with it. But whatever, it’s not put off most states in Australia decriminalising or legalising.

Here, for example, is a short but damning critique of the Scottish study by a list of mainly UK-based academics:
http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:X2Tn3b7muPAJ:myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/Client%2520studies/FarleyCritique-2.doc+academic+%2B+%22Challenging+Men's+Demand+for+Prostitution+in+Scotland%22&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Aka
http://tiny.cc/vDpTF

Farley never submits her work for peer review as it tends to deconstruct on impact. She was heavily funded by the neo-Conservatives of the Bush White House, whether the Obama administration will take a different stance is not known, though it seems unlikely as Hilary Clinton likes prostitution crusading.

The academics are still working on the Eaves paper, but its methodology’s clearly up the poll. But as a stop-gap, here’s an interesting reaction from Cory Silverberg:
http://sexuality.about.com/b/2010/01/22/imaginary-conversations-with-men-who-pay-for-sex.htm

Farley, Bindel and Jeffreys are forever starting with their conclusions and selecting evidence to justify them. Check it out and it falls apart.

“The prostitutes themselves also never really choose the trade of their own free will.”

Do you really mean that? The Suzanne Jenkins study suggests rather a lot of them do. It also suggests rather more of them consider themselves to be exploiting their clients than the other way around, the sex workers virtually all feel that they take control of the situation rather the clients, and the dialogue on the various sex worker/client boards generally indicate a good natured mutual respect between most sex workers and most clients.

Besides, how many shelf stackers, refuse collectors, lavatory attendants, farmhands, food processing operatives etc etc etc return to work each morning feeling withdrawal symptoms from when they left the previous day?

As I touched upon towards the end of the article, I don’t think sex work is a problem per se. It exists in it’s current form because a sizable minority of men either wish to dominate women, view them as objects to which they have a god given right to use for pleasure, or are incapable or unwilling to form genuine relationships. These wishes contribute to the abuse of the prostitutes, but they are undoubtedly formed by society – the “lad mag” culture, centuries of sexism, and the proliferation of sexual images in advertising (I’m no prude, I just think that *only* using women in this way is undoubtedly going to have uneven effects. You’re very unlikely to see a half naked man selling CDs or alcohol). The prostitutes themselves also never really choose the trade of their own free will – see the statistics on drug abuse, homelessness, coercien and general mental illness. It isn’t just the user’s fault, it’s just that they’re generally more at fault morally.

I’m no prohibitionist – If the sex industry was genuinely clean, legal, safe, the “Johns” and prostitutes subject to rules and regulations, pimps were severely punished and banned – all in all if it was built to serve the women rather than the men – then fair enough. It’s a pretty pathetic thing, selling or buying sex, (you can get it for free in pretty much any nightclub, you know), but if you get your kicks off truly “owning” another person, as long as you’re not really going to hurt them, and that person isn’t horribly abused, drug addicted and forced into doing what she’s doing, then let the whole thing go ahead.

This is never going to happen, though, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion that a free market sex trade would do just as much harm as the criminal one. My point is that the majority of prostitutes are horribly abused women – nearly all statistics back this up – and using them for sex when you’re aware of this is disgusting. If a man happens to find a Belle du Jour, good for him and her. But it very rarely happens.

You will find that Eaves is very selective in the studies it publicises, which appear to be your main source of information. Very often they turn out to be studies of the small street sex worker communities rather than of sex workers as a whole. Street sex workers have high levels of addiction to crack or heroin, but make up only a small portion of sex workers involved in prostitution.

Try the studies here for a contrast:
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/poppys-petition-poppycock/

Why do you consider sex work a ‘problem’? Sometimes it is a symptom of problems.

Trafficking in law in England and Wales (Sexual Offences Act 2003) does not require the use of force or coercion, merely the assisting of someone into, around or out of the country in order to e.g. work in a brothel. Thus it differs from the Palermo Protocol, which is far more like the definition publicised in the media. Sometimes this confuses Government ministers as well:
http://stephenpaterson.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/human-trafficking-whats-human-trafficking/