Britain announced plans Wednesday to outlaw prostitution involving women forced into the sex trade through illegal trafficking -- but the move was sharply criticised by experts.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants to criminalise paying for sex `controlled for another person`s gain` in England and Wales after rejecting a total ban on prostitution because of insufficient public support.

Britain announced plans Wednesday to outlaw prostitution involving women forced into the sex trade through illegal trafficking -- but the move was sharply criticised by experts.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants to criminalise paying for sex `controlled for another person`s gain` in England and Wales after rejecting a total ban on prostitution because of insufficient public support.

Britain announced plans Wednesday to outlaw prostitution involving women forced into the sex trade through illegal trafficking.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants to criminalise paying for sex `controlled for another person`s gain` in England and Wales after rejecting a total ban on prostitution because of insufficient public support.

Britain announced plans Wednesday to outlaw prostitution involving women forced into the sex trade through illegal trafficking.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants to criminalise paying for sex `controlled for another person`s gain` in England and Wales after rejecting a total ban on prostitution because of insufficient public support.

LA PAZ, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of outraged prostitutes are ready to fight a morality campaign targeting their trade by marching nude in the streets of Bolivia's capital, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The threat comes after angry mob on Wednesday destroyed bars and brothels in El Alto, a suburb near La Paz.

After the violence, authorities decided to close more than a thousand houses of prostitution in El Alto.

SRINAGAR, India, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Indian Kashmir's High Court on Monday asked police to investigate the involvement of top officials, including a state minister, in an alleged prostitution racket.

Authorities uncovered the racket in April last year involving over 40 women and young girls whose clients allegedly included politicians, bureaucrats, security men and businessmen in the conservative Muslim-majority state.

MADRID, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Spanish police on Wednesday said they had arrested 39 Chinese -- 28 prostitutes and 11 pimps -- in a clampdown on escort services in the eastern city of Barcelona.

Police raided 11 apartments to smash the prostitution ring.

They plan criminal charges against the alleged pimps for aiding illegal immigration and sexual exploitation. The prostitutes are to be deported home.

AMSTERDAM, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - The city of Amsterdam announced Thursday that it will invest up to 15 million euros (21 million dollars) to help clean up its famous red light district by buying brothels there.

The city will help a real estate developer buy 51 storefront windows where prostitutes ply their trade to convert them into apartments or commercial premises.

Although prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000, the city is trying to bring about a voluntary clean-up of Amsterdam's famous red light district.

PHNOM PENH, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - High demand for virgins from mostly Asian clients is fueling the flow of underage girls into Cambodia's sex trade, the International Organization for Migration has said in a report.

About 38 percent of the women and girls surveyed working in the sex trade here entered the industry by selling their virginity, IOM found, while 85 percent of the clients paying to sleep with them were Asian men.

ROME, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - Italian police on Saturday rounded up 18 people in an early morning raid on a suspected prostitution and human trafficking ring exploiting illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe.

The ring, based in northern Italy, is suspected of luring young girls into the country with promises of employment, the head of the operation, Antonio Gargano, told television news channel Sky TG24.

The girls were put to work as barmaids in a night club run by the ring and were forced into prostitution, he said.

PARIS, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Three former riot police officers were sent to a French prison Friday for seven years after gang-raping prostitutes over a two-year period, judicial officials said.

Two of their former colleagues were acquitted and two others had their sentence suspended.

According to prosecutors, the officers used to stop the prostitutes -- many of them illegal immigrants -- for identity checks, promising to turn a blind eye to their situation in exchange for sexual favours.

WASHINGTON, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - A pervasive 'culture of tolerance' must be overcome if the global fight against child prostitution is to succeed, a report funded by the US State Department said Thursday.

The report by the non-profit group 'Shared Hope International' (SHI), which aims to end the sexual exploitation of children, looks in depth at the child-sex industries in Jamaica, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.

PARIS, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - Seven former riot police officers from the northern Paris outskirts went on trial Friday accused of gang-raping local prostitutes over a two-year period.

According to prosecutors, the officers used to stop the prostitutes -- many of them illegal immigrants -- for identity checks, promising to turn a blind eye to their situation in exchange for sexual favours.

The rapes were reported to the police's internal inspectorate in 2003 by an association campaigning for prostitutes' rights.

NANTES, France, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-seven people went on trial Monday in western France accused of running a prostitution ring whose profits were laundered via a luxury property development in Thailand.

French police arrested some 40 people in 2004 after discovering a double bookkeeping system in 11 hostess bars in the western cities of Rennes and Nantes, suspected of operating as brothels.

Part of the bars' turnover was embezzled and used to finance an eight-villa property development in Thailand.

NANTES, France, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-seven people went on trial Monday in western France accused of running a prostitution ring whose profits were laundered via a luxury property development in Thailand.

French police arrested some 40 people in 2004 after discovering a double bookkeeping system in 11 hostess bars in the western cities of Rennes and Nantes, suspected of operating as brothels.

Part of the bars' turnover was embezzled and used to finance an eight-villa property development in Thailand.

VANCOUVER, Canada, July 30, 2007 (AFP) - When the trial of a pig farmer charged with mass murdering prostitutes began early this year, gruesome revelations of human heads and body parts in pig pens shocked Canadians.

But since then, little has changed for the drug-addicted women selling 'survival sex' in this western Canadian metropolis.

The trial caused an avalanche of gruesome evidence about the horrific fates of the alleged victims of Robert (Willy) Pickton, who has pleaded not guilty. And a massive police investigation into scores of missing women is ongoing.

SKOPJE, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - Macedonian police have arrested 24 suspected prostitutes, mostly from abroad, the second such group in less then a month, the interior ministry said Friday.

The suspects, whose age has not been disclosed, had been working as waitresses, singers and dancers in two bars near Gostivar, southwest of the capital Skopje, the ministry said in a statement.

The women -- nine from Serbia, one from Bulgaria, four from Albania and 10 from Macedonia itself -- were transferred to Skopje where they await trial.

SEOUL, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - South Korean state prosecutors said Thursday they have listed some 1,000 customers of illegal massage parlours, as part of a major crackdown on prostitution.

The inquiry in the city of Incheon, west of Seoul, began in late June when prosecutors seized around 2,000 credit card slips in a pre-dawn raid on three parlours, they said.

'We carefully looked into all the bills and made a list of some 1,000 clients who patronised the illegal massage parlours,' prosecutor Park Hong-Kyu told AFP from Incheon.