“I don’t think they would have come back. If they really knew,” says the Rwandan woman, who was brought from Africa to a south London apartment and forced to have sex while her captor collected her earnings.

“But it’s not their concern at the end of the day: you’ve paid your money, and you got what you are paying for,” she told Reuters, asking that a pseudonym be used in place of her name for fear those who exploited her would track her down.

The rise of international sex trafficking is causing many countries to rethink their laws on prostitution and re-examine legal frameworks that for decades have treated the purchase of sex as a social nuisance or “victimless crime”.

Norway’s government proposed last week to fine or jail clients of prostitutes for up to six months in a bid to stamp out human trafficking, saying the rule would apply to its citizens in Norway and abroad.

British government research shows that during 2003 there were an estimated 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in Britain. The figures have risen at least threefold since 1998, according to Home Office figures.

The customers who paid for sex with Alicia broke no British law. Men can be prosecuted for “kerb crawling” for prostitutes, but paying for sex in a private apartment is not a crime. To prove rape, police would have to show that a customer knew Alicia was unwilling.

Fiona MacTaggart, a former government minister and member of parliament from the ruling Labor party, wants to change this.

“Men who pay for sex with a woman who has been trafficked are basically paying for rape,” said MacTaggart.

She is among a group of Labor MPs who would like to replace criminal penalties for street prostitutes with counseling programs to get them out of the trade, and criminalize paying for sex.

Britain’s Home Office is studying laws in other countries as it carries out a short-term review to see what can be done to tackle the demand for prostitution.

The debate moved into high gear after the killing in late 2006 of five drug-addicted prostitutes around the town of Ipswich by a forklift truck driver, who was sentenced to life in prison in February.

MacTaggart’s proposals mark a radical shift from previous thinking. A few years ago, she was part of a Labor government that suggested it might move towards legalizing prostitution.

And despite losing an initial battle to get fines for street prostitution replaced with mandatory counseling in a draft law, MacTaggart says her war goes on.

“We don’t criminalize people who sell kidneys. We criminalize the buyer.”

Legal hotchpotch

Those who support efforts to penalize men for buying sex want to reduce prostitution by tackling demand rather than supply. If men knew more about the violence associated with the sex trade and faced more credible risk of punishment, they would be less tempted to pay for sex, the reasoning goes.

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