Using prostitutes overseas should be socially unacceptable

People on stag trips have a right to some fun – but they must realise that buying sex off desperate women isn’t

People walk through the red-light district, known as De Wallen, in Amsterdam (AFP/Getty)

One of the less expected by-products of the quantum rise in the number of Britons taking short “city break” holidays in Europe is a rise in the number of young men going there not to tour the sights but to use the brothels.

One survey has revealed that an astonishing two-thirds of men who admitted to having used prostitutes had done so abroad. What that suggests is that many young men who would not dream of paying to use a prostitute in their own country think this behaviour is perfectly acceptable following a short flight.

End Demand, a group campaigning against the sex trade, says the only way to stop the exploitation of women at home and abroad is through the adoption of a Nordic-style Sex Buyer Law. This would criminalise the buyers rather than the sellers of sex – and at the same time make it possible to prosecute men in Britain who had paid for sex overseas.

Putting men in court for an offence that is not a crime in the country where the act occurred sounds like a recipe for endless legal wrangling – great news for lawyers, perhaps. Buying and selling sex remains legal in, among other countries, Germany, the Netherlands and Latvia – coincidentally three of the most popular destinations for stag parties.

However, even if the campaign to criminalise the sex trade has flaws, the current permissive, almost complicit, attitude towards young men going to Amsterdam or Frankfurt for paid sex is simply unacceptable. We do not necessarily need new laws to change this mindset. We need only extend the same stigma to men who buy sex off women abroad that those who use prostitutes in Britain face already.

People on stag trips have a right to some fun – but it is time they were made to realise that buying sex off desperate women isn’t.