BRITAIN needs a crackdown on pimping websites to address human trafficking for sexual exploitation, the home affairs committee reports today.

A new report from the committee accuses the government of sacrificing efforts to stop human trafficking in favour of attacking immigrants.

Chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson said it had found “little evidence” anti-slavery legislation was abused by people trying to stay in the country, despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak repeating the claim at his press conference yesterday.

The report slammed websites advertising prostitution which “significantly facilitate trafficking for sexual exploitation” and “the continuing failure of their owners to implement even the most basic safeguards.”

Dame Diana said: ““It beggars belief that the government has allowed pimping websites to operate and has done next to nothing to deter the minority of men who pay for sex.

“Websites are directly fuelling sex trafficking across the UK and causing unimaginable harm to victims.”

Legislation should be extended to “prohibit any individual or company from enabling or profiting from the prostitution of another person, including facilitation that takes place via online, digital services, websites and the internet,” the Kingston-upon-Hull North MP said.

Campaign group Nordic Model Now’s Anna Fisher told the Morning Star it agreed with the committee.

“There is far too little to deter men from prostitution-buying, and this creates a marketplace for the human trafficking of marginalised women and girls, both from this country and abroad.

“Our own research has revealed the shocking fact that in the last five years there have been zero prosecutions in England and Wales for the two offences designed to address this — kerb crawling and paying for sex from someone who has been subjected to coercion. 

“The statistics on prosecutions for pimping and brothel keeping are nearly as bad.”

Ms Fisher said it seemed the police had decided “not to enforce the law on prostitution” in favour of partnering with prostitution-advertising sites in the doomed expectation they would make changes likely to reduce their profits.

The home affairs committee report estimates there may be 100,000 victims of modern slavery and human trafficking in Britain, but the Home Office “does not hold a definitive data source on the number of victims in the UK.”