Mobile Phone Operators Asked to 'hang Up on Prostitution'

The UK is trying to clamp down on unsavoury adverts placed within public phone boxes by asking the mobile networks to block calls to numbers that are advertised. London's Deputy Mayor for Policing, Kit Malthouse, has called on the mobile phone operators to work with the Mayor's office, the police and voluntary groups to help crack down on prostitution and human trafficking ahead of the London 2012 Games.

Criminal gangs who control prostitution in the capital often advertise their services using cards, containing mobile phone numbers, placed in phone boxes across central London. The Mayor wants to see an agreement reached between mobile phone operators and the police that would see these numbers taken out of use as soon as they are identified, cutting off a key source of income for these gangs.

Major sporting events are often linked to an upsurge in demand for prostitution, which in turn fuels human trafficking. At the Athens Olympics the number of known human trafficking victims almost doubled.

Deputy Mayor for Policing Kit Malthouse said: "Nothing is more important to a pimp or trafficker than money. They don't give a damn about the women and girls they abuse, they only care about the cash in their pocket. So alongside the Met busting brothels and taking out the criminal networks that feed them, we want to cut their access to cash and punters starting by ridding London of prostitute cards in telephone boxes.

"In 2012 we want to be proud of our city as a glittering example to the world. But we need the mobile phone operators to show their commitment to fighting the abuse of women and help us. We want companies like Vodafone, Orange, O2, 3, Virgin and T-Mobile to make it difficult for the pimps and traffickers who advertise their mobile numbers on these cards to do business by barring them. "

The Chief Executives of the major mobile operators have been invited them to a meeting at City Hall in October alongside key members from the Metropolitan Police Service, Crown Prosecution Service, BT and women's organisations across London

Posted to the site on 18th August 2009