However hard we try, we are never going to stop prostitution.

But when it comes to trafficking and forcing women into the trade, it is a different story.

We report today that during a two-month investigation codenamed Operation Pentameter, police identified 12 brothels in Oxfordshire and rescued a Chinese woman from one in Oxford.

If women choose this way of life, there is little society can do about it, apart from offering help and ensuring their trade does not impinge on the neighbourhood.

It makes no sense persecuting a relatively small band of women when serious crime is rampant.

But there are signs that the sex trade is exploiting a growing number of young women who have not chosen it young women trafficked from Eastern Europe or the Far East.

They need protecting.