Prostitution: would legalisation help?

be generated by improving terms of trade along the lines proposed in the talks on General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.The United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 1992 recommends that one fifth of overseas aid budgets should go towards meeting basic needs.9Most donors earmark about a tenth of their budgets for this, Britain earmarks 8-8%.Britain also lags behind the target for overseas aid of 07% of gross national product set by the United Nations for donor nations.Britain, at 0 3%, is not even halfway there.Of most immediate importance, however, is the removal of the millstone of debt from around the neck of developing countries.A meeting ofthe group ofseven major industrialised countries (G7) in Toronto in 1988 agreed to write off 50% of debts, but the terms applied only to debts recently incurred by the poorest countries.In Trinidad in 1990 Britain proposed writing off up to 80% of debt, but other members of the group, including the United States, have yet to agree.Opposition parties in Britain are also proposing that debt repayments be limited to a maximum of 10% of a country's export revenue.Public support for these measures is vital.The members of parliament attending last week's conference made it clear that little would be achieved unless concern for the plight of developing countries registered strongly in opinion polls at election time.Mobilising such concern during a recession is not easy.One approach is to show people that what happens in the Third World directly affects them.10Third World debt holds back world economic recovery, increases the spread of disease, feeds the international traffic in drugs, damages the environment, and increases political instability and civil war, thus adding to the global refugee crisis.It also indirectly adds