Any organisation that protects women from abuse and injustice deserves our support. Regrettably, Women's Aid Organisation's (WAO) disclosure ("WAO does not treat prostitutes as 'moral lepers'", Nov 1) that it supports the decriminalisation of prostitution does not serve the overall interests of women.

Prostitution demeans a woman and relegates her to a commodity. It depreciates the real purpose and meaningfulness of sex. To decriminalise prostitution is to condemn many women to a life of physical abuse and sexual slavery. Many young girls are the victims of unscrupulous and dangerous criminals who force them into a life of suffering and misery.

Decriminalisation will not only legalise an immoral business but make it respectable and help it grow. More girls and women will become victims. To euphemistically call prostitutes "sex workers" will not detract from the fact prostitution destroys many women, not only physically from sexually transmitted diseases and Aids (and the numbers in poor countries are alarming), but emotionally and psychologically.

In condemning rape, WAO's Ivy Josiah suggests men exercise self-control, though I think serial rapists are psychiatric cases. She should extend it to include those who need to patronise brothels. Many of them are married and should learn to find sexual satisfaction with their wives. It is not unknown for husbands to pass on sexually transmitted diseases and Aids caught from prostitutes to their unsuspecting wives. Apart from the health risks for women with wayward partners, from a moral standpoint, it is wrong for husbands to cheat on their wives.

By endorsing prostitution WAO is not helping women who are being sexually exploited. I hope it will give more serious thought to its position and try to uplift the position of women by upholding high moral standards and protecting the virtue and safety of women than giving in to 'politically correct' thinking and faulty notions of freedom from the morally backward segments of Western society.

Our sexual desires are wholesome and natural if we control them like we control our emotions and physical desires. Men, more than women, need to overcome lust, which is not a physical state but an emotional and mental state of mind. The function of marriage is not only to give men and women the opportunity to start a family but to enable them to enjoy sex and deepen their relationship. It is our wrong attitude towards sex that creates social problems. Rape and extra-marital affairs are some of the negative symptoms of a faulty and unwholesome attitude toward sex.

It is a myth that prostitution is the oldest profession, like the myth a flirtatious and sexually provocative woman deserves to be raped. If a person has faulty ideas, it follows that he will do some strange and wrong things. Like most things in life, without a higher principle guiding a human act, it tends to degenerate into something undesirable or wrong. Those who belittle sexual morality are only finding an excuse to justify promiscuity. Without the restraint from high morals, and all religions and upright societies teach the importance of sexual purity, man will tend toward lasciviousness.

Some sexual offenders, e.g., serial rapists and sex addicts need professional help - not from prostitutes, but from psychiatrists and others trained in helping them. Society should frown on the use of prostitutes. We should not condemn those who are prostitutes and treat them as 'moral lepers' but neither should we approve of their sex trade. Let's call a spade a spade and prostitution what it is - an immoral activity.

If WAO wants to help women it should do more to help women caught in the prostitution trap and discourage those considering getting into the business of its dangers and undesirability. After all which normal and decent parent would say, "When my daughter grows up I'd like her to be a prostitute". Or which mother would boast to her friends, "Hey, you know my daughter is a prostitute-lah".

It is pleasing to know that some Thais are beginning to take a strong and moral stand to protect their women and their country's image by taking action to stem out sex tours and reduce the high level of prostitution in the country.

If poverty is a cause of prostitution let us raise money to help those women who have to sell their bodies and souls to survive. But let's not try to give it the legitimacy it does not deserve. Prostitution is a dark and dirty business and the road to destruction not only for many women but many men.