Prostitution is described as the oldest profession. It often feels as if the arguments between those who want it abolished and those who are pragmatic about it continuing have been going on for almost as long. Today, as the European parliament prepares to vote on whether men who buy sex should be criminalised, both sides are squaring up for yet another battle in this long-running war.

Sex work straddles a vast spectrum. Not everyone who engages in sex work is raped, trafficked, beaten and unpaid. Nor are sex workers, who are mostly female, all safe, happy and well remunerated.

Abolitionists say that the act of a woman "selling her body" to a man for sex is exploitation, irrespective of how much she is paid and whether or not the sex act is violent or accompanied by violence. Many sex workers and their advocates beg to differ. They are unlikely to agree any time soon.

Prostitution statistics are notoriously unreliable, as many sex workers are operating in a hidden, underground way and aren't included in any headcounts. But according to the Association of Chief Police Officers' 2010 report, 2,600 of 30,000 women working in indoor premises were trafficked. Yet Labour MEP Mary Honeyball, a keen advocate of the proposal to criminalise men who buy sex, insists that a majority of women in sex work are trafficked.

The abolitionists' arguments might work if every woman selling sex was desperate to stop doing so, and if there was a comprehensive support package in place to help women exit prostitution and provide them with lucrative, alternative employment.

But many sex workers say they are willing to engage in this work because they can earn more than they would be able to in other jobs. Those who do want to get out lament the lack of financial and emotional support available to them, and equate leaving sex work to tumbling into a bottomless, moneyless rabbit hole.

They insist that the proposals backed by Honeyball won't "rescue" them or prompt them to walk away rejoicing from their work but will simply make it more dangerous for them to continue doing what they have chosen to do.

Whether laws are passed to criminalise buyers or criminalise sellers, the impact on sellers who choose to remain in sex work is the same. It makes their work more dangerous. Working together in small groups, whether inside or outside, makes things safer for sex workers.

Yet women who work together indoors are committing a crime under current UK laws, and those who work on the streets together are more likely to attract negative attention from police and be charged with soliciting. Police chiefs have recently called for women to be allowed to work together to improve safety. Two sex workers were recently murdered in London. The first, Mariana Popa, was working alone outside as there was a police enforcement operation going on in the area, while the second, Maria Duque-Tunjano, was also working alone indoors to avoid prosecution. Would both these women still be alive today if they had been allowed to work in a small group with other women?

When sex workers raise their voices it is usually to call for their rights. Italian sex workers have been demanding the right to pay taxes so they can receive pensions, while sex workers in London's Soho have hailed a new court victory rejecting a closure order on two flats they have been working in. The judge ruled that the women were not being controlled for gain in their work, despite police putting forward a contrary argument.

Sweden, Norway and Iceland have already made the purchase of sex a criminal offence. France has voted the same way, and Ireland is considering following suit. Academic Jay Levy has recently completed a piece of research about the "Swedish model" of criminalising men who pay for sex. He argues that levels of sex work in Sweden have not reduced, while the law has caused great harm to sex workers, especially the most vulnerable.

If the European parliament endorses the Swedish model today, the very women they say they want to protect will be put at increased risk. Isn't it time to call a truce between both sides in the prostitution debate? Increase real support to women who want to leave sex work while allowing women who have chosen to sell sex to increase their safety by working together, without fear of prosecution, leaving police to focus on victims of trafficking and underage girls.