PRESCRIBE HEROIN TO END SLAUGHTER OF STREET GIRLS

A VICE girl was indecently assaulted and brutally attacked on a river walkway in Glasgow last week. Only last month a sex worker was stabbed and later died of her injuries.

Glasgow has a history of murdered street walkers.

I hate to label these women prostitutes. I believe that a woman with an addiction who sells the only thing she owns is a "heroin-addicted sex worker" and not a prostitute.

In these wonderful days of the internet, sex is always on tap.

Call girls and most prostitutes are women who work from a clean, safe flat, collect credit card details, get paid generously for their services and work securely in our culture.

These women have a level of personal control over their career choice and often work within society's image of what a "hooker" presents to the world.

It is somehow socially acceptable to see a smartly-dressed woman visiting clients in an upmarket hotel. Surely this young lady doesn't deserve to be stabbed in the back streets of the city?

Now picture the victim as a drug addict, staggering around in her torn tights, short skirt and high heels, selling her body for smack - and then somehow we have sympathy fatigue for any fate that befalls her. Maybe she deserved it?

Regardless of the habits of the victim, we have to acknowledge that women are being murdered on our streets and we need to ask why.

The police have no evidence that all the murders are linked and we are talking multiple killings here. Ten women have been killed since 1991. Glasgow's financial district is situated near Broomielaw, which is bang in the middle of the red-light district. The myriad dark, old, cobbled alleys there provide cover for the girls to take their punters.

Sandra White, who was a Scottish National Party MSP for Glasgow, and who has campaigned for more protection for prostitutes, has recently called for a heavier police presence.

The politician said: "Since it has been turned into the financial district, the police presence has declined. Officers used to be on regular patrols and turn a blind eye to the women working.

"That doesn't happen any more and there's no protection. We need more officers down there."

It seems that not enough people care. People often forget that society has sidestepped these women. Many have been abused, raped and have suffered countless years of alcohol and drug addiction.

To sell your body to anonymous men on the dangerous streets of Glasgow means you must have eliminated all other options to get cash. Heroin does that to people.

I lived in the Calton area of Glasgow for 15 years and I saw firsthand what heroin did to a community.

The drug flooded the East End of Glasgow, young people were dying and just about every family I knew had an addict.

It was shocking.

Young girls who were just out of a school uniform were falling out of cars, drugged out of their heads and selling themselves for "one more hit".

Some of these girls were not even sexually active before they became sex workers.

It is horrifying to realise that their introduction to sex was with a stranger in a car.

Heroin wrecks communities, destroys lives and kills.

The drug laws already implemented don't work; this has been proven.

There needs to be a fresh look at what can be done to help the growing number of addicts here in Scotland.

I believe that the answer lies in a programme within the health sector prescribing heroin to hardcore addicts.

This has been proven to work in other countries and the idea has been supported by various members of the UK police forces.

If heroin users can officially get their fix from a doctor, then less crime and prostitution would be on our streets.

Even if prostitution were legalised, this would still not protect heroin- addicted women who turn to prostitution; they would be shunned by officially run brothels as drug users cannot comply with health checks.

But prescribed heroin would take them off the streets and out of the hands of the violent men who treat them as worthless objects and the men who kill them.

FALKLANDS DEATH OVERSHADOWED BY PERSONAL TRAGEDY OF LOST MUM

TWENTY-FIVE years ago today, General Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and my mother went missing.

The two events will be forever etched in my memory.

It was Easter 1982 and, as the world waited for Margaret Thatcher's reaction, I waited patiently to see what had happened to my mammy.

My mammy had a violent boyfriend and they both had been last seen going for a walk up near the Clyde.

He came back alone. Three days later, my mother's lifeless body was found floating down the River Clyde and, on that very day, the British naval vanguard set sail for Ascension Island.

So today, I will recognise that 255 British servicemen died in that war. But one woman will be sorely missed by me.

MONSTROUS MESS UNDER THE BED

Recently I wrote about my daughter Ashley's messy room and how the place looks like a badly-burgled jumble sale.

With the news that her big new bed had been delivered, she went into the room of doom to give it a gutting out.

She was in there for hours sorting out the shambolic clutter.

The old futon was dragged out like a dead drunk and the shiny new bed was put in place.

Soon it was time for the "mummy inspection".

The place was so tidy I was impressed.

That was until I lifted up the plush furry bedspread and looked under her bed.

Every inch underneath was covered in the clothes, boxes and shoes that had been scattered all over the floor.

She had simply dragged all the clutter together and carefully arranged it into a heap under the new brass bed.

I stood there aghast at the sight.

"At least there is no room for monsters," she laughed as she kicked a handbag beneath the bed.

"Or boyfriends," I added.