On October 7, Bulgarian government abruptly reversed its move towards legalising prostitution, part of a broader trend in Europe to make prostitution illegal as a way to combat women trafficking, International Herald Tribune (IHT) said.

Bulgaria was a small but key country in the European sex trade where prostitution existed in a legal grey area, IHT said. Bulgarian women were sent abroad by the thousands each year to work as prostitutes, usually against their will.

"We should be very definite in saying that selling flesh is a crime," IHT quoted Interior Minister Rumen Petkov as saying on October 7 at a forum on people trafficking that was also attended by President Purvanov, Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva and the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria.

According to IHT, Bulgaria is only the latest European country to shift its approach to prostitution.

"It has turned around," the newspaper quoted Gunilla Ekberg, formerly special adviser to the Swedish government on the subject and now co-executive director of the nonprofit Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International as saying. "There's a recognition, both politically and in civil society, that Bulgaria is not going to be a haven for prostitution."

The coalition of allies in the fight against legal prostitution included the Bush administration, feminist groups and the Swedish government. The Swedish model, which punishes the customers rather than the prostitutes themselves, has been successful in Europe because it targets the demand for paid sex without criminalising the women involved, IHT said.

Nadia Kozhouharova, a psychotherapist who works with abused women, including victims of trafficking, through the local group Animus Association said "if they make prostitution illegal, it will go much more underground, more inaccessible for services and help, for police and for protection."

Antoaneta Vassileva, executive secretary of the national anti-trafficking commission in Bulgaria said "the traffickers are very practical businessmen. They are going to the countries where the law is not suppressing them."

The flow of trafficked women from Bulgaria was mostly directed to places in Western Europe like Germany and the Netherlands where prostitution was legal, Bulgarian officials said.