"...adopt a more principled stance that has less chance of succesfully delivering any help or tools for the majority of these women to escape?"

And on what basis do you say that?

In fact, the multi-prong action plans adopted in Sweden, Norway, now Iceland and being considered in the U.K. do answer women's demands for alternatives to prostitution: detox, subsidized housing and child care, job market re-entry, psych support, erasing criminal records, etc., the kind of things women have been demanding here in Canada but not being heard over the din from pimps and their lobbyists.

ETA: It seems to me that the "principled stance" is the one that blames "these women" for unseen men's choices, and that touts "sex work" as the ultimate act of agency, regardless of most women's reality of survival sex. Make buying sex illegal and a decent living wage available, along with other essential tools, and you will see a very pragmatic change. In fact, buying sex is mere opportunism for us, the stuff of business expense accounts and macho camaraderie; set it out of bounds and most men will slink on to other prursuits, as they did in the Nordic countries where feminists and progressives egged allies and governments to take that route.