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It's time we legalize prostitution to bring it out of the shadow's. Its naive to pretend it does not exist, the illegality of it only hurts those who engage in

It's time we legalize prostitution to bring it out of the shadow's. Its naive to pretend it does not exist, the illegality of it only hurts those who engage in it for a living whether they are doing so willingly or not. Keeping it illegal on moral high grounds leads to unintended consequences like sex trafficking and criminal charges the effects which last a lifetime. Path2Freedom is trying to raise money for a $20 million dollar 100 acre refuge/community for victims of sex trafficking http://www.path2freedom.org/ http://www.path2freedom.org/

gilgoomesh 11y ago
Brothels are legal where I live (Australia). It's always a bit strange to see U.S. TV shows where prostitution is a crime. That said, just because legal brothels exist, doesn't mean illegal prostitution stops. Pay attention to the news for a few years and you'll still periodically hear about arrests for illegal types of prostitution (sex slavery, underage prostitution, etc).
- derefr 11y ago
  True, but in places (like Australia, or Amsterdam) where you go all the way and unionize prostitution, it's much, much easier to catch the illegal types: you just raid anything that looks like an unregistered/unlicensed prostitution operation. The main problem with catching sex trafficking and other sexual exploitaton, usually, is that there's so much "grey market" prostitution that isn't really hurting anybody, that law-enforcement tends to just ignore the whole mass as something they don't have the resources to confront or enough information to prioritize. Creating a whitelist and getting all the voluntary sex workers on it gives you a manageably-smaller set of non-whitelisted cases to investigate.
riffraff 11y ago
To be fair, there are victims of sex trafficking even where prostitution is legal.
- ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
  Of course, and to be fair its much easier for those victims to go to authorities to get help if they're not afraid of getting in trouble for doing something illegal. Also to be fair there is less demand for trafficked victims, if others can choose to do so "freely" or in this case with charge....
  - riffraff 11y ago
    Not really, for both points. For the first: they are still afraid of getting in trouble, and their foremost fear is their exploiters, not the police. Being forced into prostitution is not a crime, and they would have always been protected by the police. For the second: there is surely a non-zero amount of people who might have chosen to practice prostitution and didn't do it because of the law. That does not mean that they don't end up being exploited. Many victims of human trafficking might initially agree to participate in a prostitution business, but still end up in an effective slavery condition. The amount of "self employed prostitutes who chose to do it only when it became legal" is higher than zero, but very very tiny. Mind you, I am in favor of legalizing prostitution, I've just grown very disillusioned by the effectiveness of it, though I'm confident things might improve in the next decades.
    - ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
      On Both Points, Please provide sources for your claims which go against accepted knowledge. The exploiters do so as a means of earning money, if its legal what use do the prostitutes have for an exploiter? Why not just tell the cops someone is extorting them? Its much easier to go to the cops if what you're doing is not illegal. You don't hear about people going to the cops when they get ripped off trying to purchase something illegal, or have something illegal stolen because doing so is self-incriminating, make it legal see what happens
      - riffraff 11y ago
        What I am saying is accepted knowledge. You can read for example, the article that was on HN some time ago[0] which cites Andrea Matolcsi of Equality Now > She points out that Denmark, which decriminalised prostitution in 1999 – the same year Sweden made the purchase of sex illegal - has four times the number of trafficking victims than its neighbour despite having around half the population. Prostitutes do not need exploiters even if they are illegal. They do not tell the cops because they are effectively unable to leave their exploiters for a ton of reasons, ranging from physical threats to them and their families, to psychological or physical dependency (i.e. they feel they cant go back, "loverboys", drug addiction, fear of "voodoo"), to general fear of authorities ("will I be deported? Will the cops abuse me? What if the cops are partners of my pimp?"). There are a few interesting bits on quora[1] if you want to read more. [0] http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/ http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradi... [1] https://www.quora.com/Where-are-all-the-forced-sex-trafficking-sex-slaves-Why-arent-they-complaining-Why-cant-they-be-found https://www.quora.com/Where-are-all-the-forced-sex-trafficki...

gilgoomesh 11y ago

Brothels are legal where I live (Australia). It's always a bit strange to see U.S. TV shows where prostitution is a crime. That said, just because legal brothels exist, doesn't mean illegal prostitution stops. Pay attention to the news for a few years and you'll still periodically hear about arrests for illegal types of prostitution (sex slavery, underage prostitution, etc).

derefr 11y ago
True, but in places (like Australia, or Amsterdam) where you go all the way and unionize prostitution, it's much, much easier to catch the illegal types: you just raid anything that looks like an unregistered/unlicensed prostitution operation. The main problem with catching sex trafficking and other sexual exploitaton, usually, is that there's so much "grey market" prostitution that isn't really hurting anybody, that law-enforcement tends to just ignore the whole mass as something they don't have the resources to confront or enough information to prioritize. Creating a whitelist and getting all the voluntary sex workers on it gives you a manageably-smaller set of non-whitelisted cases to investigate.

riffraff 11y ago

To be fair, there are victims of sex trafficking even where prostitution is legal.

ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
Of course, and to be fair its much easier for those victims to go to authorities to get help if they're not afraid of getting in trouble for doing something illegal. Also to be fair there is less demand for trafficked victims, if others can choose to do so "freely" or in this case with charge....
- riffraff 11y ago
  Not really, for both points. For the first: they are still afraid of getting in trouble, and their foremost fear is their exploiters, not the police. Being forced into prostitution is not a crime, and they would have always been protected by the police. For the second: there is surely a non-zero amount of people who might have chosen to practice prostitution and didn't do it because of the law. That does not mean that they don't end up being exploited. Many victims of human trafficking might initially agree to participate in a prostitution business, but still end up in an effective slavery condition. The amount of "self employed prostitutes who chose to do it only when it became legal" is higher than zero, but very very tiny. Mind you, I am in favor of legalizing prostitution, I've just grown very disillusioned by the effectiveness of it, though I'm confident things might improve in the next decades.
  - ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
    On Both Points, Please provide sources for your claims which go against accepted knowledge. The exploiters do so as a means of earning money, if its legal what use do the prostitutes have for an exploiter? Why not just tell the cops someone is extorting them? Its much easier to go to the cops if what you're doing is not illegal. You don't hear about people going to the cops when they get ripped off trying to purchase something illegal, or have something illegal stolen because doing so is self-incriminating, make it legal see what happens
    - riffraff 11y ago
      What I am saying is accepted knowledge. You can read for example, the article that was on HN some time ago[0] which cites Andrea Matolcsi of Equality Now > She points out that Denmark, which decriminalised prostitution in 1999 – the same year Sweden made the purchase of sex illegal - has four times the number of trafficking victims than its neighbour despite having around half the population. Prostitutes do not need exploiters even if they are illegal. They do not tell the cops because they are effectively unable to leave their exploiters for a ton of reasons, ranging from physical threats to them and their families, to psychological or physical dependency (i.e. they feel they cant go back, "loverboys", drug addiction, fear of "voodoo"), to general fear of authorities ("will I be deported? Will the cops abuse me? What if the cops are partners of my pimp?"). There are a few interesting bits on quora[1] if you want to read more. [0] http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/ http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradi... [1] https://www.quora.com/Where-are-all-the-forced-sex-trafficking-sex-slaves-Why-arent-they-complaining-Why-cant-they-be-found https://www.quora.com/Where-are-all-the-forced-sex-trafficki...