4 ms·

This brings up something I've never considered before. Would you still need to traffic if the jobs were legitimized, and you could sponsor employees?

by xenihn 5y ago

mc32 5y ago
Yes. Women get trafficked to the Netherlands and Germany and prostitution is legal. Nevada too.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  It's far from the academic consensus that this is more trafficking than there would otherwise be. Legalization in more areas would also probably help, because an empty place (it's illegal in Vegas IIRC) going to have a harder tim serving sex tourism from the whole country.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    I have seen several comments suggest legalization as an ultimate cure for many things, even unrelated. Almost every time these suggestions are unfounded assumptions not connected to any research or data. Is this a bizarre California thing? Ask the people of Austin how legalization of homelessness went.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Would you still need to traffic if the jobs were legitimized, and you could sponsor employees? Things that are not typically legalized with prostitution still have a market which (absent successful constraints other than mere legalization of prostitution) will continue to be met by sex trafficking.
Lazare 5y ago
1) Yes, but less. 2) It's much easier to protect the victims when they are strictly victims, and not participants in an illegal act. In the US, crackdowns on human trafficking overwhelmingly result in the women being arrested. It's absolutely going to be the case that, at least sometimes, even with legal prostitution, someone is going to find a migrant who doesn't speak the local language well, steal their passport, and force them to engage in work, including sex work. (I mean, that already happens with crew on fishing vessels, kitchen staff in resteraunts, farm labourers...no reason sex work would be different right?) What you want is for that story to end "...so then the victim went to the local police, who arrested the perpetrator, prosecuted them, gave the victim their passport back, and offered them a suite of support services". What you don't want is "...but the victim was afraid they'd be arrested, so they didn't go to the cops" or "...but when the victim went to the cops, they were arrested and prosecuted; meanwhile the perpetrator was let go, because prosecuting trafficking is hard but prosecuting prostitution is easy, and the prosecutor wants to keep their stats up because they're running for the Senate next cycle".
- cutemonster 5y ago
  1) from what I've read (years ago), legalizing prostitution increases demand, and increases trafficking. (And increases legal occurrences too of course) It seems to me you were assuming / guessing. Lots of things are counter intuitive though
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    Update: ok so this is about not prosecuting the prostitutes? That's a good thing to stop doing I think, and a dumb thing to ever have done I think. What can make sense is that it would be illegal to buy sex (but ok to sell). Otherwise, if attacking the prostitutes, the legal system hurts the ones it was supposed to help
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > What can make sense is that it would be illegal to buy sex (but ok to sell). Otherwise, if attacking the prostitutes, the legal system hurts the ones it was supposed to help The prohibition of prostitution was never to protect prostitutes, who were viewed as the both immoral actors and temptors of others into immorality. Its true that a modern rationalization of maintaining the prohibition of prostitution is that it is a tool to protect people from being victimized by being compelled or misled into becoming prostitutes, but that’s more of an attempt to sell the policy to people who would reject the original premise by people who are personally invested in that premise but recognize that others are not than anything else.
      - cutemonster 5y ago
        > The prohibition of prostitution was never to protect prostitutes What was it about? It was about punishing the > immoral actors and temptors of others (from the lawmakers point of view, at the time) ? Where I am, it's different, in that the laws are meant to help those people (hence, legal to sell, but not to buy, around here)
  - Lazare 5y ago
lazyasciiart 5y ago
Yes. People are trafficked in the US for restaurant labor, domestic servants and agricultural labor.
austincheney 5y ago
Yes, if demand or expense exceeds supply, or if the regulation imposed is less favorable than the risk of law violations.

This brings up something I've never considered before. Would you still need to traffic if the jobs were legitimized, and you could sponsor employees?

by xenihn 5y ago

This brings up something I've never considered before. Would you still need to traffic if the jobs were legitimized, and you could sponsor employees?

mc32 5y ago

Yes. Women get trafficked to the Netherlands and Germany and prostitution is legal. Nevada too.

Ericson2314 5y ago
It's far from the academic consensus that this is more trafficking than there would otherwise be. Legalization in more areas would also probably help, because an empty place (it's illegal in Vegas IIRC) going to have a harder tim serving sex tourism from the whole country.
- austincheney 5y ago
  I have seen several comments suggest legalization as an ultimate cure for many things, even unrelated. Almost every time these suggestions are unfounded assumptions not connected to any research or data. Is this a bizarre California thing? Ask the people of Austin how legalization of homelessness went.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Would you still need to traffic if the jobs were legitimized, and you could sponsor employees? Things that are not typically legalized with prostitution still have a market which (absent successful constraints other than mere legalization of prostitution) will continue to be met by sex trafficking.

Lazare 5y ago

1) Yes, but less. 2) It's much easier to protect the victims when they are strictly victims, and not participants in an illegal act. In the US, crackdowns on human trafficking overwhelmingly result in the women being arrested. It's absolutely going to be the case that, at least sometimes, even with legal prostitution, someone is going to find a migrant who doesn't speak the local language well, steal their passport, and force them to engage in work, including sex work. (I mean, that already happens with crew on fishing vessels, kitchen staff in resteraunts, farm labourers...no reason sex work would be different right?) What you want is for that story to end "...so then the victim went to the local police, who arrested the perpetrator, prosecuted them, gave the victim their passport back, and offered them a suite of support services". What you don't want is "...but the victim was afraid they'd be arrested, so they didn't go to the cops" or "...but when the victim went to the cops, they were arrested and prosecuted; meanwhile the perpetrator was let go, because prosecuting trafficking is hard but prosecuting prostitution is easy, and the prosecutor wants to keep their stats up because they're running for the Senate next cycle".

cutemonster 5y ago
1) from what I've read (years ago), legalizing prostitution increases demand, and increases trafficking. (And increases legal occurrences too of course) It seems to me you were assuming / guessing. Lots of things are counter intuitive though
- cutemonster 5y ago
  Update: ok so this is about not prosecuting the prostitutes? That's a good thing to stop doing I think, and a dumb thing to ever have done I think. What can make sense is that it would be illegal to buy sex (but ok to sell). Otherwise, if attacking the prostitutes, the legal system hurts the ones it was supposed to help
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > What can make sense is that it would be illegal to buy sex (but ok to sell). Otherwise, if attacking the prostitutes, the legal system hurts the ones it was supposed to help The prohibition of prostitution was never to protect prostitutes, who were viewed as the both immoral actors and temptors of others into immorality. Its true that a modern rationalization of maintaining the prohibition of prostitution is that it is a tool to protect people from being victimized by being compelled or misled into becoming prostitutes, but that’s more of an attempt to sell the policy to people who would reject the original premise by people who are personally invested in that premise but recognize that others are not than anything else.
    - cutemonster 5y ago
      > The prohibition of prostitution was never to protect prostitutes What was it about? It was about punishing the > immoral actors and temptors of others (from the lawmakers point of view, at the time) ? Where I am, it's different, in that the laws are meant to help those people (hence, legal to sell, but not to buy, around here)
- Lazare 5y ago

lazyasciiart 5y ago

Yes. People are trafficked in the US for restaurant labor, domestic servants and agricultural labor.

austincheney 5y ago

Yes, if demand or expense exceeds supply, or if the regulation imposed is less favorable than the risk of law violations.