6 ms·

How about you make things that are illegal - legal. Then you don't need to inspect anything. And for those things that are truly horrible - like sex slavery - s

• delta1 13y ago
  > Eliminate the demand And how exactly do you propose to do that?
  • quinnchr 13y ago
    Legalize and regulate prostitution, boom you've eliminated the market for sex slavery, and maybe you can provide a safe work environment for men and women who are going to be sex workers regardless of legality.
    • kalleboo 13y ago
      I'm not sure that works. Berry-picking is legal in scandinavia, but each summer people are still brought in by the truckload from eastern europe by scamsters and then forced to work off their debt.
      • quinnchr 13y ago
        And what's the legality of employing migrant workers?
        • vidarh 13y ago
          It is generally legal, and welcomed for seasonal work in particular. Which makes it easy to avoid scrutiny for those who wants to exploit someone, as the visible part of their activity is entirely legal.
          • quinnchr 13y ago
            I'll admit I don't know much (anything) about labor laws in Sweden. From what I've read legal migrant workers are afforded access to the welfare state and rights such as collective bargaining. Which is awesome, but what's the enforcement like for companies who hire undocumented workers? From what I've read so far enforcement seems to be aimed at deporting workers and not punishing the companies. Seems like a case for punishing the perpetrators and not the victims.
            • runarb 13y ago
              As I understand it, because of the European Union’s rules about free movement of labor any EU citizen can work everywhere in the EU legally with very little paperwork. Legal migrants are given full access to the welfare state from their first hour of work. Most migrant workers are therefore from Eastern Europe, and can work there legally. I don't know about Sweden, but here in Norway enforcement is pretty strict. Industries that the government considers especially prone to illegal activities, like construction, are inspected regularly. There is also a system of forced tariff (minimum pay, requirement to pay extra for overtime, and other standards), and companies can be hold collective responsible for what their subcontractors does. Employers that don't follow the rules face large fines, confiscations and prison. Every worker has the right to collective bargaining. Illegal immigrants can of course be deported, but because there is no place to incarcerate them until they can be sent home, the government mainly focus on deporting criminals and thus with a known home address, not scooping up illegals where their may work. However we have a new government that may make changes to this now.
      • notdrunkatall 13y ago
        I'm afraid you've missed the point. Berry picking is legal, but employing workers from eastern Europe is not. Provide a legal channel by which cheap labor can be imported, and the scamsters will be out of business.
      • anovikov 13y ago
        I am from east europe and i know a lot of people who worked that way in Norway and Sweden, no scam reported, and in better years (10-12 years ago) a summer spent by a couple working that way earned them an apartment. Quite opposite, they were surprised with good living conditions and generous pay. While employment was most probably illegal, they were on 3-month tourist visas.
    • diminoten 13y ago
      If that's the case, then why does sex trafficking happen so much in the Netherlands? [0] [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands#Human_trafficking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands...
      • quinnchr 13y ago
        Probably because they have a strong safety net and there's not enough Dutch men and women willing to engage in sex work to meet demand. I would also imagine the demand is much higher since it is illegal in surrounding areas and most of the world. If that weren't they case I'm guessing demand would be much lower. It's a problem that can't be solved in isolation.
        • Fede_V 13y ago
          Not trying to strawman you, but are you arguing that if we removed the social safety net, more people would have to engage in sex work out of necessity?
          • quinnchr 13y ago
            Yes? Is the idea that poverty and sex work are linked contentious? Seems like a case of direct causation to me. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya_46571.html http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/kenya_46571.html http://www.iasociety.org/Abstracts/A2190151.aspx http://www.iasociety.org/Abstracts/A2190151.aspx http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jejackso/Poverty%20and%20Prostitution.htm http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jejackso/Poverty%20and%20Prostitut... http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/08/prostitution-and-poverty-in-the-uk/ http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/08/prostitution-and-pove...
        • diminoten 13y ago
          Do you have any evidence whatsoever to support this idea?
      • mike_esspe 13y ago
        The main question is - why coerced prostitutes are not going to law enforcement? What prevents them? Will they be deported for that? This problem probably can be solved with technology - make Airbnb for amateur sex workers :)
    • snitko 13y ago
      I would argue, any regulation and taxation actually add to the price, making slave labor an attractive option.
    • bane 13y ago
      > Legalize and regulate prostitution, boom you've eliminated the market for sex slavery Not all sex slaves are legal age adults who would compete against a legal prostitution environment.
      • msandford 13y ago
        Yeah that's true. But if you legalize prostitution the majority of the people with fairly normal tastes in sex would find willing "vendors." That would free police up from fighting "normal" prostitution and enable them to put more energy into finding and stopping the really naughty stuff like child slavery and the like which are real, but niche problems.
      • jlgreco 13y ago
        Drug dealers are typically willing to sell their wares to children. This makes sense, since what they are doing is illegal anyway. If we legalize a drug (say, alcohol), then the people who sell that particular drug will typically no longer be willing to sell that drug to minors, since minors represent a very small percentage of the market and (with the legalization of the larger segment of the market) carry a much greater risk that cannot be justified by the marginal profit gains they could see. This is why it is easier for a teenager to buy marijuana than alcohol in significant quantities.
        • DanBC 13y ago
          > If we legalize a drug (say, alcohol), then the people who sell that particular drug will typically no longer be willing to sell that drug to minors, The years of campaigning and changing laws to prevent shops (and pubs) from selling alcohol and cigarettes to children show that actually they don't give a fuck who they sell to so long as they sell. Marketing tobacco products with youth friendly cartoon camels or with names like Skol Bandits is sleazy. Big tobacco had no problem targeting children even though they knew it was illegal. {As always in these discussions: I am strongly in favour of legalising all drugs}
          • jlgreco 13y ago
• dredmorbius 13y ago
  Last I checked, food was legal, and yet we have food inspectors (though hardly enough) to check for things like excess levels of e. coli and other charmers, horsemeat crossdressing as beef, melamine playing in dairy products, and the like. Simply legalizing something doesn't end the need for inspections. And there's still the matter of stuff you really don't want and cannot reasonably legalize (or expect legalization to magically make all problems go away) which will require inspection. You know, so that your now-legal melamine-tainted, e. coli infested, beef-that's-really-horsemeat isn't, say, someone's science-project hydrogen bomb or smallpox aerosol.
• DanBC 13y ago
  This is gently baffling. Very few people leave their home country with the intent of becoming a sex slave. They pay some money to leave their country and enter another. When they arrive they're told they still owe $X, and need to pay it off. One way to pay is to become a sex worker. Their legal documents are taken from them. They are told that the police will lock them in prison or deport them if they try to get help. Domestic sex workers rarely turn to sex work out of free choice. They've made bad decisions, and now they're addicted to drugs, or in deep debt, and sex work is the only way they can get money. The few people who enjoy sex work are not enough to satiate demand for sex workers, especially if it's legal. It's nice to think that a bit of sex work is one way that people could chose to put themselves through college and then move on to much better work, but unfortunately that's nothing like the truth of sex work.
  • xixi77 13y ago
    Their legal documents are taken from them. They are told that the police will lock them in prison or deport them if they try to get help. You are down to the very root of the problem here; the logical thing to do would be to make sure these threats are not credible, but it seems you are advocating exactly the opposite. Domestic sex workers rarely turn to sex work out of free choice. They've made bad decisions, and now they're addicted to drugs, or in deep debt, and sex work is the only way they can get money. There are many (most?) professions that people choose primarily because that is the best way for them to make money. Why take exception with sex work? The few people who enjoy sex work are not enough to satiate demand for sex workers, especially if it's legal. What does this even mean? Normally, demand and supply are made equal through price, and this is exactly how it happens in sex work, just as in any other. It's nice to think that a bit of sex work is one way that people could chose to put themselves through college and then move on to much better work, but unfortunately that's nothing like the truth of sex work. s/sex work/any other manual job/, and your statement would still stand true, except it often provides a much higher hourly rate for the worker, compared to most alternatives. Fundamentally, this is nothing but covert moralizing, implicitly arguing that if other people make choices that you personally consider repugnant, they are somehow objectively wrong and need to be re-educated to see the error of their ways.