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Advantages and disadvantages of legalising prostitution
Advantages and disadvantages of legalising prostitution
Benefits of legalized prostitution
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Scantily clad, a shaggy girl can be seen bustling through the parking lot. She is afraid. She is there because she has run away from her abusive family at the age of 12. A pimp had found her. He routinely raped and beat her into submission, then monetized her body. This girl manages to run away, but then a police officer catches her. The officer then arrests her for prostitution. This situation is far more common than one might think. Malika Saar, the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Human Rights Project for Girls, found that approximately 100,000 of the children who leave their home each year are sexually exploited. The legalization of prostitution would be increasingly beneficial to our society and our sex workers. Among many things, it would: reduce human trafficking, reduce violence against women, give sex workers rights, and become a source of tax revenue.
Human and sex trafficking, like mentioned in the story above, is a
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Prostitutes can pay taxes and declare an income. They have greater control over their work environment. This allows them to be able to refuse customers. Instead of fearing from police they can now use them as a means of protection. No longer will a sex worker have to worry about being arrested or harassed. Safe sex practices make both the sex worker and the customer healthier. Most importantly, prostitutes are no longer condemned to a criminal record for resorting to a desperate means of income. Legalizing prostitution will benefit society. Most importantly it will benefit the sex workers who have suffered from abuse, poverty and criminalization. The sex workers will have a choice to leave the industry. Legalization will protect their psychological, social, and physical rights. In addition, the legalization of prostitution could help decrease human trafficking. Most of the people in the industry are victims. Help them, don’t condemn
The documentary, Very Young Girls, was heart-wrenching, informative, and very hard to relate to these young girls. These girls are daughters, sisters, friends, family, and some are already mothers. However, these young women are treated and seen as criminals, not as victims. Prostitution and human-trafficking happens everywhere and every day, including in the United States. People have this perspective that human trafficking only happens in foreign countries. There’s a negative stigma on prostitution because we, as a society, only pay attention to the sexual acts and services that these women provide. Young women’s dignity, adolescences, and respect is taken away from them. Yet, this was not their choice, but they do not have positive influences
For instance, while every industry that operates in the US has labor rights associated with it, prostitutes have no guarantees in their work. No one has to provide a prostitute with “rights like a minimum wage, freedom from discrimination, and a safe work environment” (Fuchs). With regulations in place after decriminalizing the profession, prostitutes can be better protected against STIs. This could be accomplished by requiring “sex workers to use condoms and get tested for sexually transmitted diseases” (Fuchs). They will have a greatly decreased chance of contracting disease if they turn down clearly infected clients, and make all clients, whether clean or not, wear condoms. If they were working outside of the law they would feel less incline to do this and would then be at great risk for contracting disease. Illegal prostitutes actually have motives for not using condoms since in cities like New York, “cops were actually using condoms found on women as evidence in criminal prostitution cases against them” (Fuchs). This practice provides the perfect stage for STIs to go wild and spread like fire, with HIV being in the forefront and becoming an even larger epidemic then it is. Giving them labor rights will give them the ability to unionize and fight for their rights together, transferring the power in the business to the workers instead of their bosses, like pimps and brothel owners. With regulations eliminating the pimps, one source of violence is removed from the business. Customers are the other major source of violence and, with legalization, prostitutes would be able to rely on law enforcement to protect them instead of detaining them. Studies have found that among prostitutes “82% had been assaulted and 68% had been raped while working” (Fuchs) and “they were 18 times more likely to be murdered than non-prostitutes their age and race” (Fuchs). This could be
The value of a woman as a mother, wife, sister, daughter or aunt has been replaced for sexual please. Greed and perversion disguised as men chose to debase America’s women and children for their own selfish gain. Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the U.S. and North America today. It is the nation’s least recognized epidemic. The overwhelming majority of children forced to sell their bodies on the street are girls. Young boys face hardship and abuse as well, but they often fend for themselves to survive. The girls, on the other hand, inevitably fall victim to pimps and organized trafficking networks. (Sher, pg. V)
Legalizing prostitution could change into a more positive outcome. It is not necessarily a lifestyle that has to be permanent. It can be used to get an education as mentioned earlier. A daughter/son does not need to be a drug addict to sell themselves. Rather, for a brief moment they could work as a prostitute to get ahead financially. If legal, parents could feel secure knowing that the government has their young adult working in a safe environment. Their child is being tested for diseases regularly. Remember condoms are mandatory, which would illuminate any STD’S that could possibly be shared. They do not need to worry about pimps, or trafficking, since prostitution would be legalized. Prostitution could be personal gain. Feeling successful financially causes the opposite of low self-esteem. A young adult would feel important and know that they are actually making a difference in the economy. They would be paying taxes and at the end of the year file like all working class Americans. Perhaps they might even get some cash
Throughout Sex Work and the Law: A Critical Analysis of Four Policy Approaches to Adult Prostitution Frances Shaver discusses the need for change for women working as prostitutes. Shaver explains the ongoing problem surrounding prostitution in Canada and provides four possible ways to resolve the issue in her work. Three well thought out points Shaver writes about are the health benefits as well as personal safety for the women in the sex industry. She also touches base on the decriminalization of prostitution and the impacts it will have on nearby neighborhoods and the residents as well as a few other topics. Although Shaver discusses important areas, she does leave out some particular parts for concern such as the issues surrounding minors involved in the sex industry as well as the men and women who are involuntarily put into prostitution also known as human trafficking. While Shaver touches base on extremely well thought out points and provides a solution for dealing with Canada’s prostitution problem, she fails to elaborate on a few major issues that should be discussed as well when discussing the decriminalization of prostitution.
In order to understand how sex trafficking affects its victims, one must first know the severity of sex trafficking and what it is. The issue of sex trafficking affects 2.5 million people at any given time (Abas et al., 2013). The form of sex slavery affects many women and children across the world. Even though both males and females are sexually trafficked and exploited, there is a deep emphasis on the sexual exploitation of women and children. This is due to gender discrimination (Miller, 2006). This is because women and children are more vulnerable and appeal to the larger populations of brothels and the so-called “clients” since the majority are men. Ecclestone (2013) stated that children as young as age three are trafficked. Sex trafficking has changed over time; “Today, the business of human sex trafficking is much more organized and violent. These women and young girls are sold to traffickers, locked up in rooms or brothels for weeks or months, drugged, terrorized, and raped repeatedly” (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011). It is found that many of the victims of sex trafficking are abducted, recruited, transported and forced into involuntary “sex work”. These sexual acts include prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, and sexual escort services (McClain & Garrity, 2011). What happens to these sex trafficking victims is extremely traumatizing.
As prostitution is criminalized, this profession is driven underground which undermines the safety of prostitutes. Legalizing prostitution would provide sex workers with regulatory protection and allow this form of work to be recognized as legitimate. As the author of “Think Again: Prostitution” states, “evidence shows, that criminalization of sale or purchase (or both) makes sex workers-many of whom come from marginalized social groups like women, minorities, and the poor-more vulnerable to violence and discrimination committed by law enforcement. Also, criminalization can dissuade sex workers from seeking help from authorities if they are raped, trafficked, or otherwise abused.” Therefore, sex workers are subjected to unfair treatment that could be prevented if this work was legalized and safe conditions were enforced. The author of "Counterpoint: Prostitution Should Be Legalized” states, “prostitution is legalized and regulated in a variety of developed nations throughout ...
In the United States of America, prostitution is illegal in all of its 50 states with the exception of the state of Nevada. Nevada is the only U.S. state with allows legal prostitution in some of its rural counties. Occupational health and safety laws are applied to the brothels in these counties but the sex workers elsewhere in the country still remain exposed to the threat of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and violence from pimps and customers. Prostitution exists in various forms in the States: street prostitution, escort prostitution, and brothel prostitution (Harcourt). It has been estimated that the sum total of the revenue generated by the underground prostitution industry in the U.S. is about $14.6 billion (“Prostitution Revenue”), the fifth highest in the world (about 8% of the total annual worldwide revenue). If prostitution were made legal, it would increase the U...
Sex trafficking is essentially systemic rape for profit. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior which may secure the appearance of consent to please the buyer (or john). Behind every transaction is violence or the threat of violence (Axtell par. 4). Just a decade ago, only a third of the countries studied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had legislation against human trafficking. (Darker Side, par.1) Women, children, and even men are taken from their homes, and off of the streets and are brought into a life that is almost impossible to get out of. This life is not one of choice, it is in most times by force. UNODC estimates that the total international human trafficking is a $32-billion-per-year business, and that 79% of this activity comprises sexual exploitation. As many as 2 million children a year are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, according the the U.S. State Department.-- Cynthia G. Wagner. (Darker Side, par. 4) The words prostitute, pimp, escort, and stripper tend to be way too common in the American everyday vocabulary. People use these words in a joking manner, but sex trafficking is far from a joke. Everyday, from all different countries, people are bought and sold either by force or false promises. Some are kidnapped and others come to America with dreams of a dream life and job. The buyers involved in the trade will do anything to purchase an innocent life just to sell for their own selfish profit. Many people wouldn’t think of a human body to be something you can buy in the back room of a business or even online. But those plus the streets are where people are sold most often. There are many reasons and causes for sex trafficking. The factors behind sex traffic...
Is prostitution wrong? Is it possible to stop prostitution entirely? The debate on whether prostitution should be legalized in the United Sates is not a new one. On the topic of prostitution different ideas such as morality and freedom of choice come to play. The differing of opinions on whether prostitution should be legalized in the United States vary greatly, but generally they fall into three categories: anti-prostitution, decriminalization, and pro-legalization.
Little do most know, but on “[a]verage [prostitution] arrest[s], court and incarceration costs amount to nearly $2,000 per arrest. Cities spend an average of 7.5 million dollars on prostitution control every year, ranging from 1 million dollars to 23 million dollars.” Prostitution is the oldest known profession. Currently in 49 countries and counting prostitution is legal. Here in America there is a stigma following the label prostitute. We would rather resort to underground markets of sex labor. Endangering health, rights, and economics. Legalizing prostitution can reduce health hazards by giving heath care, also by giving rights to those that choose prostitution as their profession. In the long term this
Most importantly, prostitution could help our economy with a new source of income. In a typical year, legal brothels generate about $50 million in total revenue and have an economic impact of about $400 million on the state. With taxes and even a price floor prostitution could prove to be one of the United States’ best source of income. If prostitution was legalized it might have made the United States enough money to get us out of the huge debt were in.
The oldest occupation in history, prostitution is one of the only occupations in which those who practice it are not protected by law in many first world countries. That however, sets the stage for disaster; women can get beaten and raped but will not report it out of fear of getting arrested themselves. To protect prostitutes and their patrons, voluntary prostitution of those over the age of eighteen in inevitable and must be legalized.
Prostitution is one of the root causes of human trafficking, especially sex traffic. Human trafficking is the illegal movement of people (such as: kidnapping), typically for the purposes of forced labor, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Human trafficking is one of the most barbaric crimes in society, because it is importantly violated to human rights. Human could not become a product to sell. In order to supply the labor for the prostitution industry, human trafficking becomes worse when it focus on women, and children. It transfers to sex trafficking. Many women are victims of human trafficking work in brothels, a part of them work as Streetwalker. Some countries give the idea that prostitution should be legalized to reduce the rate of human trafficking and sex trafficking, but they are wrong. Because, if we pass the law for prostitution, human trafficking and sex trafficking will increase in order to supply prostitutes for prostitution industry. Legalizing prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers because they will rely on a legal framework to bring
“The exchange of sexual favors between partners within a relationship for money is just one of the various ways of expressing and carrying out human sexuality”. Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and it has helped several women to earn a living for themselves and their families from times immemorial. Prostitution typically refers to a wide variety of sex-for-payment arrangements. There are several countries having long and descriptive histories of this activity. India is one of those countries. From the Rigveda, it is found that there were women who were common to several men and were known as courtesans or prostitutes. Back in the era of kingdoms, the concubines were also granted regal status. However, scenario