Introduction
Here in the United States we see sex work as a criminal act. Our conversations on the topic are often fraught with judgement, violent language, and a belief that sex workers are dirty, worthless, and not deserving of empathy, love, compassion, or basic human rights. As with most social injustice, we see people as less than human, and this dehumanization creates a culture where discrimination is possible.
According to the Sex Workers Project, “Sex work is a term used to refer to all aspects of the lawful and unlawful sex industry” (Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, 2005). This includes the lived experiences of anyone engaging in sexual transactions. However, before engaging in discussion about this topic, it is important to understand the very distinct differences between sex work and human trafficking within the context of sex industry. This industry is extremely diverse and might include porn actors, street sex workers, dancers, escorts, indoor sex workers, or people who have been trafficked or enslaved. Human trafficking refers to anyone who is being traded, sold, coerced, or forced to engage in sex for money, drugs, or something else. Usually, the victim is not being compensated, but someone else is benefiting from these transactions. Conversely, sex workers are people who are choosing to engage in the sex industry for various reasons. Some of these might include economics, addiction, or even personal empowerment. For the purposes of our discussion, we will mainly be discussing street and indoor sex work.
Introduction to the Social Problem
In this country, we do not currently have federal laws regulating street sex work. However, forty-nine states have laws on the books that identify street and in...
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... released at the conclusion of on-the-ground research, that regulation is not going to be effective in mediating sex work, and instead they made recommendations to improve the living conditions of women.
New Orleans, in 1897, enacted more policy attempts to hide sex work and created a red light district known as Storyville. US soldiers accessed these services most often, and it quickly became a regular part of military culture. However, extremely high rates of STIs were found in US soldiers, so in 1917 the district was closed down and sex workers were moved to even more isolated areas to practice sex work and earn a living. This created even more dangerous working conditions. Following this, an extremely discriminatory policy was created known as the Chamberlain-Kahn Act of 1918. Essentially, any women suspected of having contracted a Sexually Transmitted Infection
International human rights lawyer Dianne Post has described the institution of prostitution as founded on the principle of “structural inequality by gender, class and race”, in essence painting sex work as the exploitation women of low economic standing merely because they are desperate enough to perform it (Datta & Post 3). Admittedly, sex work is a primarily female profession, though the Internet has lead to growing populations of transgender and male sex workers from the most liberal areas, such as California, to the most restrictive, like South Africa (Minichiello, Victor, Scott, and Callander), but there is simply to little data discussing these population groups to draw any definite conclusions. Where Post loses sight of her larger argument, that women should be treated as equals, is when she decidedly paints women as the victims of prostitution. This argument has blatant hypocrisy in that it ignores the fact that the majority of women participating in sex work are not trafficked sex slaves, but women willingly exchanging money for sexual acts, who are capable of facing the consequences of these actions. In fact, it is an extension of this argument that assumes that women cannot be held responsible for their actions that constitutes one of the primary failings of the Nordic
Domestic sex trafficking is the vile new innovative business model used in the sex industry to promote prostitution. The myth about sex trafficking is that it is a foreign not a domestic problem. Sex trafficking is a very lucrative business. The “John’s” create a demand and the “pimps” provide the supply. Child abuse, child neglect, pornography, pedophilia and prostitution are all links in the chains that enslaves America’s children for the pleasure of adults.
Prostitution To understand the relationship between sex trafficking, prostitution and drug use, it must first be understood how sex trafficking and prostitution are related. Although many people are familiar with what prostitution entails, Kubasek and Herrera define it as the engaging, agreeing to engage, or offering to engage in sexual acts or contacts with another person in return for a fee (2015). The authors define sex trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act (2015). Something that many do not realize is that individuals who may be victims of trafficking are commonly located while they are engaging in prostitution, and are then criminalized instead of offered the protection and support they often desperately need. Our current legal system does not handle trafficking cases as a means of prostitution.
Prostitution is one of the oldest jobs in the world and perhaps considered the ultimate victimless crime (Ruskin, 2012). As a profession that is estimated to bring in over 14 billion dollars a year in the United States alone with nearly 1 million prostitutes performing the acts, there ...
Providing different approaches to the ongoing problem of prostitution in Canada is a difficult topic because there are several positives and negatives for each side of the argument. Throughout Shaver’s article, she investigates deeply into the lives of PWSI and the different struggles they endure each and everyday. Shaver begins her article with discussing the ways in which Canada has worked on bringing better legislations to the sex work industry. By changing the laws in Canada this may help with the many struggles women in the sex industry endure daily. Shaver highlights four main approaches ...
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.
“There is no difference in work in which a women sells her hands, such as a typist, and a work in which a women sells her vagina, as in sex work.” Claims author Lacy Sloan. In today’s society, many people believe that prostitution is an immoral act. It is the world’s oldest profession and because it has been long condemned, sex workers are stigmatized from mainstream society (ProQuest Staff). However, the act of purchasing sex between consenting adults should not be prohibited by the government, but regulated for society's overall best interests. Prostitution is illegal and as a consequence prostitutes are often victims of violence and sexual assault; therefore, prostitution should be legalized and regulated to ensure the safety of sex workers.
Prostitution has been as issue in many societies around the world for almost all of recorded history. There has been evidence of brothels and prostitution dating far back into human history. Many different societies have different views, ideals, and reservation about the matter. Some cultures around the world view it as a necessary evil for people who need to support themselves and their families. Others view it as morally evil and socially destructive; helping to rot our society from the inside out. Even still there are cultures who don’t view it as evil at all and even a normal part of life. A person’s view on the act is formed largely based on the culture they are living in. Even sub cultures inside of larger one can have different view on the matter, such as religious groups that denounce it, to some groups in the same culture that say it is okay. Even the gauge of how industrialized a country can determine how that culture views prostitution, with many third world countries being more lenient on the matter, and many first world countries being much more strict on the matter, such as the some of the countries in Europe and also the United States.
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...
Sanders, Teela, Maggie O’Neil, and Jane Pitcher. Prostitution: Sex Work, Policy, and Politics. London: SAGE, 2009. eBook Collection. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.
Sex is a topic that is rarely openly discussed in America. Some would say that is an example of moral decency, others might argue that this is just a prudish mindset we inherited from early puritan settlers. Sex for pay or prostitution, is one concept so at odds with this taboo that it has been declared immoral and illegal. Forty-eight out of fifty states have decided that prostitution should be illegal. On the surface, this widespread ban on prostitution may appear to combat the spread disease and sex slavery, but, upon further inspection, this assertion might not be supported by facts. The creation of a legal and highly-regulated form of prostitution in the United States could help slow the rate at which sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are spread, lower the demand for sex slaves, and improve the quality of life for the prostitutes that already operate in the United States, and should be implemented despite any moral or ethical objections some individuals may have.
People who advocate legalization on prostitution claimed that “sex worker is a human-being”, they deserve to have same protections and rights. But only small group of people respect and understand them, others still ignoring or even discriminating them.
In the Journal of Trauma Practice, Raymond’s work “Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution And a Legal Response to the Demand for Prostitution” was published. One of her biggest refutes is that legalizing prostitution will not have any effect on the safety of women. ****According to John Haltiwanger, from the Elite Daily, “We have seen evidence to suggest that the criminalization of sex work leads to social marginalization and an increased risk of human rights abuses against sex workers. […] [D]ecriminalization could be the best means to protect the rights of sex workers and ensure that these individuals receive adequate medical care, legal assistance and police
Raymond also states that “it is impossible to separate the exploitation experienced by local prostitutes from the exploitative experiences of trafficked prostitutes, as they are very similar (2002.)” To end sex slavery, reports say that everyone involved in sex work needs to be criminalized so that the industry can be abolished. Similarly, Melissa Farley claims that “engagement in voluntary sex work is a decision made by women in the absence of alternative choices, and that it therefore cannot accurately be described as a voluntary and freely made choice
Sex work has long been criticized and stigmatized in our society. Whereas several members of society read sex work as immoral and degrading to girls, feminist argue that sex work is basically simply work, which it's not essentially harmful to girls. beneath circumstances within which sex work is accepted and controlled in society, within which the sex employee is protected and granted an equivalent rights as the other laborer, sex work has the chance to be helpful to girls.