Legalize Prostitution?

Economics Political Theory
1

(My capabilities in english are quite limited, sorry)

I don’t have any moral problems with people selling sex, as long as everything is on a voluntary base. But ain’t there another problem connected with prostitution - human trafficking?

Trafficking problems is soaring in countries where prostitution is allowed, compared to those countries where prostitution is illegal. Adding to that, female prostitutes have the highest death rate of all professions in the world. The death rates stands high even in countries where prostitution is legal, although not to the same extremes.

Sources:

Major destinations:
Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey

Prostitution_in_Europe
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Blue and green is “legalized”.

More wiki regarding legal status in other countries:

“Prostitution in Thailand is illegal, although in practice it is tolerated and partly regulated. Prostitution is practiced openly throughout the country. Local officials with commercial interests in prostitution often protect the practice.”

“Prostitution in Israel is legal”

“While the Anti-Prostitution Law of 1956 states that “No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it,” various loopholes, liberal interpretations of the law, and loose enforcement have allowed the sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2.3 trillion yen a year.” (Japan)

Female prostitutes are at risk of violent crime, as well as possibly at higher risk of occupational mortality than any other group of women ever studied.

For example, the homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be 204 per 100,000 (Potterat et al., 2004), which is considerably higher than that for the next riskiest occupations in the United States during a similar period (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers) (Castillo et al., 1994).

(…)

While women who work on the streets are the most likely to be victimized, attacks and even murders of prostitutes have also occurred in legal and licensed brothels.

So how do you defend the legalizing of prostitution on a practical base? I find it very hard to see any real arguments for from an utalitarian point of view.

Best regards!

2

Did you intentionally cut from

For example, the homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be 204 per 100,000 (Potterat et al., 2004), which is considerably higher than that for the next riskiest occupations in the United States during a similar period (4 per 100,000 for female liquor store workers and 29 per 100,000 for male taxicab drivers) (Castillo et al., 1994).

the next bit which was:

However, there are substantial differences in rates of victimization between street prostitutes and indoor prostitutes who work as escorts, call girls, or in brothels and massage parlors [4].

Oh and the death rate for commercial fishing in the US is 128 per 100,000http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/725643

3

So the death-rate is higher where it’s illegal? What’s your point here (in supporting illegalization)?

When things are illegal, they happen anyway, and it is much easier for people to get exploited, because things are not out in the open, and pushed into backalleys among gangs and other criminals. When something is legal, it becomes visible, people can compete and cut out middlemen (and legally buy ways to protect themselves).

How much violence is associated with the distribution of alcohol these days? What about cocaine? The same applies to prostitution.

4

Will making it illegal make all those bad things go away? Or will it punish the prostitutes who have not violated anyone elses rights.

Another point on human trafficing. You listed the major destinations, but what about the source nations? There is the problem. I would be willing to bet that the nations where these women are being abducted or coerced into prostitution have a poor track record of protecting individual rights.

5

The fact that there are violence issues involved with legalized prostitution probably means that the violence has nothing to do with prostitution (legal or illegal) itself. Legalizing it removes a host of issues that follow suit – mostly involving government spending on enforcement/bribery, etc. – but the violence attached to it is more likely attributable to cultural factors.

6

Besides, freedom tends to bring the best out markets, especially when they do not need to worry about the police. Competition keeps the consumer safer. Prostitutes in the Netherlands are much safer, and get tested much more often then the standard illegal prostitute.

If a person wanted some good, and it was illegal, they would be more willing to take a unsafe or lower quality version of the good. But when it is legal, and there is competition and variety, they would not be willing to take the lower quality. Also the producers of the good would more likely offer higher quality goods, to distinguish themselves on a market.

Example: Drugs.

Marijuana is illegal. So if one wanted to purchase some, they would not mind going to a stranger in the “wrong” side of town, to acquire something they could not know is the best of the product. There is that pressure, in an illegal market, that this is what is available. But when something is legal, the purchaser would be more likely just go somewhere else if they are not satisfied with the quality of the product.

By this logic, you’d always have people do drugs and using prostitution, but in a legal market, everyone would be safer.

7

I am with Southern. Just making it illegal won’t make it go away: just look at the “War on Drugs” and how successful it has been.

Allow me a digression. In Italy prostitution was made illegal thanks to the Socialist Party in 1958. Yes, that same Socialist Party that a decade later would support “free love” and whose heirs are now supporting homosexual marriages and all that jazz. Did it work? Take a drive on roads around here and tell me. Streetwalkers, despite continous crackdowns, remote surveillance etc, are more common than ever. Luxury escorts are a booming market. Police jails and deports prostitutes, impounds customers’ cars and does everything they can yet they failed to make a dent. The only thing that worked was the Depression: pimps and prostitutes were forced to cut prices since disposable income was shrinking. Once they adjusted prices, business was as good as ever.

To answer Southern’s answer whence prostitutes come? Streetwalkers mostly come from Nigeria, Albania and Kosovo. Luxury escorts are either Italian or Polish or Rumanian. Call girls (halfway between streetwalkers and escorts) are Brazilian, Chinese and Italian. In some areas transvestites are a big business (and they were involved in some extremely funny scandals with “crusading” politicians): they all come from Brazil.

8

Whats the problem with legalized prostitution? Prostituted legalization is apparently okay.