Prostitution is the business of engaging in sexual activity with someone in exchange for money or other benefits. Prostitution and human trafficking are moving side by side. Let us have a look at some facts and figures to help clarify whether legalizing prostitution is a good idea, and why I am against it. Human trafficking is not one nation or country’s problem, but it exists in almost all parts of the world.
The U.S. State Department surveyed in 2013, and learned the estimated figure of 27 million targets, trafficked globally for either commercial sex or forced labor. According to the Department of Justice report in 2011, 82% of 2,500 federal trafficking cases concerned sex slavery, and half of them have the age group of 18 or less. It raises a serious issue, involving the health of girls and women worldwide (Tan & Carol, 2018).
Former Manhattan madam Kristen Davis, argues that prostitution should be permitted so that New York State can surge the revenue by taxing the sex business and for society’s overall benefits. Apparently, Ms. Davis’s vision cannot see the clear connection between prostitution and human trafficking and its negative impact on the world. We have an example of the Netherlands, which legitimized prostitution by lifting the ban on brothels, in 2000. At the time, the country thought that regulating the brothels would be enough to protect the subjects (women and girls). Still, it was not enough to control the global human trafficking impact on the sex industry in the Netherlands.
To understand the impacts of legalizing prostitution on human trafficking, the researchers Eric Neumayer (Institute for Political Science and Economics, London), Seo-Yeong Cho (School of Economic Research, Germany), and Axel Dreher (University of Heidelberg) investigated the cross-sectional data of 116 countries. The analysis shows that the states with legal commercial sex have a more significant number of human trafficking inflow as compared to the countries with illegal prostitution. There is a 13.4% greater chance of getting higher entries of human trafficking in a democratic nation than in non-democratic nations (Cho, Dreher & Neumayer, 2013).
The negative consequences stated above are the reasons I do not support the legalization of prostitution in the country.
References
Cho, S. Y., Dreher, A., & Neumayer, E. (2013). Does legalized prostitution increase human trafficking?. World Development, 41, 67-82.
Tan, Carol. “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking? – Journalist’s Resource.” Journalist’s Resource, 2018, https://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/human-rights/legalized-prostitution-human-trafficking-inflows.
