The United Nations Convention on Action against Trafficking in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others[20] calls for criminalizing the activities of persons considered to be exploitation or coercion of prostitutes (so-called “pimp” and “pimp” laws), while leaving sex workers free from regulation. The Convention states that “prostitution and the scourges of trafficking in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person”. [21] Prostitution laws vary widely from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the same country. On the one hand, prostitution or sex work is legal and considered a profession in some places, while at the other extreme, it is a crime punishable by death in other places. [1] Federal law prohibits sex for money, and there are a number of prostitution lawsuits in states that can affect future housing and employment prospects. Increasingly, public servants are thinking of a world in which sex work is decriminalized. Two states in particular, Oregon and Maine, provide insight into the different ways to do this. Many anti-prostitution advocates believe that prostitutes themselves are often victims, arguing that prostitution is a practice that can lead to serious long-term psychological and often physical consequences for prostitutes. [12] [13] [14] In Nevada, state law requires that prostitutes registered in brothels be tested weekly for various sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV; In addition, condoms are mandatory for all oral sex. Brothel owners can be held liable if customers become infected with HIV after a prostitute tests positive for the virus. [50] Prostitution outside licensed brothels is illegal throughout the state; All forms of prostitution are illegal in Las Vegas (and Clark County, which includes its metropolitan area), Reno (and Washoe Counties), Carson City, and other parts of the state (currently, 8 of Nevada`s 16 counties have active brothels, see Prostitution in Nevada). This year, a bill was introduced in the Oregon Legislature that would repeal the criminalization of prostitution and commercial sexual solicitation for the buyer and seller of sexual services. In Maine, a bill introduced this year proposed only partial decriminalization of prostitution — as opposed to full decriminalization, it would still have exposed people who pay for sex to legal consequences.

In areas where prostitution or related activities are illegal, prostitutes are often charged with crimes ranging from minor offenses such as vagrancy to more serious offenses such as tax evasion. Your clients may also be charged with prostitution. [ref. Those advocating the prohibition or abolition of prostitution[35] argue that the illegality of prostitution is the best way to prevent abusive and dangerous activities (child prostitution, trafficking in human beings, etc.). Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. Ronald Weitzer is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He has conducted extensive research on various aspects of sex work in several countries, including legal prostitution systems in Europe. His contributions to human trafficking include a co-edited issue of the prestigious Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (May 2014). Prostitution is condemned as a unique form of violation of human rights and as an affront to human dignity and worth. Other schools of thought hold that sex work is a legitimate occupation in which a person exchanges or exchanges sexual acts for money and/or commodities. Some believe that women in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and human trafficking, while others distinguish this practice from the global sex industry, where “sex work is performed by consenting adults, where the sale or purchase of sexual services is not a violation of human rights”.

[2] The term “sex work” is used interchangeably with “prostitution” in this article, in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO, 2001; WHO 2005) and the United Nations (UN 2006; UNAIDS, 2002). [3] Opponents believe that legalizing prostitution would lead to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, global trafficking, and violent crimes, including rape and murder. They argue that prostitution is inherently immoral and commercially exploitative, reinforces the criminal underworld, and fosters the oppression of women by men. The authors rank the 161 countries according to the legal status of prostitution in each of them, and then link them to the “amount” of human trafficking in the country. At first glance, this may seem like a simple and dignified comparison exercise, but there are several fatal flaws in methods and logic: At the Oregon public hearing, Shawna Peterson, executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women, advocated for complete decriminalization. She also said that no matter what model or bill a person believes in, the two things everyone agrees on is that people shouldn`t be raped, kidnapped, or “physically mentally or otherwise hurt.” She also said children should not be involved in any aspect of sex work. She noted that prostitution and sex work are still the subject of internal discussions within the national organization, which has always opposed it. Cho downplays the disparity in another article: “Prostitution is closely linked to human trafficking because sex trafficking for prostitution is the most common form of trafficking and accounts for the majority of trafficking victims.” Even if this were true, it still introduces an unknown number of errors into the analysis. But that`s not true. The U.S.

State Department reports that “the majority of human trafficking worldwide takes the form of forced labor,” and the International Labor Organization agrees: “Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 11 percent of all cases” of human trafficking worldwide. The International Organization for Migration reported an identical figure for 2016 (the last year in the chart below), let alone for the previous two years. Two months before the public hearing in Portland, Oregon, Bell registered for a virtual public hearing to testify in support of the partial decriminalization bill in Maine. Bell, a Massachusetts resident, describes herself as a survivor of prostitution and sex trafficking who is now the founder of an organization that helps survivors of the sex trade. The Australian state of Queensland legalized brothels and independent escorts in the 1990s. A government agency reports that legal prostitution offers a number of benefits: “There is no doubt that licensed brothels provide the safest working environment for sex workers in Queensland. The legal brothels currently operating in Queensland provide a sustainable model for a healthy, crime-free and safe licensed brothel industry” and are a “state-of-the-art model for the sex industry in Australia”. Official corruption and organised crime “are not of great importance to the legal prostitution industry in Queensland”. Research on sex workers themselves has shown that many of them are satisfied with their work.