Essay Example on Legislative Action on Prostitution: Europe vs. Thailand

Summary

Since the mid-1980s, the debate about how to address prostitution legally has become a subject of legislative action Some countries in Europe, most notably the Netherlands and Germany among others, have legalized and/or decriminalized systems of prostitution, which includes decriminalizing pimps, brothels and buyers, also known as “customers or johns” Other governments, such as Thailand, legally prohibit prostitution activities and enterprises but in reality tolerate brothels and the buying of women for commercial sexual exploitation, especially in its sex tourism industry. Sweden, has taken a different legal approach --penalizing the buyers while at the same time decriminalizing the women in prostitution.

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This article offers ten arguments for not legalizing prostitution. These arguments apply to all state-sponsored forms of prostitution, including but not limited to full-scale legalization of brothels and pimping, decriminalization of the sex industry, regulating prostitution by laws such as registering or mandating health checks for women in prostitution, or any system in which prostitution is recognized as “sex work” or advocated as an employment choice. This essay reviews the ways in which legitimating prostitution as work makes the harm of prostitution to women invisible, expands the sex industry, and does not empower the women in prostitution.

What happens when prostitution is treated as “sex work” rather than when it is treated as sexual exploitation and violence against women? What happens when a country such as Sweden rejects legalization and addresses the demand for prostitution?

1. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers and the sex industry.

What does legalization of prostitution or decriminalization of the sex industry mean? In the Netherlands, legalization amounts to sanctioning all aspects of the sex industry: the women themselves, the buyers, and the pimps who, under the regime of legalization, are transformed into third party businessmen and legitimate sexual entrepreneurs. Legalization/decriminalization of the sex industry also converts brothels, sex clubs, massage parlors and other sites of prostitution activities into legitimate venues where commercial sexual acts are allowed to flourish legally with few restraints.

Some people believe that, in calling for legalization or decriminalization of prostitution, they dignify and professionalize the women in prostitution. But dignifying prostitution as work doesn"t dignify the women, it simply dignifies the sex industry.

People often don"t realize that decriminalization means decriminalization of the whole sex industry, not just the women in it. And they haven"t thought through the consequences of legalizing pimps as legitimate sex entrepreneurs or third party businessmen, or the fact that men who buy women for sexual activity are now accepted as legitimate consumers of sex.

In countries where women are criminalized for prostitution activities, it is crucial to advocate for the decriminalization of the women in prostitution. No woman should be punished for her own exploitation. But States should never decriminalize pimps, buyers, procurers, brothels or other sex establishments.

2. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking.

Legalized or decriminalized prostitution industries are one of the root causes of sex trafficking. One argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that legalization would help to end the exploitation of desperate immigrant women who had been trafficked there for prostitution. However, one report found that 80% of women in the brothels of the Netherlands were trafficked from other countries (Budapest Group, 1999)(1). In 1994, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) stated that in the Netherlands alone, “nearly 70 % of trafficked women were from CEEC [Central and Eastern European Countries]” (IOM, 1995, p. 4).

The government of the Netherlands presents itself as a champion of anti- trafficking policies and programs, yet it has removed every legal impediment to pimping, procuring and brothels. In the year 2000, the Dutch Ministry of Justice argued in favor of a legal quota of foreign “sex workers,” because the Dutch prostitution market demanded a variety of “bodies” (Dutting, 2001, p. 16). Also in 2000, the Dutch government sought and received a judgment from the European Court recognizing prostitution as an economic activity, thereby enabling women from the European Union and former Soviet bloc countries to obtain working permits as “sex workers” in the Dutch sex industry if they could prove that they are self employed. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Europe report that traffickers use the work permits to bring foreign women into the Dutch prostitution industry, masking the fact that women have been trafficked, by coaching them to describe themselves as independent “migrant sex workers” (Personal Communication, Representative of the International Human Rights Network, 1999).

In the year since lifting the ban on brothels in the Netherlands, eight Dutch victim support organizations reported an increase in the number of victims of trafficking, and twelve victim support organization reported that the number of victims from other countries has not diminished (Bureau NRM, 2002, p. 75). Forty-three of the 348 municipalities (12%) in the Netherlands choose to follow a no-brothel policy, but the Minister of Justice has indicated that the complete banning of prostitution within any municipality could conflict with the federally guaranteed “right to free choice of work” (Bureau NRM, 2002, p.19).

The first steps toward legalization of prostitution in Germany occurred in the 1980s. By 1993, it was widely recognized that 75% of the women in Germany"s prostitution industry were foreigners from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in South America (Altink, 1993, p. 33). After the fall of the Berlin wall, 80% of the estimated 10,000 women trafficked into Germany were from Central and Eastern Europe and CIS countries (IOM. 1998a , p. 17). In 2002, prostitution in Germany was established as a legitimate job after years of being legalized in tolerance zones. Promotion of prostitution, pimping and brothels are now legal in Germany.

The sheer volume of foreign women in the German prostitution industry suggests that these women were trafficked into Germany, a process euphemistically described as facilitated migration. It is almost impossible for poor women to facilitate their own migration, underwrite the costs of travel and travel documents, and set themselves up in “business” without intervention.

In 1984, a Labor government in the Australian State of Victoria introduced legislation to legalize prostitution in brothels. Subsequent Australian governments expanded legalization culminating in the Prostitution Control Act of 1994. Noting the link between legalization of prostitution and trafficking in Australia, the US Department of State observed: “Trafficking in East Asian women for the sex trade is a growing problem...lax laws – including legalized prostitution in parts of the country – make [anti- trafficking] enforcement difficult at the working level” (U.S. Department of State, 2000, p. 6F).

3. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not control the sex industry. It expands it.

Contrary to claims that legalization and decriminalization would control the expansion of the sex industry, prostitution now accounts for 5% of the Netherlands economy (Daley, 2001, p. 4). Over the last decade, as pimping was legalized, and brothels decriminalized in the year 2000, the sex industry increased by 25% in the Netherlands (Daley, 2001, p.4). At any hour of the day, women of all ages and races, dressed in hardly anything, are put on display in the notorious windows of Dutch brothels and sex clubs and offered for sale. Most of them are women from other countries who were probably trafficked into the Netherlands (Daley, 2001, p. 4).

In addition to governmental endorsement of prostitution in the Netherlands, prostitution is also promoted by associations of sex businesses and organizations comprised of prostitution buyers who consult and collaborate with the government to further their interests. These include the “Association of Operators of Relaxation Businesses,” the “Cooperating Consultation of Operators of Window Prostitution,” and the “Man/Woman and Prostitution Foundation,” a group of men who regularly use women in prostitution, and whose specific aims include “to make prostitution and the use of services of prostitutes more accepted and openly discussible,” and “to protect the interests of clients” (Bureau NRM, 2002, pp.115-16).

Faced with a dwindling number of Dutch women who engage in prostitution activities and the expanding demand for more female bodies and more exotic women to service the prostitution market, the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking has stated that in the future, a solution may be to “offer [to the market] prostitutes from non EU/EEA[European Union/European Economic Area] countries, who voluntarily choose to work in prostitution...” These women would be given “legal and controlled access to the Dutch market” (Bureau NRM, 2002, p. 140). As prostitution has been transformed into “sex work,” and pimps into entrepreneurs, so too this recommendation transforms trafficking into “voluntary migration for sex work.” Looking to the future, the Netherlands is targeting poor women for the international sex trade to remedy the inadequacies of the free market of “sexual services.” Prostitution is thus normalized as an “option for the poor.”

Legalization of prostitution in the State of Victoria, Australia, resulted in massive expansion of the sex industry. Along with legalization of prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation, such as tabletop dancing, bondage and discipline centers, peep shows, phone sex, and pornography, have all developed in much more profitable ways than before legalization (Sullivan & Jeffreys, 2001). Prostitution has become an integral part of the tourism and casino boom in Victoria with government-sponsored casinos authorizing the redeeming of casino chips at local brothels (Sullivan &Jeffreys, 2001).

A range of state-sponsored prostitution systems exist in Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It seems likely that European state- sponsored prostitution countries serve as magnets and, ultimately, as conduits through which significant numbers of women are trafficked to other European nations. Europe has a high density of women trafficked per square mile compared to North America, for example. Given the porousness of national borders facilitated by the Schengen agreement (2), it is not surprising that high numbers of trafficked women are also present in other European countries that do not have legalized or decriminalized systems of prostitution. Although accurate numbers of women trafficked are difficult to obtain, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) has estimated that 500,000 women and children are trafficked in Europe annually (IOM, 1998). In contrast, it has been estimated that 45,000- 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually into the United States (Richard, 1999, p.3).