Literally. Not a prostitution example but in general I remember when Colorado first legalized marijuana the revenue that it brought in was INSANE. And what'd they do with it? Invest it into their schools, how can that ever be a bad thing???? Here in Florida the powerball gives money back to state education, why can't we just allow more options for that potential revenue (because holy crap the education system in Florida is literal garbage)
Legalizing prostitution will absolutely NOT reduce human trafficking. I have no idea why anybody thinks that if you magically legalize it then it will all of a sudden switch to a professional career instead of a few people exploiting women's bodies for money, except paying taxes on it.
Every single country with legal prostitution has a significantly higher rate of human trafficking.
Prostitution is not a victimless crime. The perception that there are all these individual sex workers working for themselves is simply not the reality. The vast, vast majority are trafficking victims who receive no money or benefit from their forced work.
When legalized, organized crime becomes legit companies but the base level approach doesn't change and the women are still trapped.
The vast, vast majority are trafficking victims who receive no money or benefit from their forced work.
Yes, that's the current situation when it's illegal. Why are you advocating for that to continue?
When legalized, organized crime becomes legit companies but the base level approach doesn't change and the women are still trapped.
If you mean they're trapped in a job because they've got bills to pay, that's almost every job. The guy flipping your burgers has bills too, he isn't any less trapped.
Yes, illegally trafficked workers can still exist in legal industries - eg, there's still sweatshops even though sewing and textiles are legal. But there's also more remedies. A trafficked worker in a sweatshop can actually seek help from the state without the threat of being thrown in jail themselves. If sewing were illegal, that avenue would be closed off.
You're not going to eliminate the industry. As long as there's a demand for textiles, there's money in supplying that demand, and someone is going to supply it by hook or by crook. The best you can hope for is to provide a maximal number of remedies and escapes for those exploited by the system.
Same goes for sex work, if not moreso. Sewing isn't considered the world's oldest trade/profession.
In most countries where it has been legalized trafficking becomes worse because the ability to be more open allows for more business. See Germany.
Trapped isn't "I have bills that this unpleasant work pays for". Trapped is "I came from a different country under false pretenses and now I'm literally being held prisoner and forced to service 8-10 men a day for no benefit to me at all." The lack of understanding in the general populace of the US that this is the reality of US prostitution is what if preventing this from being fixed.
If you want to eliminate prostitution you rescue and help the existing people trapped in that situation and at the same time you increase penalties for the Johns and publicly make tons of arrests. Where this had been done, prostitution had greatly diminished.
The difficulty is that it's so lucrative that it is hard to get enough uncorrupted officials to sign off on this approach.
Germany has legalized prostiution for 20 years now. It made sexwork legal for many prostitutes who benefit from healthcare and safe labour laws and such. But the mayority of sex workers are suffering from bad working conditions. Brothels where sex is promised for flat rates, prostitutes being vulnerable to abuse by customers or pimps. Human trafficing is very much a thing. Prostitutes Passports are withheld and they are forced to work. Germany is basically the brothel of europe since in most countries prostitution is heavily regulated. And the problems legalisation promises to fix are very much still there.
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u/mmmmmmort Mar 01 '23
Literally. Not a prostitution example but in general I remember when Colorado first legalized marijuana the revenue that it brought in was INSANE. And what'd they do with it? Invest it into their schools, how can that ever be a bad thing???? Here in Florida the powerball gives money back to state education, why can't we just allow more options for that potential revenue (because holy crap the education system in Florida is literal garbage)