Prostitution ought to be legalized in more areas of the United States

Contention 1: Legalizing expands the sex market. Because of the legalization of prostitution, the sex market in the region will grow. The Netherlands proves. “Over the last decade, as pimping was legalized, and brothels decriminalized in the year 2000, the sex industry increased by 25% in the Netherlands.” [1] Sub-point 1a: Legalizing prostitution increases human trafficking. Because of an increase in the demand of prostitutes with the expansion of a sex market, sex trafficking will increase, as the Netherlands shows. “Legalized or decriminalized prostitution industries are one of the root causes of sex trafficking...one report found that 80% of women in the brothels of the Netherlands were trafficked from other countries.” [2] The expansion of human trafficking leads to problems to those involved therein. “A 2006 quantitative study...documented the physical, sexual and mental health symptoms experienced by women trafficked for sexual exploitation (10). In this multi-site survey of approximately 200 women, the majority reported high levels of physical or sexual abuse before (59%) and during (95%) their exploitation, and multiple concurrent physical and mental health problems immediately after their trafficking experience (10). The most commonly reported physical health symptoms included fatigue, headaches, sexual and reproductive health problems (e.g. STIs), back pain and significant weight loss.” [3] “Women who have been trafficked into the sex trade may often not have access to, or are not allowed to use, condoms or other methods of birth control... Such women face the risk of unwanted pregnancies and miscarriages...This type of physical and sexual abuse described above leads to severe mental or emotional health consequences, including feelings of severe guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders. In extreme cases, the mental anguish can lead to self-mutilation and/or suicide.” [4] Sub-point 1b: Legalizing has the problems of illegal prostitution, child prostitution. Under a system of legalized prostitution, prostitutes would need to enter into a registry, something that creates problems as pimps find ways to bypass that system and expand street prostitution. “…many women are in street prostitution because they want to avoid being controlled and exploited by pimps (transformed in legalized systems into sex businessmen). Other women do not want to register or submit to health checks, as required by law in some countries where prostitution is legalized. Thus, legalization may actually drive some women into street prostitution… In the Netherlands...because they must register and lose their anonymity, women are more vulnerable to being stigmatized as “whores,”... Thus, the majority of women in prostitution still operate illegally and underground…Another argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that it would help end child prostitution. Yet child prostitution in the Netherlands has increased dramatically during the 1990s. The Amsterdam-based ChildRight organization estimates that the number of children in prostitution has increased by more than 300% between 1996 –2001, going from 4,000 children in 1996 to15,000 in 2001.” [5] Contention 2: Legalizing prostitution doesn't solve the problems faced in prostitution. The legalization of prostitution fails to solve any of the problems women face in prostitution. Sub-point 2a: Legalization of prostitution doesn't decrease sexual assault. “It is a cruel lie to suggest that decriminalization or legalization will protect anyone in prostitution…In the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, 60% of prostituted women suffered physical assaults; 70% experienced verbal threats of physical assault; 40% experienced sexual violence; and 40% had been forced into prostitution or sexual abuse by acquaintances. Most young women in prostitution were abused or beaten by johns as well as pimps.” [6] “In two studies in which 186 victims of commercial sexual exploitation were interviewed, women consistently indicated that prostitution establishments did little to protect them, regardless of whether the establishments were legal or illegal. One woman said, “The only time they protect anyone is to protect the customers.” [7] Sub-point 2b: Legalization of prostitution does not decrease the risk of health concerns. The problem of transmission of STDs remains a problem under legalization. “A legalized system of prostitution often mandates health checks and certification, but only for women and not for male buyers. Health examinations or tests for women but not men make no public health sense because monitoring prostituted women does not protect them from HIV/AIDS or STDs... Male buyers can and do originally transmit disease to the women they purchase... In one study, 47% of women in U.S. prostitution stated that men expected sex without a condom; 73% reported that men offered to pay more for sex without a condom; and 45% of women said that men became abusive if they insisted that men use condoms. Although certain sex businesses had rules that required men to wear condoms, men nonetheless attempted to have sex without condoms. One woman stated: “It’s ‘regulation’ to wear a condom at the sauna, but negotiable between parties on the side. Most guys expected blow jobs without a condom (Raymond et al, 2001, p. 72).”” [8] “A UN/AIDS and WHO campaign in Thailand began in the late 1980s to ensure 100% condom use. According to women in prostitution, under this policy they suffered the same social contempt as always but with additional coercive tactics such as being taken to clinics for health checks under police or military escort. The campaign humiliated women by posting their photographs in brothels so that johns could inform pimps which of the women had agreed to have sex without a condom. Johns’ culpability for their own failure to use condoms was ignored.” [9] This is not to mention the problems of mental health for those involved in prostitution, mainly PTSD. “ Aosved and Long (2003), for example, found that women who experience rape resulting from coercive tactics such as abuse of authority, arguments, or social pressure experience the same high levels of depression and PTSD as women who have been raped as a result of force and threat of force...PTSD is characterized by anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and hyperalertness. Symptoms are more severe and long lasting when the stressor is of human design. PTSD is normative among prostituted women. Farley et al. (2003) found a PTSD prevalence rate of 68% among those in prostitution in nine countries. Illustrating a severe symptom of PTSD, one prostitution survivor said, “For the first few months I worked [in prostitution] I had a lot of nightmares involving mass numbers of penises”. ” [10] Contention 3: Legalization of prostitution hurts women’s human rights. Prostitution violates human rights. Sub-point 3a: Legalization of prostitution increases discrimination of women. “There is a stark contrast between countries with legalized prostitution and criminalized prostitution in terms of the promotion of gender rights... the abuse of women has become so entwined in Thailand that it makes up 4.3 billion dollars per year."' The sale and abuse of women's bodies that contributes to the maintenance of the Thai government and society for the benefit of men can be described as nothing but exploitation... The result of the situation in Thailand is indicated by the CEDAW Committee's Concluding Observations, namely the concern "[t]hat traditional attitudes that foster discrimination against women and girls continue to prevail and to hinder the full implementation of the Convention.""* Rather than tackling the serious problem of discrimination against women in Thai society, the government compounds the problem by condoning the sale of women as objects for the use of men,... When women are commodities, they need be treated no better than other marketed products...” [11] “Prostitution is not about women enjoying rights over their own bodies. On the contrary, it is an expression of men's control over women's sexuality. It is the hiring out of one's body for the purposes of sexual intercourse, abuse, and manifestations of undifferentiated male lust." [12] Sub-point 3b: Other conditions constitute that prostitution is a human rights violation. “The European Court of Human Rights has established that filthy conditions, water shortages, skin infections, and sleep deprivation can constitute torture when the suffering is intense... In places where prostitution is legalized, the state not only ignores the conditions, it legitimizes them. Therefore, States must be held accountable under ECtHR for their failure to eradicate torture.” [13] References provided in comment section.