Prostitution should be legalized

I am looking forward to this. I am going to start off by addressing my two main points and then I will address the major points that Masterdabatr91 has made.Point 1: Prostitution already happens, the least we can do is to take some ownership over it to help prevent unnecessary problems. It is a fact that prostitution is already happening in our country, contrary to the law. How is it going to be stopped? As long as there are consumers, the service to fit that desire will be provided. There has never been a time in any nation's history, that I can think of, where prostitution was never heard of. It has always been among us. How has banning prostitution helped anyone? What is worse is that people who are obliged to prostitute (either by their own wills or the wills of others) will often be faced with other illegal activities such as drug smuggling, child pornography, ect... By removing prostitution from that fringe of society, we actually stand a chance at causing damage to the illegal human-trafficking business. I do not and will not support practices that force others into engaging in activities that violates their own moral code. So by legalizing prostitution for those who wish to do so, it separates legal prostitution from those who wish to remain an enemy to society by keeping hold of prostitutes against there will.Point 2: People who are compelled to become prostitutes against their wills are victims. And yet because the law treats them as criminals, we are unable to do anything to help their plight. If a prostitute is assaulted, raped, or in some other way abused by a crime, they have no way to report the crime without feeling like they will also be arrested. Much of a pimp's power comes from keeping the women under his charge feeling powerless and that there is no other option to take. But a legal brother would be much better informed and the women who work there would be under the protection under the same laws as any other worker. "Prohibition gives cover to traffickers. It allows them to use the laws against prostitution to intimidate, especially when it comes to children. Women and girls being held against their will are afraid to go to police because they will be treated as criminals." -Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD Now I wanted to address several important points you have made.Con 1. "I believe that we will never succeed in combating trafficking in women if we do not simultaneously work to abolish prostitution and the sexual exploitation of women and children." I see why you would think that. It is a common belief that prostitution and human trafficking are directly correlated. But the truth is that the reason they are associated with each other is that they are both on the fringes of society. One illegal act is often associated with another. Ex. Prohibition era; alcohol and crime. "The intersection of the highly emotive issues of sex work and human trafficking generates a lot more heat than light. Some anti trafficking activists equate 'prostitution' with trafficking and vice versa, despite evidence to the contrary. The U.S. government leaves no doubt as to where it stands: According to the State Department Web site, 'Where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery.' By this logic, the state of Nevada should be awash in foreign sex slaves, leading one to wonder what steps the Justice Department is taking to free them. Oddly, the Netherlands, Australia, and Germany--all of whom have legalized prostitution--received top marks from the Bush administration in the most recent Trafficking in Persons Report." -David A. Feingold, PhDCon 2.I had actually never heard of these statistics before. I went ahead and looked them up and the only major difference was that some of the STD's only take a half week to detect but some do continue for several months before being detected. I do acknowledge that this is a major issue in the field of prostitution in general and I will make no attempt to say that it is not. However, is the issue with STD's going to be any less major if prostitution is illegal? I contend that prostitutes who do engage in their practice outside the law will often experience the same problem as sanctioned prostitutes, but face several more challenges. First off, a prostitute working outside the strictures of law will not take major considerations into preventing STD's. Especially with pimping, there is little, if any screening. Also, illegal prostitutes are more likely to engage in higher risk sexual activities by not using a condom (men have been known to pay extra for the privilege of not needing to use a condom.) Also, an illegal prostitute may feel no moral obligation to stop their practice because they are infected. These issues would not be so prevalent in sanctioned prostitution. To finish off this point, I will share one last quote. "Prostitutes overwhelmingly work outside the law. This has implications for their health that are hard to quantify. In one Australian study carried out in 1998, the prevalence of sexually transmitted bacterial infections was 80 times greater in 63 illegal street prostitutes than in 753 of their legal brothel counterparts.... Legally sanctioned encouragement of prostitutes to use condoms or access screening services, both major determinants of the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, is impossible because of their illegal status. Occupational health and safety law is applied to prostitutes in lawful brothels but not to their counterparts on the street." -Bebe Loff, LLB, PhD