Do you believe that prostitution should be legalized? This paper will examine the pro and con and my point of view on should prostitution be legalized. Condemnation of prostitution is as old as prostitution itself. Sex workers have often been stigmatized and isolated from mainstream society. Prostitution is the practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for immediate payment in money or other valuables. Advocates of sex workers have called for the legalization of prostitution in an effort to provide sex workers with regulatory protection. They think legalizing it would encourage a higher demand.
Firstly, legalizing prostitution would provide sex workers regulatory protection. Therefore, according to Doreen Carvajal journalist at Chicago times says making the buying and or selling of sex illegal pushes the practices underground resulting in discrimination, harassment, rape, and violence (carvajal). So | think what she is saying that if we make it legal we can hopefully decrease the number of violence, and the number of bad things that happen. I think she also thinks that by legalizing this that we can give them regulations and laws that can help these ladies out in their best benefit.
To regulate the environment in which commercial transactions occur with the aim of protecting the health and safety of sex workers. It’s not perfect either, but it tends to be less harmful. Which mean that if you legalize it some of the bad things that happen could still occur but most likely not as much as it used to (carvajal). Not legalizing prostitution and penalizing these ladies just makes them go underground or do this when nobody is watching. Which is making the workers more vulnerable to dangers. When you send a prostitute to jail it makes things worse for them when they get out.
When they get out their pimp usually are not happy because, they have lost out on money. Which in the prostitutes case make it where they can get beaten or raped or if their pimp is not a good guy he might try and send her to someone that will and can do some pretty bad things to this girl. So in a way the police can make it worse for the girl who participate in this sell and trade. Secondly, according to Andre Picard making sex workers criminals is no solution. Sex workers are often driven to have this job is due through desperation, poverty, homelessness, addiction, or the trauma of abuse.
If you criminalize the prostitute for doing what she has to do then that is wrong. A lot of them out there that are forced to become a sex worker, and they should not be punished if they have no control over it (picard). The human rights group argues criminalization makes it more likely that the rights of sex workers will be violated. Women, men and those that are transgender sex workers end up more vulnerable to exploitation and violence because, they are scared to go to the police. If prostitution was legal I feel as if more people would feel more comfortable about going to the police.
Thirdly, according to Cathy Reinswetz walking the red light district. By legalizing this it would decrease the number of human trafficking victims in this country. Making t legal can make some people not want to do this as much. Why? You might ask. Well, do you remember when you were a kid and when your parents told you not to do something and it made you want to do it even more. Well in this case it could go the same way. Some people may only do this because of the thrill they get because it is illegal (reinswetz). In Germany prostitution got legalized in 2011, and cases of human trafficking has shrank by 10 percent.
So maybe it would be a good idea for us to legalize sex work. Sex workers are workers and not slaves. Workers here are represented by a union and are afforded full police protection when something goes wrong. If sex work got legalized it would be much easier for most. I say this because if it got legalized they could get benefits and help as if you was working at Applebee’s or somewhere like that. They need to be able to have some type of coverage in case something bad was to happen to them. In conclusion, if we were to legalize prostitution it could help us out in many ways.
Like keeping the girls safe and them being able to feel comfortable to go to the police if they need help getting out or if something goes completely wrong. My first con viewpoint is that legalizing prostitution would encourage higher demand. Firstly, according to Aziaz Ahmed prostitution and related activities which are harmful and decriminalizing, and contribute to the phenomenon of trafficking in people. Some people believe that it should not be legalized, because think that it is degrading to women and whoever participates (ahmed).
Sex work is a dangerous phenomenon that routinely violates women’s rights and perpetuates their subordination to men. Being a prostitute is very dangerous, and there are very many people that does not believe in it. Which can make it harder for this topic to be legalized. In Cambodia there are at least 80,000 to 100,000 women and children being trafficked in and out of America each year. People try and say that we shouldn’t legalize this but if you think about it if we were to legalize it we could hopefully decrease this number tremendously.
Secondly, prostitution spreads diseases. Some government posters discourage the soldiers from purchasing sex with slogans like “she may look clean” or “disease is disguised”. Any female can have a disease so if you don’t sell nor buy you can help from spreading the disease. There are many police officers that will harass or arrest sex workers or just people on the street that carry multiple condoms. Citing that they are being involved in illegal activities.
If they police have the suspicion that someone is doing something wrong they should have every ight, because it could help them out in the long run. Harm reduction programs if you move wildly accepted. Spread out, and scaled you would go a long way toward protecting sex workers health. If some people would choose to go to rehabilitation facility then they could get help and maybe get out of that profession. Thirdly, according to Cindy McCain there is no dignity in the sex trade industry. A buyer or a trafficker who takes advantage of someone’s lack of choice for their own financial or sexual gain is an exploiter of human rights and should be criminalized.
She believes that the person that is buying or selling the females or males should be the ones getting into trouble. If you think about it some of the prostitutes in the world don’t have any choice but to be a sex worker. Some of them are forced to be a sex worker because the pimp may think that he owns her or something (McCain). This industry is not safe, and amnesty international understands that sex workers in many countries face high levels of violence. So for that reason they do not think that it should be legal. Hopefully while keeping prostitution illegal it is keeping some of the violence from happening.
Protections should not be afforded to those who prey on a person vulnerability or lack of basic needs. She believes that if you are buying or selling sex that you do not deserve to have protection. In conclusion, it doesn’t matter if you legalize or you don’t legalize its always going to happen regardless. My viewpoint on this whole thing would be I believe that legalizing prostitution can go either way. People doesn’t really care whether or not if it is legal or not they will always still do it because for some females it’s the only way that they know how to get money.
If we were to legalize sex work it could possibly decrease the amount on trafficking but could also increase it (Cowden). Secondly, prostitution can be good legalized. We can help protect our sex workers. We can give them rights and laws for them to follow. Sex work in this particular area because they have had no choice, and they don’t really know what to do. There are a lot of them that are mainly tying to provide for their families. Just because they are doing to a different way does not mean that we should discriminate against them. We should protect them, at least they are trying. Most believe that sex work is just work.
Like if you work at Walmart you get benefits so why can’t sex workers get benefits also. Thirdly, I also believe that if we do legalize prostitution it can make people want to do it even more and that is not okay. Our goal is to try to decrease the amount of sex workers that we have here in the states and if we legalize it it would be harder for people with morals to say no. if we were to legalize sex work more and more people are likely to catch HIV and AIDS. We would like it if less and less people had these diseases because they are not okay diseases. People die from them every year.
Sex work is extremely dangerous and more and more people will think it is okay to do if we were to legalize it, and more teenagers will see how much money you get from it and might think it is a good idea and try it the end up not being able to get out of it. Many females, males’, transgender, and children get killed every day for sex work and we are trying to lower that number. So maybe there is a way that we can give these people protection without legalization. In conclusion, should prostitution be legalized? Legalizing prostitution could help young ladies that are doing sex work. It can give tem hope, and maybe even clarity.
It can give them some of the protection that they need and can help prevent from more abusive things. Hopefully legalizing prostitution can cut down the amount of unwanted sex workers. By not legalizing prostitution you are putting sex workers at risk because by it not being legalized they are not guaranteed safety. Plus they are going to do it any ways so why not make it legal and try and keep some of them safer than normal. Knowing what I know now I still believe that prostitution should be legalized, but even more now. Since they are going to do it regardless they should have rules and regulations.