761
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
761 points (100.0% liked)
News
23361 readers
2979 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Because one of the biggest issues with sex work, human trafficking, gets worse with legalization. Studies across Europe have shown that countries that outlaw prostitution see a decrease in human trafficking victims while countries that legalized or decriminalized it see an increase.
Unlike with drugs, you don't just create a way to increase the supply. A very small minority of women actually want to engage in sex work. And the few who do, usually envision the high class escort lifestyle. But working in a brothel charging $100 per client isn't something many want to do.
But legalizing prostitution increases demand. Which makes it more profitable for criminals to utilize human trafficking to fill that demand.
https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/
One source of it.
It also doesn't help at all with protecting victims of human trafficking. Victims of human trafficking are already protected. But they don't step forward because of threats against their own well being and that of their families. Something that doesn't change just because their work technically is legal now.
Which leaves a small percentage of people who fall into financial hardship and consider prostitution as a method of overcoming said hardship. For them that might slightly improve their situation. But that still means exploiting vulnerable people and isn't people engaging in sex work because they want to. And it's even questionable if people in these scenarios would follow the legal way.
So while initially it might seem like legalizing it solves a lot of issues, it is more difficult than that.
Us laws regarding sex work are firmly based in puritanical values not out of any concern whatsoever regarding trafficking.
Thanks for the data. I think the issue here is not that legal prostitution creates problems, but rather the government bodies being incompetent at protecting the victims, then.
There are other industries in which people "sell their bodies" for profit (the military and construction come to mind), and if those can be quite regulated, why can't prostitution?
We all sell our bodies for profit. To be fair though, wage theft is the most common form of theft. We're all prostitutes and we're almost all being taken advantage of, and we're in a system where we can't really get out.
My guess is that it's just more difficult to control prostitution than it is to control construction work. Construction happens in the open, you need to get tons of permits, multiple companies are involved, inspectors check everything regularly. It would be difficult to force some people to work on a construction site without anyone realizing. But how are you going to make sure that each sexual intercourse in some strip bar is 'legal'? Are you going to put inspectors in bathroom stalls? How can you check every cash transaction? It's pretty much impossible. You can monitor the sex work that's advertised and happening 'in the open' but there will always be some grey and black market for it. And the ugly stuff will happen there.
Yes, because legalizing sex work is just criminalizing sex work with extra steps. It's very easy to see an (alleged) "rise in sex trafficking" when the legalization shuffle allows politicians to all of a sudden decide what is "allowed" sex work and what is "sex trafficking."
This is why shitty studies like the one you linked is so thoroughly non-credible - it was performed without the input of the people who actually know what they are talking about - ie, sex workers themselves.
What the fuck are you talking about?
So what's the solution?? You just made random assertions without any sources and didn't suggest any alternatives. All while skimming over the very real trafficking/coersion problems unique to sex work.
I was totally onboard with them but the longer they talk the weirder the takes get.
Do tell... is this the first time you've actually considered what sex workers themselves have to say about (so-called) "legalization?"
None of this is a secret, Clyde.
ROFLMAO! No, genius... trafficking is not unique to sex work in any way, shape, or form. If you weren't filled to the brim with anti-sex work hysteria you'd have known that already.
The sex workers with those opinions usually are the already more well off workers who perform escort or cam services, and isn't reflective of the bottom strata of sex worker experiences. It also doesn't address how more common sex work leads to higher trafficking rates.
Lol I'd love any source on this whatsoever. I'm not sure how you defend this line of thought, or why you feel this way. You don't think human trafficking shares any of the same risk factors or conditions as sex work?
LOLCOPTER
You're going to have to do a whole lot better than hiding behind impoverished people.
That has already been explained to you.
You need a source to tell you that labor and refugee trafficking is a thing?
It's really simple... I have no wish to demonize and criminalize sex workers - unlike you.
I see this single study trotted out every time the subject comes up and the key factor to take into account is that this is reported trafficking. If legalized sex work means more light is shed on human trafficking that means more can be done about it.
Just because more is reported doesn't mean more isn't also happening. In fact, one could reasonably expect reporting to go down as a percentage of incidents due to ordinary citizens not expecting sex workers to be involved in trafficking since sex work is now legal. That the number goes up after the stigma is removed seems to strongly indicate a correlation with a rise in actual trafficking.
More or less is a matter of comparison. How do you compare with an underground activity that cannot be tracked as easily?
As with anything, you can only work with the data you actually have.
Sure, but all you have is assumptions and you're assuming the increased reporting of trafficking means that trafficking is increasing rather than it just getting caught more. It's like when some governments fought over covid reporting. Keeping it hidden doesn't mean less of it is happening and making it more visible doesn't mean more of it is happening.
Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?
No, because you presented the study as supposed proof of more human trafficking.
First, I didn't present anything.
Second, it does prove that more human trafficking is reported.
You only have the assumption that bringing it into the light of day results in a higher rate of reporting against actual incidents. It's an interesting hypothesis, but without any evidence to support your assumption Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest answer is that the rates do not change drastically and there actually is more human trafficking to be reported.
You didn't present anything but you certainly act like you did. We're agreed in that it proves more human trafficking is reported but again, that doesn't mean more human trafficking is happening. Refer back to my example about covid case reporting. Incorrectly citing Occam's Razor doesn't strengthen your argument.
I did no such thing.
Unless the reporting rates go down, then it must certainly does.
Your example of a concerted effort of large governmental agencies to hide the actual reported numbers is not actually relevant here. It wouldn't even be relevant if it were just random underreporting outside of governments as it doesn't have any similarity to decriminalizing sex work.
You have made more assumptions than I have. Tell me how you think Occam doesn't apply. You can't just declare an argument to be invalid and expect anyone to take your seriously.
What evidence do you have to support your theory that decriminalizing an activity increases the rate of reporting? If you don't have any, then you don't even have an argument. You only have your suppositions and theories.
It's entirely possible that you're correct, and decriminalization increases reporting without increasing activity. I have yet to see what mechanism you propose causes this quite curious paradox, so without some explanation you'll have to concede that you at least can offer no actual reason to believe it's true.