Prostitution law
Other schools of thought argue that sex work is a legitimate occupation, whereby a person trades or exchanges sexual acts for money or goods.
"[3] The term "sex work" is used interchangeably with "prostitution" in this article, in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO 2001; WHO 2005) and the United Nations (UN 2006; UNAIDS 2002).
[5] Some feminist organizations are opposed to prostitution, considering it a form of exploitation in which males dominate women, and as a practice that is the result of a patriarchal social order.
[7] In 2014, the Council of Europe made a similar recommendation, stating that "While each system presents advantages and disadvantages, policies prohibiting the purchase of sexual services are those that are more likely to have a positive impact on reducing trafficking in human beings".
[the function of the criminal law is] to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is injurious or offensive and to provide safeguards against the exploitation and corruption of others, ...
It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private lives of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular code of behaviour, further than is necessary to carry out the purposes of what we have outlined.
In December 2012, UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, released the "Prevention and treatment of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections for sex workers in low- and middle- income countries" document that contains the following "Good practice recommendations": Legal themes tend to focus on four issues: victimization (including potential victimhood), ethics and morality, freedom of the individual, and general benefit or harm to society (including harm arising indirectly from matters connected to prostitution).
Canada (2014),[16] France (2016)[17] the Republic of Ireland (2017)[18] and Israel (2018; effective 2020)[19][20] have also adopted a similar model to that of the Nordic countries (Denmark and Finland excluded).
Power and vulnerability in this context must be understood to include disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity and poverty.
The Open Society Foundations organization states: "sex work is done by consenting adults, where the act of selling or buying sexual services is not a violation of human rights.
"[3][4] According to a 2007 report by the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), the most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the US.
[25] The major sources of trafficked persons include Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine.
Removing criminal prosecution for sex workers creates a safer and healthier environment[33] and allows them to live with less social exclusion and stigma; e.g. New Zealand.
[citation needed] "By 1975, Thailand, with the help of World Bank economists, had instituted a National Plan of Tourist Development, which specifically underwrote the sex industry...
According to Thai feminist Sukyana Hantrakul, the law 'was enacted to pave the way for whorehouses to be legalised in the guise of massage parlours, bars, nightclubs, tea houses, etc.
Article 34 stipulates that: As of 2000, twenty-four countries had enacted legislation criminalising child sex tourism, e.g. in Australia, the Crimes (Child Sex Tourism) Amendment Act 1994 covers a wide range of sexual activities with children under the age of 16 committed overseas.
Goals of such regulations include controlling sexually transmitted disease, reducing sexual slavery, increasing safety for sex workers and clients (such as from violence, abuse and murder), ensuring fair pay, fair work hours and safe and clean working conditions, controlling where brothels may operate and dissociating prostitution from crime syndicates.
[citation needed] Dutch researchers have found significant reductions in drug-related crime in areas where prostitution is legal and licensed.
A paper by Barbara Brents and Kathryn Hausbeck of the University of Nevada concluded that "brothels offer the safest environment available for women to sell consensual sex acts for money.
In Dutch cities that licensed the sex workers that are legally able to work in these zones rapes and sexual abuse fell by up to 40%.
Brothel owners may be held liable if customers become infected with HIV after a prostitute has tested positive for the virus.
[citation needed] The United Nations Development Programme published a report[54] in 2012 on illegal sex work in Asia and the Pacific.
The report stated - "Criminalization increases vulnerability to HIV by fueling stigma and discrimination, limiting access to HIV and sexual health services, condoms and harm reduction services, and adversely affecting the self-esteem of sex workers and their ability to make informed choices about their health.
[citation needed] Demands to legalise prostitution as a means to contain exploitation in the sex industry is now gaining support from organisations such as the UN and the Supreme Court of India.
