To the delight of civil libertarians and libertarians alike, the Canadian courts have been leading the world in dealing with conflicts between privacy principles and morality legislation. I am serving as an expert in the review of Canadian polygamy laws in British Columbia. In the meantime, the Ontario Superior Court may allow three prostitution laws to die this Saturday.
In September, the Court struck down the laws. The federal government is charging that this is nothing short of a “social experiment unprecedented in this country.” However, it is also a frank acknowledgment that consenting adults came engage in sex for money as a consensual choice. Currently, an individual can have sex with any number of partners but can be arrested if they accept anything of value in exchange for sex. They can receive gifts as part of a “relationship” no matter how fleeting but not as payment.
The Court previously noted that criminal laws force prostitutes in the shadows where they are easy prey for abuse and even homicides. Once legal, protections and regulations can apply to the world’s oldest profession. With the demise of the laws, street walking will be legal.
Source: Star
Jonathan Turley
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tabby-biddle/how-you-can-stop-the-oppr_b_720460.html The sexual trafficking of women and children is becoming more and more prevalent. I am not sure whether legalization of prostitution makes the situation better or worse.
Swarthmore mom,
I don’t think anyone is in favor of slavery of any variety, including sex slavery. I think it’s likely that legalizing prostitution would reduce the incidence of sex slavery, but I don’t have any studies to back that up.
However, by saying “Slavery is an old profession too.” you’re equating prostitution with slavery, full stop.
What benefits are there to legalization of prostitution that can’t be accomplished without legalization of prostitution or at least without legalization of purchase of prostitution?
Our earlier posts must have crossed. Thanks for the Steinem / “global sex trade” link, Swarthmore mom.
I’m trying to keeping an open mind, but still find myself in the “legalization camp”…
Kay,
Never went to one.
Smom,
Then here’s the rub: legislation of morals never works unless there is a strong intersection with ethics. For example, murder is both morally and ethically wrong, but under the moral analysis it is an absolute whereas under the ethical analysis there are valid exceptions such as self-defense or the defense of others.
Sharia is a morality based law and like all morality based laws, it’s based in religious belief rather than objective reality. Just because the morals at hand may be found in the Christian tradition doesn’t validate them as a good basis for legislation any more than a foundation in Islam validates the barbarity of Sharia.
Buddah If it is moralizing to be against the sex slave business or any form of slavery then count me in. Many of the prostitutes in Canada are part of the sex slave business coming out of the Ukraine. I would defer to Canadian Eh regarding whether legalization will make this situation better or worse.
Dear BIL
Weeds are with us always too but weed eradication attempts keep them from taking over our fields and yards.
Since we are getting personnel, BIL, what is your personal experience with prostitutes?
Regulation and crime prevention are complicated but at some level, most people avoid doing crimes because they are afraid they will get caught. People avoid drunk driving because they are afraid they will get caught and lose their driver’s license not just because they are afraid they will have a car accident and kill someone.
Smom,
Slavery isn’t a profession. It’s an unethical (and rightfully criminal) activity engaged in by slavers. By imposing criminal sanction on the slaves proper for the activities of slavers, you are not punishing the slavers but rather the slaves themselves. You punish slavers by removing their empower to enslave coupled with criminal punishment. You help slaves by easing their path to freedom.
Anon Nurse
Legalization of prostitution in Nevada produced these results:
1.) No women with any substantial savings willing to acknowledge a benefit from prostitution.
2.) Probable HIV infections considering that the porn industry couldn’t keep their stars HIV free even with weekly tests.
3.) Illegal prostitution in Los Vegas and Reno because the state couldn’t confine it to the rural counties.
4.) Many reports of minors in prostitution.
5.) Many reports of violence and forced prostitution.
6.) Reports of income tax evasion.
7.) At least one DOJ case involving an operator of a brothel who bribed local government officials.
8.) Males raised in area who now believe that all women might be prostitutes and consider purchase of prostitution an acceptable life style.
Canadian Eh,
“I think you and I both know that any revenues will not be put towards our failing front line Health Care services though.”
Where pols are involved, some kind of skimming will inevitably occur, but you could write it into the legislation so that there is no choice but to keep those tax revenues in a discrete stream for a discrete purpose like some states channel lottery sales proceeds into school funding.
And I too wish your fog was turkey induced.
kay,
“I get attacked on blogs all the time and I am here in my real name. The men who are attacking me are all anonymous. For all we know someone is paying them to blog to legalize prostitution.”
Conspiratorial much? There’s also another, less nefarious, explanation: simple disagreement. You should also learn to distinguish between attacking you and attacking your stance. No one has questioned you or your motivation on this issue other than when I pointed out you let emotions cloud your analysis based upon your own statements.
You want to legislate based on moral grounds (your personal disapproval) an activity which has gone on since before the dawn of civilization and has been seen in every major civilization we have on record. If Prohibition and the War on Drugs should have taught you anything, it’s that legislation by morality (as contrasted to ethics, logic and the reality of human behavior) is doomed to failure and compounds societal damages for said behaviors.
I think prostitution is not a good practice per se, but wanting to mitigate through regulation the damages done by a behavior that we as a society have zero chance of controlling via criminalization doesn’t equate to some misogynistic pro-porn plot. It does, however, equate to a realistic understanding of the behavior in question as opposed to your moralizing stance that in the net result makes it harder for people wanting to get away from prostitution to do so.
Slavery is an old profession too.
I agree totally with Gloria Steinem that the global sex trade is modern day slavery. And what are the advantages of it?
Look at it from the perspective of the Johns. If they were not buying sex from prostitutes what would they be doing? — getting sex for free from someone they are nice to who also goes to movies with them, goes for walks on the beach, and feeds them? enjoying recreation for which they cannot be blackmailed such as watching football games on tv?
Look at it from the perspective of the local governments. Do the potential tax revenues exceed the hidden costs of policing, social work and disruption to neighborhoods?
“Prostitution had been illegal in Thailand since 1960.” (yahoo and other sources) — I wasn’t sure and had to look it up.
It’s the world’s oldest “profession”, as it’s said, and the debate goes on and on, without clear answers, it would seem…
Thanks for your insights and the links. I’m still of the opinion that it would be better to legalize it in the U.S. Having said this, I believe that the best outcomes often arise out of a healthy and vigorous debate.
http://www.iabolish.org/enslaved/gloria.html Kay: Gloria Steinem considers the global sex trade to be modern day slavery.
sorry I didn’t mean to load that quote twice. Safari crashed.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article796077.ece
According to the Police Child Protection Unit in Johannesburg, about 28,000 children are engaged in prostitution and approximately 15 new girls between the age of 15 and 18 are arrested every month. A study carried out by the Khayelethu Health Centre in Diepsloot, a settlement in the north of Johannesburg, revealed that 40 per cent of girls below 16 are involved in prostitution. One in five girls is HIV-positive. Unemployment in the community is more than 50 per cent, and child prostitution takes the form of survival sexual exploitation. Schools in Kwa Zulu Natal have reported that there are prostitution rings operating in their schools where groups of girls between 11 and 16 years old frequent discos and prostitute themselves. About one-fourth of Cape Town’s street children are estimated to be engaged in prostitution.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article796077.ece
According to the Police Child Protection Unit in Johannesburg, about 28,000 children are engaged in prostitution and approximately 15 new girls between the age of 15 and 18 are arrested every month. A study carried out by the Khayelethu Health Centre in Diepsloot, a settlement in the north of Johannesburg, revealed that 40 per cent of girls below 16 are involved in prostitution. One in five girls is HIV-positive. Unemployment in the community is more than 50 per cent, and child prostitution takes the form of survival sexual exploitation. Schools in Kwa Zulu Natal have reported that there are prostitution rings operating in their schools where groups of girls between 11 and 16 years old frequent discos and prostitute themselves. About one-fourth of Cape Town’s street children are estimated to be engaged in prostitution.
Estimates of the number of child prostitutes living in Thailand range from 12,000 to the hundreds of thousands.
More than 16,000 children in Mexico were involved in prostitution in June of 2000.
“University girls, sexy, daring, inviting and insatiable; School girls and ardent young boys. The best services you can find. Just dare!; Beautiful, loving slaves, educated to satisfy your most disturbing fantasies. Phone us.”
Child prostitution, however, is not only about little girls as young boys are also increasingly being targeted.
The International Organisation for Migration has identified this as a growing problem in Chiredzi where boys are leaving for South Africa where they get work as “comforters”, mainly for widows.
The organisation has cited the main cause of this being economic instability.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200904100077.html
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/fempsy2.html
Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
92 percent stated that they wanted to leave prostitution; 73 percent needed a physical place of asylum; 70 percent needed job training; 59 percent needed health care; 55 percent wanted individual counseling; and 49 percent wanted peer support; 47 percent needed child care; 45 percent wanted self-defense training; 38 percent needed drug or alcohol addiction treatment; 24 percent thought that prostitution should be legalized.
In South Africa and Zambia, we asked whether respondents believed that legalizing prostitution would decrease violence in prostitution.’ In reply 62 percent of respondents in South Africa and 73 percent in Zambia stated that they did not believe that legalization of prostitution would decrease violence in prostitution. It should be noted that at the time the question was asked in South Africa (1996), there was a national political movement promoting legalization of prostitution.
Dear Swarthmore mom
I get attacked on blogs all the time and I am here in my real name. The men who are attacking me are all anonymous. For all we know someone is paying them to blog to legalize prostitution. There is a lot of money involved in it looking at how much money is involved in porno.
I am not convinced of the benefits of poly marriages either. Women worked hard for centuries to establish family as the basis of society. They wouldn’t have done so if sex at brothels and raising children in institutions were so great.