Ann Woolner applauds Sweden’s approach to prostitution on Bloomberg.com today:
Legalize Selling Your Body, Criminalize Buying It: Ann Woolner
…de-criminalizing the flesh business encourages human trafficking and boosts the presence of organized crime, according to studies. There is no drop in brutality, either, and some indication it increases.
“Anyone contemplating such a move has to accept that it means an expansion of the sex industry — both the legal and illegal sectors,” concluded an exhaustive 2003 study [PDF] by the London Metropolitan University.
“Legalisation is a ‘pull factor’ for traffickers,” says the study, “A Critical Examination of Responses to Prostitution in Four Countries.” Those countries are Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden…
Only in Sweden, which took a different approach, did a change of law help…
The idea is to attack the demand for prostitution and stop those who profit from other people’s bodies. This reverses the usual approach, which lands the prostitute in jail while letting the john and the pimp go…
See also:
Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?
Today, not only do the Swedish people continue to overwhelmingly
support their country’s approach to prostitution (80% of people in
favor according to national opinion polls), but the country’s police
and prosecutors have also come around. They are now among the
legislation’s staunchest supporters. Sweden’s law enforcement community
has found that the prostitution legislation benefits them in dealing
with all sex crimes, particularly in enabling them to virtually wipe
out the element of organized crime that plagues other countries where
prostitution has been legalized or regulated.
Dorchen Leidholdt, “Demand and the Debate”
Puncturing Alan Dershowitz’s Delusions about Prostitution
Prostitution: “It is high time to expose and challenge the liberal
consensus”
New Book – Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the
Connections
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
A Thought Experiment for Those Who Want to Legalize
Prostitution