World Issues: Prostituion and the sex trade.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Prostituion and the sex trade.

Use this thread to discuss issues with prositution and/or the sex trade. Some possible thoughts: Is prostituion a woman's choice, or something they are forced into? Should it be legalized? You can look at global case scenarios (i.e. Amsterdam vs. Bangkok), or discuss events closer to home.

16 comments:

UnknownSeptember 27, 2014 at 9:20 AM
This is my weekly blog post.

This week I will be informing you about prostitution, as well as debating the positive effects it can have on a city, country, and even global scale. I will only be focusing on the legalization, rather than choice/cause. Prostitution has been called for centuries “the world's oldest profession”(1). Instead of beginning with what you would expect, how the legalization and monetization of prostitution can help to inflate the economic growth of a region – I am instead going to first work to destroy the preconceptions everyone certainly has in regards to prostitution.

The largest myth about the legalization of prostitution is that it will raise rates of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). By compiling a list of pro-prostitution countries(2) and finding the mean of their AIDS rates, and then comparing that to the mean value of countries which do not encourage prostitution, I was able to discover that the rate of AIDS disease in pro-prostitution countries is almost THREE TIMES lower than those that are not.(3) The average AIDS prevalence of 'adults' between the ages of 15-49 in countries without government-regulated prostitution-specific laws - and those which have officially made it illegal – is 1.75%, while countries with legalized prostitution and developed laws currently sit around 0.48%(3/4). It is therefor proven that prostitution certainly does not mean an increase in sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.

The next myth I will cover is that prostitution drains money from the economy, as well as increases rates of unlawfulness. Many people believe that it will cost taxpayers dollars to fund entrepreneurial or government-held brothels. Do you think it will cost more than 120 million dollars? Because that's how much it costs every year in American taxpayer dollars to arrest, fine, and jail prostitutes. Every woman picked up off the street, whether guilty or not, costs the government – and therefor you! - $2000,00. (5)

People's final argument is usually, “but it's dangerous, but us and them”. While it's true that prostitution is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, this is largely because of the illegal nature. It should be mentioned that “the average big-city police department spends 213 man-hours a day enforcing prostitution laws”.(5) In fact, Julie Pearl, an expert on law and graduate from Hastings College had this to say [speaking of officers currently on prostitution-watch]:
“...who would be very capable of . . . deterring violence and property crime if their attention were directed toward it." (5)
There will always be criminals looking to make money off of innocent people, but a legislation of pro-prostitution laws would at least take the bulk of a multi billion dollar industry out of the hands of pimps, drug lords, and human traffickers, and put it in the hands of the government. This would allow them to create safe-use laws and other requirement currently unable to be enforced legally.

Dennis Hof, a brothel-owner from Nevada (the only State in the US to legalize prostitution) “argues that a legal and taxed sex trade could do economic wonders [...] decriminalizing prostitution takes money out of the hands of criminals, eliminates sex trafficking and combats the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. "You can't stop it," Hof told the Huffington Post. "Prohibition doesn't work and legalization can solve a lot of our problems."”. (6)

(Continued in Comment.)
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UnknownSeptember 27, 2014 at 9:51 AM
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UnknownSeptember 27, 2014 at 9:55 AM
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UnknownSeptember 27, 2014 at 9:57 AM
This is my weekly post:

The biggest issue I see with prostitution is the dangers it brings to the women such as rape, STD/STI's, drug addiction and sometimes even death. Even though it is the women's choice to sell themselves, in a lot of cases there is not always another choice to decide between other than starvation and poverty. Women from broken homes have to provide for their children, for themselves: "In Africa, part-time prostitution is seen as an economic necessity for many women" (2). Some women that have experienced trauma, such as rape or physical abuse as a child/young teen, cannot fit into a "normal" societal setting. Whatever reason the women may have as to why they are selling their bodies in exchange for money is their choice, but what isn't always their choice is being taken in by a pimp, becoming a drug addict, getting an STD, and/or getting raped or murdered on the "job".

In countries such as China, Kenya and Thailand, HIV/AIDS is one of the most prominent STD's and prostitutes/ sex workers are seen as "reservoirs" for the disease (1,2). In India, at least 5.1 million people are living with HIV (4). The number of people living with STD's in these developing countries is so high because many men are willing to pay more money to the women if a condom is not worn. This shows you the desperation of these women to support themselves and their families. The tainted image of women in these countries has also caused negative pressure from the police and authority figures. So much so that threats of arrest have been made solely for carrying condoms, as this signifies evidence of being a sex worker. This deters the sex workers from carrying condoms and then leads to a higher spread of diseases (5).

Hand-in-hand with the dangers of STD's comes the danger of violence and pimping. Not only does this violence come from "customers" but it also comes from the police. "Violence against sex workers is often not registered as an offense by the police and in some cases is perpetrated by police" (5). Because these sex workers are of low importance as opposed to, say, a political figure, violence against them is not always investigated. Unfortunately then for these women, even many police officers take advantage of them as they know it will not be looked into. Even more dangerous than this, I'd say, would be the women being picked up by pimps. This is when a man has complete control over various women and tells them who to sleep with, how much to charge etc and he keeps a percentage (usually a very high percentage) of the women's money. Pimps do as they please with these women and threaten them with violence and murder to keep them in check.

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UnknownSeptember 28, 2014 at 12:23 PM
This is my weekly post
Should Prostitution be legalized? In some ways, I think yes it should be. The money involved to support a family these days is very high. According to an article I read the price to have a family in Canada is about $12,825 per child per year till they are eighteen (1). Most adults have troubles with this, especially single parents. In many countries children are prostitutes as well, including Canada and the United States , which are two of the countries with the highest rates of child prostitution in the world.(2). In Canada the child prostitutes are mostly of Aboriginal communities (3), (this surprised me). In today’s world, more commonly in developing countries, women have to prostitute themselves for money. To say they are doing this for fun or selfish personal gain would be a lie, they are doing this because they have to. When you look at it the women are forced to do this, but in most cases it is their own choice, because they have to. They have to because it’s all that is available for work where they live. In Africa; women are paid more for having sex without a condom (4). Why is this? Is it so more children can possibly be born? Or are all these men, paying more, trying to pass on their STD’s to anyone they can? As we all learned in health class, unprotected sex leads to STD’s and Africa has the highest amount of new cases found (5). STD’s are one of the leading causes of mortality for women in Africa, ages 15 to 44(6). Venezuela has the highest amount of prostitutes in the world, being 119 prostitutes per 10,000 people (6). This is because prostitution is legal there and common in tourist areas (7). According to this article it’s the poor economic conditions that make the prostitution rate of women and children so high (8).
The people who pay for prostitutes are very low, it’s illegal and degrading to women and by paying for them, you are supporting something illegal. Again, do I think prostitution should be legal? Yes, should it be looked down upon, I think so, but if it’s what you have to do to put food on the table, I don’t see the problem. I think there should be a few laws involved including that a condom must be worn every time. My final thought is if prostitution is to lower the unemployment rate in countries, I don’t think we should stand in the way of what people are willing to do for money. There are far worse things in this world than prostitution.
1 http://www.canadianliving.com/life/money/how_much_does_it_cost_to_raise_kids_in_canada.php
2 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/top-five-countries-highest-rates-child-prostitution-1435448
3 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/top-five-countries-highest-rates-child-prostitution-1435448
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gubSO_U8MW0
5 http://library.unesco-iicba.org/English/HIV_AIDS/cdrom%20materials/STD's/CD_STDin%20Africa.htm
6 http://globaldiscussion.net/topic/1442-countries-with-the-most-prostitutes/
7 http://globaldiscussion.net/topic/1442-countries-with-the-most-prostitutes/
8 http://globaldiscussion.net/topic/1442-countries-with-the-most-prostitutes/
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ElizabethSeptember 28, 2014 at 8:01 PM
Mark this one please.

Prostitution may not be anyone's first choice in career, many factors push women to enter the sex trade. Some women simply join to make ends meet, and part of me wants this trade to be available to them. I think that if prostitution were to have government intervention, a higher safety and cleanliness standard so as to ensure the well-being of both the women and their clients, I would full-heartedly support the streamlining of prostitution. It is after all, a woman's right to do what she wants with her body. But prostitutes do not always enter the sex trade by choice, some women are physically forced into it.
Sex trafficking, or human trafficking, is the fastest growing international crime (1). It is currently the 2nd most profitable criminal trade, with profits exceeding $30 billion USD (2). About 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, 80% of which are women who are sold to the sex trade industry (1), many of which are teens between the ages of 12-14 (3).
To me, these numbers are horrifying. And even more horrifying, most of these cases go unsolved. There are and estimated 20-30 MILLION sex slaves internationally to date (3), a number which is, to me, shockingly high. As more of my research showed, crimes like these are not only going on in corrupt or developing nations as I had expected. In fact about $15.5 billion of the sex trafficking's profits are made in industrialized countries, including Canada. Traffickers in Canada can make up to $280,000 per woman sold into the industry (4), and the average Canadian girl forced into the sex trade is about 13 years old (4).
This is a global issue that should not be ignored any longer, especially when it is happening right outside our doorstep. Human trafficking needs to be stopped- but that is easier said than done. As previously mentioned, the sex trafficking trade is highly profitable, and unfortunately this can corrupt proper justice from taking place. In many countries there is not even an official legislation prohibiting sex trafficking, and when there is, most victims are unwilling to cooperate due to intimidation from traffickers (5).
Legalizing and legitimizing prostitution may actually aid in the process of eliminating sex trafficking, as there could be more official government intervention/investigation involved in this deeply corrupted trade.
In short, prostitution should be fine for those who CHOOSE to do it, but 12 year old girls being forced into it is not only completely disgusting and horrifying, but is also a complete debasement of their basic human rights. The world as a whole needs to turn and face the obvious issue of human trafficking, and maybe then we will be able to end the corruption within the sex trade.

Works Cited
(1) http://www.stopthetraffik.org/the-scale-of-human-traffiking
(2) http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=forcedlabor
(3)https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
(4) http://www.canadianwomen.org/trafficking
(5) http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html#Do_many_traffickers_get_caught_and_convicted
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SJWSeptember 30, 2014 at 8:53 AM
This is Eleanor's weekly post that failed to post from last week.

For my weekly post, I will be discussing the child sex trade – also known as child sex trafficking – and its existence in the United States, as well as in Canada.

Firstly, I would like to de-bunk some stereotypes. One of the most common stereotypes is that the child sex trade only exists in foreign countries – specifically Indonesia and other developing countries. This is not the case. Child sex trafficking exists even in the developed world. More than 200,000 American children are at risk for being lured into sex trafficking each year(1). On a global scale, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked each year and become victims of commercial sex exploitation and forced labor. Eighty percent of those victims are women and children, and twenty five percent of those approximate 800,000 could originate in the United States.(1)

Another common stereotype is that girls are the most common victims of child sex trades. This is not in fact the case. According to a 2008 study done by the John Jay College in New York, as high as fifty percent of commercial sexually exploited children in the United States were boys alone(2).

The third stereotype I wish to discuss is that only men use the child sex trade. This is false. Forty percent of boys and eleven percent of girls in the sex trade said that they have served a female client, with thirteen percent of boys exclusively serving female clients(2).

Here are some quick facts about the child sex trade in the United States: the average age a teen enters the sex trade in the United States is twelve to fourteen years of age(3). California harbours three of the FBI`s highest child sex trafficking areas in the nation(3). The National Human Trafficking Hotline receives more calls from Texas than from any other state in the United States(3).

Now, let`s talk about the child sex trafficking that is happening in Canada.

According to a 2008 brief by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, girls as young as twelve are trafficked in Canada for sexual purposes(4). According to a 2010 RCMP report, about 1,300 Canadian children that have been reported missing by the RCMP are trafficked annually for sexual exploitation(4). Finally, a 2007 report by the Federal Standing Committee on the Status of Women says that Aboriginal women are disproportionately exploited in Canada(4).

How exactly does child sex trafficking occur?

In the United States and Canada, it appears that social media plays a large part in the child sex trade industry. One of the larger sites that sex traffickers use is Craigslist(5). With a few simple clicks, it is easy to see that Craigslist is not doing enough to monitor their website. Despite the warning that reads “Please report suspected exploitation of minors”(6) – which I’m sure is very effective – it’s very easy to access these ads, as well as post them.

There is nothing to stop anyone from lying about their information or from contacting any of the people who post their ads. Most ads include cities as well as contact information, making the people who posted these ads vulnerable to sex traffickers as well.

It is very easy to see that legislation is not all that we need. You can have all the laws in the world, but without anyone to enforce them, the problems will persist and eventually consume the country and its people.

Source 1: http://childrenatrisk.org/research/child-trafficking/
Source 2 : http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/10-surprising-and-counterintuitive-facts-about-child-sex-trafficking
Source 3 : https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
Source 4 : http://www.unicef.ca/en/get-involved/traffic-is-for-cars-not-children
Source 5 : http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2010/12/sex-slaves-in-canada/
Source 6 : http://barrie.craigslist.ca/search/w4m

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