should prostitution be legal?

[Yerda]

I googled sex work union - these are sample of the first page of hits. I don't expect anyone to change their position because of a sample from a quick google but I would encourage anyone who wants to know the truth to have a read and listen to what sex workers think about the harm of criminalisation. My experience is that people who sell sex overwhelmingly believe decriminalisation would reduce harm significantly and these are the people who know best, imo.


We are UK based and part of the global sex worker led movement advocating the full decriminalisation of sex work.

Sex Workers Advocacy and Resistance Movement - SWARM

www.swarmcollective.org

Decriminalisation increases sex workers’ safety and well-being. New Zealand decriminalised sex work in 2003 with verifiable success. Over 90% of sex workers said they had additional employment, legal, health and safety rights. One important measure of this is that prior to decriminalisation 47% of brothel workers had refused to see a client in the previous 12 months, after decriminalisation 68% of brothel workers had done this. 70% said they were more likely to report incidents of violence to the police.

Decriminalisation Archives - English Collective of Prostitutes

Decriminalisation increases sex workers’ safety and well-being. New Zealand decriminalised sex work in 2003 with verifiable success. Over 90% of sex workers said they had additional employment, legal, health and safety rights. One important measure of this is that prior to decriminalisation 47%...

prostitutescollective.net

• Outcome 2.1: Decriminalisation of sex work is recognised by policy and lawmakers as the most evidenced-based, human rights respecting, legislative framework to regulate sex work.
• Outcome 2.2: Decriminalisation is adopted in an increasing number of countries around Europe as a means to promote the rights and safety of sex workers.
• Outcome 2.3: An increasing number of countries reject, and act to repeal, harmful sex work laws that are not rights-based (including those known as ‘Swedish Model’ laws).

Legal Reform

www.eswalliance.org

Likewise with academic studies. A quote from a meta-study available at Associations between sex work laws and sex workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies

Associations between sex work laws and sex workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies​

Conclusion

The public health evidence clearly shows the harms associated with all forms of sex work criminalisation, including regulatory systems, which effectively leave the most marginalised, and typically the majority of, sex workers outside of the law. These legislative models deprioritise sex workers’ safety, health, and rights and hinder access to due process of law. The evidence available suggests that decriminalisation can improve relationships between sex workers and the police, increasing ability to report incidences of violence and facilitate access to services [36,95,96]. Considering these findings within a human rights framework, they highlight the urgency of reforming policies and laws shown to increase health harms and act as barriers to the realisation of health, removing laws and enforcement against sex workers and clients, and building in health and safety protections [134]. It is clear that while legislative change is key, it is not enough on its own. Law reform needs to be accompanied by policies and political commitment to reducing structural inequalities, stigma, and exclusion—including introducing anti-discrimination and hate crime laws that protect sex workers and sexual, gender, racial, and ethnic minorities. Mixed-methods, interdisciplinary, and participatory research is needed to document the context-specific ways in which criminalisation or decriminalisation interacts with other structural factors and policies related to stigma, poverty, migration, housing, and sex worker collective organising, to inform locally relevant interventions alongside legal reform. This research must go alongside efforts to examine concerns surrounding decriminalisation of sex work within institutions and communities, which influence policy and practice, and sex workers must be involved in decision-making over any such research and reforms [121,150]. Opponents of decriminalisation of sex work often voice concerns that decriminalisation normalises violence and gender inequalities, but what is clear from our review is that criminalisation does just this by restricting sex workers’ access to justice and reinforcing the marginalisation of already-marginalised women and sexual and gender minorities. The recognition of sex work as an occupation is an important step towards conferring social, labour, and civil rights on all sex workers, and this must be accompanied by concerted efforts to challenge and redress cultures of discrimination and violence against people who sell sex. While such reforms and related institutional shifts are likely to be achieved only in the long term, immediate interventions are needed to support sex workers, including the funding and scale-up of specialist and sex-worker-led services that can address the multiple and linked health and social care needs that sex workers may face.

This looks at the evidence contained in 150 studies and comes to the conclusion you see above. Maybe there are meta-studies out there that show the weight of evidence is on the side of criminalisation. I'd like to see them if anyone has them.

 

[Yerda]

Also, worth consideration:

Supportive legislation, policy and funding including decriminalization of behaviours (e.g. drug use and possession, sex work, same-gender sex)

Sex workers

Globally, female sex workers are 13.5% more likely to be living with HIV than other women of reproductive age; in Asia, female sex workers are almost 30% more likely to be living with HIV.

www.who.int

It also calls for the decriminalization of sex work based on evidence that criminalization
makes sex workers less safe, by preventing them from securing police protection and by
providing impunity to abusers.

Q&A: Policy to protect the human rights of sex workers - Amnesty International

View Report in EnglishDownload PDF

www.amnesty.org

Human Rights Watch has conducted research on sex work around the world, including in Cambodia, China, Tanzania, the United States, and most recently, South Africa. The research, including extensive consultations with sex workers and organizations that work on the issue, has shaped the Human Rights Watch policy on sex work: Human Rights Watch supports the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work.

Why Sex Work Should Be Decriminalized

Human Rights Watch has conducted research on sex work around the world, including in Cambodia, China, Tanzania, the United States, and most recently, South Africa. The research, including extensive consultations with sex workers and organizations that work on the issue, has shaped the Human...

www.hrw.org