There has been at least one high-profile sex trafficking bust in the Seattle area recently [1]. That seems to correlate with an uptick in opinion articles decrying prostitution and all its problems.
I think most people can agree that sex trafficking is terrible, and we should pursue approaches to minimize it. Studies have shown that existing attempts at legalizing prostitution do not at all curb trafficking: in fact the increase in demand cancels out the increase in supply, keeping the market open for traffickers and abusers [2]. Given what we know so far, it's probably worth keeping prostitution illegal if we can't figure out a better way to keep sex trafficking down.
That said, there is a fascinating paper that analyzes the economics of the regulatory approaches that have been tried in various countries, and makes a recommendation for a legalization framework that might benefit all parties [3]. The authors note that while criminalizing supply (prostitutes) has no downward effect on trafficking, criminalizing demand does, and in fact trends toward 0 when the penalty is severe enough. They recommend a hybrid approach that regulates and licenses voluntary prostitution, while heavily criminalizing consumption of unlicensed prostitution.
If nothing else, this is a fascinating topic with plenty of room for further research. Conflating prostitution (transactional sex) with human trafficking doesn't serve to further that discussion, and they should be reasoned about separately.
> existing attempts at legalizing prostitution do not at all curb trafficking
That's because most of the attempts have been for a different reason, to protect the sex workers, not to combat trafficking. This is the right approach, we need to start protecting the sex workers, give them protections, rights, health services and so on.
Prostitution and sex trafficking are two different concepts, trying to combat them together will never work.
More sex-culture shaming. How about instead of wasting all this effort on law enforcement, 'company policy', and (extra creepy) banner-ads that display right when the john searches for sex, how about legalizing, taxing, and regulating it? I hear that worked pretty well for another popular human pasttime that was outlawed in the 30s, especially in Seattle.
I think most people can agree that sex trafficking is terrible, and we should pursue approaches to minimize it. Studies have shown that existing attempts at legalizing prostitution do not at all curb trafficking: in fact the increase in demand cancels out the increase in supply, keeping the market open for traffickers and abusers [2]. Given what we know so far, it's probably worth keeping prostitution illegal if we can't figure out a better way to keep sex trafficking down.
That said, there is a fascinating paper that analyzes the economics of the regulatory approaches that have been tried in various countries, and makes a recommendation for a legalization framework that might benefit all parties [3]. The authors note that while criminalizing supply (prostitutes) has no downward effect on trafficking, criminalizing demand does, and in fact trends toward 0 when the penalty is severe enough. They recommend a hybrid approach that regulates and licenses voluntary prostitution, while heavily criminalizing consumption of unlicensed prostitution.
If nothing else, this is a fascinating topic with plenty of room for further research. Conflating prostitution (transactional sex) with human trafficking doesn't serve to further that discussion, and they should be reasoned about separately.
[1] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/online-site-w...
[2] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065
[3] http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1303&conte...