In December 2014, Northern Ireland passed a bill making it the latest country to penalize
those who buy sex instead of those who sell it.
This kind of legislation against prostitution was first introduced in 1999 in Sweden, to
great success.
Many countries have since followed their example.
So what are prostitution laws like around the world?
And should prostitution be legal?
Well, first of all, prostitution, simply put, is sex for money.
This comes under the umbrella term of “sex work”, however it is legally distinct from
other industries, like pornography.
Prostitution is generally correlated with higher rates of crime and poverty, and that’s
part of the reason many countries want to get rid of the practice.
However, many governments have turned to legalizing prostitution as a form of harm reduction,
to give vulnerable sex workers more protections.
Most South American countries allow prostitution, including Brazil and Argentina.
And many European countries have legalized aspects of prostitution too, including Germany,
the United Kingdom, France and Spain.
Notably, Australia and India have also decriminalized forms of prostitution.
Some of the most famous “red light districts” are in the Netherlands, Thailand, Germany,
Japan and France.
And while not all these countries officially consider prostitution legal, major cities
often have more liberal attitudes towards sex work.
Legalizing prostitution and adding government regulation has shown to benefit sex workers,
and society at large.
In the Australian Capital Territory, a 1992 law decriminalized prostitution, and set up
a government registry for sex workers and brothels.
This helped confine the sex industry to specific areas, cut down on crime, and promote testing
for sexually transmitted diseases.
In 2003, New Zealand also took measures to legally regulate prostitution.
Their Prostitution Reform Act sought specifically to safeguard the rights to sex workers, promote
public health, and reduce child prostitution.
A 2008 committee charged with evaluating the Reform Act’s effectiveness concluded that
there had been a generally positive effect from decriminalization and increased government
oversight.
Sweden has also famously reformed prostitution laws, with success towards achieving gender
equality.
Their laws, which punish only the buyer of sex with fines and jail time, view prostitution
as a form of “serious” violence against women.
15 years have passed since the initial introduction of this law, and Sweden has seen prostitution
rates cut in half.
Swedish prostitutes also get paid more than anywhere else in Europe, contributing to better
quality of life for prostitutes.
Presently, the “Swedish Model” has inspired several other countries, including Norway,
Iceland, and most recently Northern Ireland, to pass similar laws.
And although prostitution industries vary widely across the world, legalization and
decriminalization of prostitution has many benefits, and should merit serious consideration
from other world governments.
The city of Rome has a prostitution problem, but the way they are attempting to address
the issue is pretty strange.
Check out this video from Seeker to learn more.
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