Benefits Of Legalizing Prostitution

Fourteen is the average age that a person, male or female, begins their work as a prostitute. Moreover, most of these adolescents have run away from their homes and have been picked up by a pimp who exploits and sells them for sex. The practice of prostitution is very dangerous for sex workers. It is said that prostitution is the oldest trade, as it used to be the only method a woman could earn money without the assistance of a man. Sex work is not regulated and not treated the way it should be. Prostitution should be legalized. Although people believe that making prostitution illegal would minimize the possibility of exploitation, it actually forces the business ‘underground’ which causes more problems and doesn’t stop it from happening.

Legalizing the practice is “making prostitutes more likely to report abusive clients or associates to the police” (“Legalizing” 48-49). When prostitutes can report abuse, then it makes the trade much safer and it helps the people be less scared when they know that they won’t get in trouble for how they make money. In addition, “some organizations campaigning against trafficking have come to an understanding that when sex work is illegal, it is much riskier for sex workers to complain to the authorities when they are enslaved, beaten, or cheated” (Lopez 31-33). With more and more organizations and human trafficking campaigns recognizing that legal prostitution is safer, more sex trafficking victims, those who aren’t there voluntarily, can be more easily identified and removed from the trade. The Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy, or WONETHA, “has received 85 reports of sex workers being arrested and harassed by the police since January, but says many more cases go undocumented. In Oklahoma, a police “unit has arrested 27 pimps and 16 buyers, while 104 people have been arrested for prostitution” (Beitsch 100-101). Prostitutes are arrested more than pimps and buyers. Even though this is only one unit of police, it can most likely be an example of how many law enforcement agencies treat prostitutes. Treating prostitution as a crime and arresting the prostitutes makes the sex workers wary of approaching cops and scared to report things in fear of being arrested as a