Does legalizing prostitution lead to an increase in human trafficking?

Question

This is a common argument against the legalization of prostitution, and I'm curious if there's any truth to the claim that human trafficking actually increase when prostitution is made legal.

Answer 1

1. The claim makes absolutely no sense. Source: Economics 101. If you decrease the cost of being a prostitute (e.g. no more danger of arrest), you increase the supply of prostitutes. The reason for trafficking is that - given the payoff - not enough people want the job voluntarily, so you need to being in involuntary (slave) labor. Increasing the supply due to legalization removes that need. Please note that legalizing prostitution STILL keeps both trafficking and child exploitation laws in place.

2. Moreover, looks like there's absolutely no proof (despite major allegations by interested parties) that the center of legalized prostitution in the USA (e.g. Nevada) has a big trafficking problem.

   From http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2007/jan/29/do-we-have-a-human-trafficking-problem/ :

   Terri Miller, ATLAS's civilian director and long one of the top Nevada activists against the sexual exploitation of women and children, and her boss, Metro Capt. Terry Lesney, say the need for the group is clear: There is a "huge" and growing sex-oriented trafficking problem in Las Vegas.

   Yet they quickly add that no statistics have ever been gathered and law enforcers never before have made it a top priority - so the scope of the problem still needs to be determined.

   ... The task force's first task was to determine whether, in fact, there was a human-trafficking problem, Lesney says. But because of the lack of hard data, she says, "we were struggling to quantify what we're dealing with."

   ... The largest human trafficking bust in the area in recent years was Operation Jade Blade. A national sting in 2000 netted five Las Vegas Valley residents, who were arrested for trafficking Asian prostitutes into the city. The women had been smuggled into the country for a fee, then were forced to pay back their debt by working as prostitutes.

   Editorial note here - this is the LARGEST bust - and it's not, strictly speaking, about trafficking. The women came to the USA voluntarily. The crime was in forcing them to pay, and it has nothing to do with prostitution - the same exact problem exists/existed with Asians being smuggled all over the country and forced to work off their fees in sweatshops, often textile related.

   So, not only are the provable trafficking numbers WAY low (the article further details several - as in, less than 10 in several years) - there's absolutely ZERO proof on anyone's part that it's something specific to Las Vegas or has any correlation - never mind causation - with legalized prostitution. Remember, these are the people who are in CHARGE of fixing the supposed problem.

Answer 2

RE: trafficking in Las Vegas

(a) Terri Miller says there is a "huge and growing" trafficking problem in Las Vegas. Yet in the next sentence she says the scope of the problem still needs to be determined. How can (s)he say the problem is "huge and growing", but also the scope is undetermined?

(b) Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas, nor anywhwere near Las Vegas. Why don't they report on the trafficking problem in communities where it is legal? Because there is no trafficking problem in those communities.

(c) Did legalizing alcoholic beverages lead to an increase in bootlegging? No, illegal alcohol is entirely absent in places where liquor is legal.

Answer 3

Germany changed their laws in 2002, making prostitution equal to any job, so you have to pay taxes and get social security etc. There is no indication this increased the amount of trafficking. But then again prostitution was semi-legal already before 2002.

Ref: http://research.icmpd.org/1465.html

Sweden criminalized prostitution in 1999. One of the stated arguments was lowering trafficking. Unfortunately there was no statistics available before 2003 (see above ref), so we don't know if it has increased or decreased.

So there is no data to say either way.

Answer 4

Due to the failure of Nevada to collect hard data in the past, the State Department commission Dr. Melissa Farley to study prostitution and trafficking in Nevada and compile an empirical report. The results were far worse than most would have anticipated.

"Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada" addresses the scope of the sex industry in Nevada, including human rights violations against women in the Nevada legal brothels. The book describes how the multibillion-dollar illegal sex industry in Las Vegas works. Sex trafficking from within and outside of the US, advertising for prostitution, political corruption, pornography, organized crime and the constant demand of men for paid sex - all contribute to prostitution and trafficking in Nevada.

Legalization of prostitution in Nevada, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands has resulted in an increase in illegal, hidden, and street prostitution. Decriminalization and legalization promote sex trafficking. Germany and the Netherlands are currently reconsidering whether to get rid of legal prostitution because of these social problems.

Myths & Facts About Nevada Legal Prostitution

Also read the fact sheet here.:

http://www.nevadacoalition.org/factsheets/LegliznFactSheet091707c.pdf

Edit:

Maybe you should refrain from making such a judgment until you read the report (which actually turned into a book) that is full of well-documented, scientifically-gathered, verifiable and replicatable data.

You might not be of the opinion it is credible, but John Miller, (Research Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University; Ambassador at Large on Modern Day Slavery 2004-2006; Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State 2002-2006; Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking) is an expert at both research and the topic of trafficking, and he called it a must read.

"Finally, here's a book about sex slavery not just in distant lands but in Nevada, USA. If you've wanted to know what really goes on in the sex industry in Las Vegas and nearby Nevada counties, this is an unpleasant but must read."

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/prostitution_research/000168.html

Here's a study published in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/laws/000151.html

Check the references - those below are just a snippet.

Sexual violence and physical assault are the norm for women in all types of prostitution. One Canadian observer noted that ninety-nine percent of women in prostitution were victims of violence, with more frequent injuries “than workers in [those] occupations considered . . . most dangerous, like mining, forestry, and firefighting.”20 Prostituted women in Glasgow said that violence from customers was their primary fear.21 Physical abuse was considered part of the job of prostitution, with the payment sometimes determined by each individual blow of a beating or whipping.22

Violence is commonplace in prostitution whether it is legal or illegal.23 Eighty-five percent of prostituted women interviewed in Minneapolis-St. Paul had been raped in prostitution.24 Another study found that eighty percent of women who had been domestically or transnationally trafficked suffered violence-related injuries.25 Of 854 people in prostitution in nine countries, eighty-nine percent wanted to leave prostitution but did not have other options for survival.26 Researchers have found that two factors are consistently associated with greater violence in prostitution: poverty and length of time in prostitution. The more customers serviced, the more women reported severe physical symptoms.27 The longer women remained in prostitution, the higher their rates of sexually transmitted diseases.28 When prostitution is assumed to be a reasonable “job option,” women’s intense longing to escape it is made invisible.29

From policyinnovations.org you can find this:

"According to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the average age of death of prostitutes is 34. In the United States, the rate at which prostitutes are killed in the workplace is 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women, working in a liquor store. Other studies show that nine out of ten prostitutes urgently want to escape the job. Almost half have attempted suicide at least once."

And much more. There is research available.