Donna M. Hughes exposes the myths surrounding prostitution and its legalization in National Review Online. As the Czech Republic ponders joining Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany in legalizing the sex trade, Hughes contrasts the "wishful thinking" behind legalization with its results in the real world. Legalizing the bordello sex trade has not, for instance, reduced the street trade appreciably. The promised tax revenues have not materialized, hardly surprising given that pimps are not in the habit of paying taxes. (The German government is thoughtfully looking for ways to extract more tax revenues from the sex workers themselves.)
Nor, argues Hughes, will legalization improve the lives of women driven to work in the sex trade, because:
"The reason has to do with the basic nature of prostitution. It is not work; it is not a job like any other. It is abuse and exploitation that women only engage in if forced to or when they have no other options. Even where prostitution is legal, a significant proportion of women is trafficked. Women and children controlled by mafias and criminals cannot register with an authority or join a union. Women who are making a more or less free choice to be in prostitution do so out of immediate necessity — debt, unemployment, and poverty. They consider resorting to prostitution as a temporary means of making money, and assume as soon as a debt is paid or a certain sum of money is earned for poverty-stricken families, they will go home. They seldom tell friends or relatives what they are doing to earn money. They do not want to register with authorities and create a permanent record of being a prostitute. And unionization of "sex workers" is a leftist fantasy; it is completely incompatible with the coercive and abusive nature of prostitution."
Read the whole article, please, at the link.
