By Lasantha Pethiyagoda β. Some people find that sex work offers better and quicker income and more flexible working conditions. I will outline some aspects that make the case for legalisation stronger, given that there is much suffering all round due to a lack of it, and indignant howls of protest by duplicitous hypocrites.
There is widespread human trafficking from remote rural areas that invariably punishes victims more than perpetrators. Trafficking is an egregious human rights violation involving coercion of individuals for sexual exploitation or forced labour. If legalised, sex workers can be natural allies in the fight against trafficking, and may be well placed to refer trafficking victims usually children, widows or adolescents to appropriate services.
Despite this, laws prohibiting the purchase of sexual services are often quite ironically promoted as a successful means to combat human trafficking to cosmopolitan hubs. On the contrary, countries which legalise it have less related crime. Legalising sex work recognizes the right of people to privacy and freedom from undue state control over sex and sexual expression when it poses no threat to society.
Proper recognition must be afforded to both sexes where respect for gender equality and sexual rights are asserted. Laws against sex work intrude into private sexual behaviours and constitute a form of state control over the bodies of women and gay, lesbian and trans-gender persons who make up a significant segment of sex workers. Criminalising sexuality is like state controls over reproductive rights and sexual acts between consenting adults.
Criminal laws prohibiting sex work attempt to legislate morality with scant regard for bodily autonomy. Legalisation of sex work could avert a significant percentage of new HIV infections among female sex workers and those mostly exposed to infection. Medical journals have verified conclusions that decriminalization of sex work had the single greatest potential to reduce HIV infections in female sex worker communities in the absence of expensive anti-retroviral treatment. Prostitutes are then empowered to insist on condom use by clients, and are better able to access testing and treatment for HIV and sexually transmitted infections such as Herpes or Syphilis.
