Essay Sample on Legalizing Prostitution

Prostitution is a sensitive issue that always draws attention and arouses genuine interest. Prostitution refers to the act of trading sexual favors for money or other goods and services. To date, there is no consensus on the best way to deal with prostitution. Countries are divided on how to deal with prostitution while at the same time promoting equality, freedom from exploitation, and discrimination (Trifiolis). The protagonist argue that legalizing prostitution will lead to reduced human trafficking while the opposers term this as legalizing the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable groups.

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Legalizing prostitution will lead to decreased human trafficking. Most of the victim of human trafficking are women and girls, and the vast majority are involuntarily forced into prostitution. Legalizing prostitution would help combat prostitution, and the aspect of the force of law would help reduce trafficking (Cho, Seo-Young, Dreher, Neumayer, Pg.68). Subscribing to the demand and demand economic theory, most clients will be deterred from consuming the services of sex workers due to the probability of prosecution, thus reducing the market hence decreased human trafficking (Cho, Seo-Young, Dreher, Neumayer, Pg.70). Moreover, the supply of commercial sex workers will decrease as most will be unable to operate at high government taxes.

Prostitution should not be legalized as this encourage the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable groups. Undeniably, prostitution is more rampant among the poor and vulnerable groups. The solution to increased prostitution is no legalization but rather increased employment opportunities, education, equality in the labor market (Schulze). The difficulties that the vulnerable groups face in life compiles them to start prostitution as the alternative source of livelihood (Schulze). Regarding poverty and vulnerability, most of the commercial sex workers are victims who need protection and alternative sources of income. Research conducted on 785prostituties by M. Farley shows that 89 percent of commercial workers wish to escape from prostitution, but there are no alternative means of survival available to them (Schulze).

Conclusion

In conclusion, prostitution ethically or morally right "profession" should not be subject of debate on whether to legalize it or not. The focus should be on how to eliminate prostitution by addressing the root causes. Legalizing prostitution would be a show of acceptance of the death of the moral fabric of society. Moreover, it would set a bad precedent on what should be legal or not, including drug abuse.

Works cited

Cho, Seo-Young, Axel Dreher, and Eric Neumayer. "Does legalized prostitution increase human trafficking?" World Development 41 (2013): 67-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.023

Schulze, Erika, et al. Sexual exploitation and prostitution and its impact on gender equality. Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs European Parliament, 2014. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2014/493040/IPOL-FEMM_ET(2014)493040_EN.pdf

Trifiolis, Kristie. "Legalizing Prostitution: An Introduction." (2014). ttps://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=student_scholarship