Title: To Protect Women, Legalize Prostitution | Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
Headings: To Protect Women, Legalize Prostitution
To Protect Women, Legalize Prostitution
Content: To Protect Women, Legalize Prostitution | Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
To Protect Women, Legalize Prostitution
by Annamarie Forestiere | Oct 1, 2019 | Amicus, Criminal Justice, Labor and Employment, Sex Equality |
Prostitution is a sensitive subject in the United States. Frequently, arguments against prostitution center around concern for the health and safety of women, and those concerns are not unfounded. Prostitution is an incredibly dangerous profession for the (mostly) women involved; sexual assault, forced drug addiction, physical abuse, and death are common in the industry. For the women who work in this field, it is often very difficult to get help or get out. Many sex workers were sold into sex trafficking at a very young age and have no resources with which to escape their forced prostitution, or started out as sex workers by choice only to fall victim to sex trafficking later on. Moreover, since prostitution is illegal in most places in the United States, there are few legal protections in place for prostitutes; many fear that seeking help will only lead to arrest, and many who do seek help are arrested and then have to battle the stigma of a criminal record while they try to reintegrate into society. So why is the response to such a dangerous industry to drive it further underground, away from societal resources and legal protections? When people argue prostitution should be illegal, in many cases their concern comes from a place of morality, presented as concern for the health and safety of women.