Prostitution Should Be Legalized

“Prostitution should be legalized” discuss. Prostitution is one of the world’s oldest professions. Although it is illegal in most countries, recently people have been talking a lot about making prostitution a regulated profession. Opinions about this are often polarized. There are some countries, like Canada, most of Europe including England, France, Wales, Denmark and others, where prostitution is legal, but regulated (prostitution is allowed mainly in the form of brothels but prostitution outside these licensed brothels is illegal), while others consider it as a punishable crime.

Despite the fact that prostitution is still considered to be immoral, this essay will show that it should be legalized. At first there will be shown three main reasons why prostitution should be legalized and then essay will review a few arguments against it. Prostitution is linked to a lot of other problems and crimes. To begin with, the countries, where prostitution is legalized, experience fewer rapes and sex trafficking than others. Police cannot protect the prostitute’s rights and keep them from violence if they are considered to be criminals. You cannot call the police and report about a crime while committing one by yourself.

The result is that prostitutes become objects of violence and punishing the abusers is problematic as Gary Ridgway (a serial killer who killed 48 women) said, he killed prostitutes because he knew he would not be held accountable. Secondly, legalization of prostitution will lead to the reduction of diseases. There are numbers of sexually transited diseases like HIV, which can be reduced by legalization of prostitution because in this case prostitutes could be forced to get tested regularly and would be given more access to contraceptives and medical consultations.

The last argument concerns economics. Prostitution is a part of an underground economy and its legalization and taxation might become an additional income source for the country. For example, according to a 1998 Kyodo News report on Asian economies, “Between 1993 and 1995, it was estimated that prostitution in Thailand produced an annual income of between $22. 5 billion and $27 billion. ” In addition, these taxes will increase the price and as the result demand for this service might decrease.

So, instead of being a large share of the shadow economy, we get at least the partially regulated field of economy. On the other hand, legalization has some disadvantages. Prostitution is mainly driven by poverty and, as taxes are mandatory, it will make prostitutes’ living conditions even worse. Furthermore, in most religions prostitution is considered as a sin and it is supposed to be immoral, however this does not mean that religious matters should have a decisive effect on legislation.

Immorality of prostitution also cannot be used as a strong argument because morality is a relative to a particular culture and social views change over the time. Things that were considered immoral centuries ago (like sex before marriage) are quite common in many countries now. In addition, those opposed to legalization think that at first prostitution seems to be the easiest way of earning money thus legalization would make this profession more popular.

However, the government can organize special programs which will inform young girls and women about the possible threats of prostitution. Hence, this fact might no longer be such a big problem. In conclusion, prostitution should be legalized due to some key factors. Legalization of prostitution will make easier to define the rights of prostitutes in order to protect them against violence. Besides, this process will help countries to prevent and discourage the spreading of sexually transited diseases.

On top of that, taxes on prostitution might increase government’s income which in turn will stimulate the whole economy. Despite these arguments, prostitution still remains morally wrong for the majority of the people and legalization might further stimulate it, however this can be avoided by government intervention. Considering all these arguments, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Thus, prohibition of prostitution is just the same as ignoring the existing problem and legalization might help to solve this problem at least partially. 10