Dangers of Legalized Prostitution

The South African Law Reform Commission has recently released a discussion paper on Adult Prostitution for public comment. Various options were put forward for comment including maintaining the status quo; partial decriminalization, full decriminalization and legalization.

Women and girls (and some boys) caught up in prostitution are harmed not only by the prostitution itself but also by pimps, boyfriends, brothel keepers, traffickers and clients. Essentially, prostitution is nothing more than the exploitation by those with greater social and economic power of those who are made vulnerable by poverty, inequality, violence and abuse. Prostitution is not work in any conventional sense of the word. Furthermore, few people make a rational decision to enter into prostitution as a career choice. Entering into prostitution is generally a survival strategy. As Joseph Parker of the Lola Green Baldwin Foundation noted "The reality is that no woman wants to have sex with 5, 10, 15, 20 or more men a day, every day."
The average age of those entering into prostitution is estimated to be about 14 internationally (Shared Hope International) and getting younger. When these individuals reach eighteen can one really hold that they have made some sort of vocational choice? At age 17 and 364 days a prostituted child is a victim of exploitation but the very next day all protection is withdrawn. Is it not really nothing more than a continuation of childhood abuse?

Over the last decade various groups have vigorously lobbied for decriminalization/ legalization of prostitution and the construction of prostitution as work. Implicit in this view is the assumption that a regulated or decriminalized industry will contain the growth of the brothel and street trade, eliminate organized crime and end child prostitution and sex trafficking.

International experience has shown, however, that not only are these assumptions unsubstantiated, but that in countries such as Australia and the Netherlands, where this policy was adopted, the opposite has proved to be the case.

These nations have all experienced a significant increase in legal and illegal prostitution, child prostitution and trafficking in persons for sexual purposes. The Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, admitted that the policy of legalization has been a failure and has instituted a reversal. He conceded that organized crime dominated the industry in which sex trafficking, exploitation, drug abuse and money laundering was rife. One third of the brothel windows have been bought out and replaced with fashion boutiques. Plans have been drawn up to replace a majority of the remaining windows. Rafts of new restrictions on other aspects of the sex trade are also being introduced.

Permits have also been withdrawn from dozens of sex businesses including the well known Yab Yum brothel and Casa Rosso Theatre allegedly due to links with organized crime.

Tolerance zones set up for street prostitution have also proved a failure. In 2003 the central-Amsterdam Tipplezone (pick-up area) established in 1995 for street prostitutes and promoted as a way to control the problems associated with prostitution - such as drug dealing, trafficking and violence - was closed. The Mayor admitted that it became a haven for traffickers, drug dealers and unsafe for women. The Tipplezone in Rotterdam was closed for similar reasons.

In Australia both the policy of legalization (Victoria) and decriminalization (NSW) of the sex trade have been adopted. The results have been the same: a significant increase in all facets of the sex industry. Legal brothels, child prostitution and trafficking have all increased and authorities concede that the illegal sex trade is out of control. The Sydney Morning Herald (Dec 2006) reported that almost 4 times the number of illegal, compared to legal sex premises, were operating in Sydney alone. The Daily Telegraph (June 2006) similarly reported that, despite decriminalization, the number of illegals had skyrocketed and that many operators trafficked women from Thailand, Korea and China. The situation has reportedly now deteriorated even further (Sydney Telegraph 18 May 2009). Click here to read the full article on the website

In the Australian State of Victoria, it is estimated there are 3 times more illegal than legal brothels. According to Sullivan of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, (CATW), many legal brothel owners reportedly are involved in establishing and profiting from illegal brothels. "Customers" want more exotic, younger, cheaper women including those who can be induced not to use condoms.

Victoria, the first state to legalize prostitution has the highest rates of child prostitution. In 2002 Victoria's Attorney-General was forced to admit that illegal, street prostitution continued as a "harmful" and "unacceptable" practice. Attempts to deal with the problem through tolerance zones came to nothing due to resistance from residents. It appears that the situation remains unchanged.
Prostitution was decriminalized in New Zealand in 2003. Disillusionment is already setting in. Main towns and cities like Christchurch, Hamilton and Manakau are struggling to control the proliferation of brothels in suburban areas. The increase in street prostitution and attendant problems has lead the Council in Manakau to try to re-criminalize street solicitation. New Zealand Police have complained that the new policy has tied their hands when it comes to dealing with the proliferation of under-age prostitution. The National Council of Women of New Zealand, which originally supported the decriminalization of prostitution, is now of the view that the only winners from the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act are males.

It is clearly not advisable for South Africa to emulate any of the above examples. Instead the nation should follow the Swedish example in which prostitution is regarded as gender based violence and a zero-tolerance approach is taken against buyers, procurers and traffickers.

In 1999 at approximately the same time the Netherlands opted for legalization Sweden introduced a policy of abolition with the focus on clamping down on the demand and helping women to exit prostitution. The purchase and attempted purchase of sexual services was criminalized for the first time. Street prostitution was reduced and more importantly a barrier was erected against trafficking. Swedish Police estimate the number of persons trafficked into Sweden were about 400 - 600 a year, a fraction of the estimated number of women trafficked into neighbouring Finland, Denmark and Norway. Although initially skeptical, Swedish Police in every NCID (National Investigation Department) report since 2003 have asserted that the Act prohibiting the purchase of sexual services acted as a barrier against traffickers establishing themselves in Sweden.

Then there is the harm to women themselves. In a study, Prostitution in 5 Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress (including South Africa) by Farley et al, 67% met the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. Farley emphasizes, however, that a diagnosis of PTSD does not fully explain the full extent of the psychological harm caused by prostitution. She says that “over time, the constant violence of prostitution, constant humiliation and the social indignity and misogyny, result in personality changes.”

Sexually transmitted infections are also unavoidable in prostitution. According to CATW: “a legalized or decriminalized system of prostitution that mandates health checks and certification only for women and not for clients is blatantly discriminatory to women. “Women only" health checks make no public health sense because monitoring prostituted women does not protect them from HIV/AIDS or STDs, since male "clients" can and do originally transmit disease to the women. “

Neither do so-called enforceable condom policies. A CATW study conducted in America reported the following: “47% stated that men expected sex without a condom; 73% reported that men offered to pay more for sex without a condom; 45% of women said they were abused if they insisted that men use condoms. Some women said that certain establishments may have rules that men wear condoms but, in reality, men still try to have sex without them. One woman stated: "It's 'regulation' to wear a condom at the sauna, but negotiable between parties on the side. Most guys expected blow jobs without a condom.”

Raymond of CATW argued that “many factors militate against condom use: the need of women to make money; older women's decline in attractiveness to men; competition from places that do not require condoms; pimp pressure on women to have sex with no condom for more money; money needed for a drug habit or to pay off the pimp; and the general lack of control that prostituted women have over their bodies in prostitution venues.”

There are long and established links between organized crime, prostitution and trafficking. According to Bindel, “the traffickers are often highly organized entrepreneurs that earn huge profits from the exploitation of women and children. But international and local trafficking in women and children cannot flourish without the local prostitution markets. If a local prostitution market decreases substantially, organized crime networks are likely to relocate to a more profitable location.”

In South Africa, in addition to local criminal crime groups, foreign organized criminal groups from Russia, Bulgaria, Thailand, China and Nigeria are already established in the local sex industry. Strip clubs in particular appear to have been used as not only fronts for prostitution but also to traffic in women for sexual exploitation on work permits as 'exotic dancers' (Noseweek Dec 2008). Traffickers would similarly be able to bring in foreign women on work permits under the guise that they are 'migrant sex workers'.

As conceded by the South African Law Reform Commission in Chapter 4 of the Discussion Papers re Trafficking released in 2006, curtailment of trafficking in persons for prostitution seems to go hand in hand with strong measure to eliminate the demand for prostituted women and children.

In terms of article 9.5 of the Palermo Protocol (SA is signatory) States Parties must go further than discouraging the demand for trafficked persons per se but must take measures to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children that leads to trafficking. Decriminalizing/ legalizing prostitution, and thereby creating large sex markets that act as a pull factor for sex traffickers, would not fulfill our obligations in this regard.

The failure of decriminalization and legalization of prostitution as a social policy is being increasingly acknowledged and abandoned in favour of targeting the demand for prostitution together with offering programs to help women exit the trade

South Africa has high unemployment, extreme economic disparities, porous borders, pervasive corruption in all sectors of society and extremely high levels of rape, violence and abuse of women and children. It is therefore unthinkable that policies of legalization/ decriminalization that have proved to be failures in better resourced countries will work for SA.

In view of all of the above we are convinced the most effective policy approach would be one that focuses on targeting the demand side of prostitution including clients, pimps, procurers and traffickers and for government in partnership with churches and responsible NGO's to develop sustainable exit programs to end the sexual servitude of our women and children.

Errol Naidoo
President
Family Policy Institute
49 Parliament St Cape Town
Tel: 021 462 7888
Fax: 088 021 462 7889
Cell: 082 778 8818