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Student Name: Jose G. A Francisco
Professor: Dr. Schalow

Philosophy: 2201- 001

04/ 08/ 2015

Prostitutions Laws and Liberty

Prostitution is described as the act of having sexual intercourse in exchange of
money or basically commerce of sex. In the United States alone, an estimated $14
billion is generated in annual revenue from the sex-for-sale industry. Worldwide revenue
from the commercial sex trade industry is estimated at more than $100 billion each year,
says the literary criminologist R. Barri Flowers. People engaged in this type of activity
are called prostitutes or simply sex workers. In todays society men and women can both
be sex workers although woman have been predominantly and pejoratively called
prostitute. The issue of prostitution criminalization or acceptance has been a constant
topic of debate. One argument is that outlawing sex workers takes away an adults liberty
to choose how they live their sexual lives and what they do with their own body.
However, if human sexuality is reduced to something temporary, consumable, and
materialized instead of being considered precious, and sacred then human being will be
reduced to an object. Prostitution should be outlawed not only for its immorality but
mainly for the harms it imposes to those vulnerable working on the sex industry. These
long term harms range from a life of fear, economic exploitation, violence, and
psychological impairment.

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A libertarian may argue that prostitution is a business transaction between adults.
This argument is too simplistic because it does not take into consideration that more than
two people are usually involved in this transaction and how it is performed. It is known
that violence against sex workers is a trend in sex industry, and the perpetrators are either
clients or pimps; People the sex worker is expected to trust. In this case it is the
government job to intervene and find justice for the victims. Moreover, the state is
obligated to provide protection to its citizens. The best way to ensure this is to keep the
laws in place so that the occurrence of theses crimes does not increase.
One may argue that the state should not interfere with the choices made by two
competent adults and if it does so it will be violating the liberty of these individuals. I
believe that when the integrity and dignity of any person is put into question the
government can act in way to protect this persons rights. According to Humans right on
it 23rd article it states: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security
and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in
accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and
cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
As Kant would probably say, prostitution dehumanizes a person, treats a person as
a mean, and consequently reduces the person to an object of exploitation. Act only on
that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should
become universal law.

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The idea that prostitution should be legitimate based on persons liberty is full of
hypocrisy. Lets not forget that prostitution is always associated with other illegal
activities such as drug abuse, human trafficking, and violence, which makes it difficult
for law enforcement and government officials to regulate. According to Louise Shelley
of George Mason University, the most common forms of exploitation in the United States
are sexual exploitation, forced labor, and debt bondage. A dramatic case of trafficking on
United States territory was the case of Kil Soo Lee, a businessman in American Samoa,
who was convicted of having trafficked more than two hundred people from Vietnam and
China to work in his garment factory in very poor and abusive conditions. (Tsin)
As an example, in Rome, Italy where prostitution is legal a middle and uppermiddle class neighborhood have seen an increase in sex workers around it and now
government officials have passed new policies called zone tolerance in which
prostitutes will be allowed in certain areas and banned from others, says www.npr.org.
This measure, of course does not halt the prostitution explosion in the area, which is a
problem faced by governments systems that have legalized prostitution. Furthermore,
study shows that the number of sex workers in Italy has increased by 25% in the past
seven years, says the www.npr.org.
The sex industry is alive and prospering, even in the countries where prostitution
is illegal. For example, a scenario actor and agent finding parts for the actor, as long as
the actor wants to work. The actor needs the agent to find him work. In this scenario, the
actor is the prostitute and the agent is the pimp. Prostitution differs however, because the
pimp takes a large percentage of the revenue while the prostitute is left with only enough
to survive until she works again. So the prostitute can never save enough money to

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change her lifestyles; she does not make profit. The pimp will own luxurious vehicles,
and mansions out of the money made by the sex workers.
If we allow it to happen in present day society, we will be simply accepting a new
form of slavery. Normally, pimps do not want theirs workers to leave the industry so that
they can continue progress in life. So they usually threaten the sex workers life and
consequently forced into staying. Allowing prostitution to happen is to say no to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In other words, criminalizing prostitution can restrict it, which will help to reduce
others crimes that come along with prostitution, such as human trafficking, sex slave,
drug addition and aggression against sex workers. These laws will not halt prostitution
entirely as we have seen, however these laws will discourage the ongoing of people from
entry the industry.

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Works Cited

Flowers, R. Barri. Prostitution In The Digital Age: Selling Sex From The Suite To The
Street. Santa Barbara, CA, US: Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2011. PsycINFO. Web. 10
Apr. 2015.
Tsin Yen, Koh. "Human Trafficking Debate." Salem Press Encyclopedia (2015):
Research Starters. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

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