Summary: The Decriminalization Of Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Worldwide, human trafficking is the second largest source of organized crime, only behind drug cartels. By CIA estimates, there are 45,000-50,000 victims of sex slavery and trafficking each year in the U.S. alone. The sex industry in the United States is worth a staggering $14 billion a year.

Decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking and expands the markets for prostitutes. The argument that legalization would eliminate the criminal elements of sex business by strict regulation of the industry has failed. Countries that legalized prostitution have experienced an increase in the number of prostitutes and trafficked victims. The
Implementing this policy would promote men’s entitlement to buy sex and sends the false notion that women are sexual commodities. Supporters of legalized prostitution believe that women would be better protected. However, legalization of pimping will protect no one other than the pimps since regulations are not strict enough on the customers. Health examinations or tests for women are useless unless then men are forced to have health examinations. Both the customers and prostitutes must be monitored into order to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and AIDS. Although certain sex businesses impose rules that require men to use condoms, many attempted to engage in sex without condoms. Numerous factors can discourage condom use, such as the need of women to make more money and competition from brothels that do not require condom
However, they fail to consider the dangers that prostitutes would be subject to as well as the consequences behind income from the sex industry. People in favor of legalizing prostitution believe that it would promote health among sex workers and greatly reduce the sex industry. Researchers have investigated the impact of legalized prostitution on the inflows of human trafficking through the economic theory. The economic theory attributes two possible effects of unknown magnitude to legalized prostitution : the scale effect and the substitution effect. The scale effect leads to an expansion of the prostitution market and thus an increase in human trafficking, whereas the substitution effect reduces the demand for prostitutes by favoring prostitutes who have legal residence in a country. Quantitative empirical analysis for a model of up to 150 countries indicate that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect(Cho,