The Guardian: Letter – Decriminalise Prostitution

Decriminalise prostitution

Sonia Sodha is right that “male demand for prostitution is not innate. Governments shape it through legislation” (“Punish the men who pay for sex, rather than the women lured into that life”). But legislation also shapes women’s experiences of offering sex for money.

Criminalising the buying of sex doesn’t stop men from buying it. It pushes transactions further underground and forces sex workers away from the support and protection of civil society groups and law enforcement. Grassroots organisations like the English Collective of Prostitutes have been arguing this for decades, and the evidence supports their case: after New Zealand decriminalised prostitution in 2003, the vast majority of sex workers said they were more likely to report incidents of violence to the police. Decriminalising prostitution and legally regulating the activities that surround it is the best way of promoting the safety of prostitutes.

Ms. Sodha is also right that we must crack down harshly on the abhorrent criminals who traffic and exploit women as sex slaves. But Ms. Sodha should appreciate that sex slavery is not prostitution, just as plantation slavery is not farm labour: although demand for the latter increases the profitability of the former, there are ways to reduce the profitability of sex slavery without denying prostitutes the protections they deserve. Justice demands that we don’t pursue one at the expense of the other.
Emily Loch and Sasha Arridge