The Decriminalisation of Prostitution in the UK - Essay Example

? Legalising prostitution Introduction Prostitution is a contentious issue within all cultures and societies globally, where public opinion ranges from outright rejection to a certain level of acceptance for the so-called world’s oldest profession.1 In the past three decades, the issue of legally addressing prostitution has turned into a matter of activities associated with a country’s legislations. Some European countries, like Germany and Netherlands have decriminalized and /or legalized prostitution and given it the status as any other normal work or profession. It included decriminalizing brothels, the customers and the pimps. UK government follows the theory of abolitionism, where per se the act of prostitution is not directly an illicit act, however, majority of the activities associated with the profession have been declared illegal. In other instances it is seen that governments, like the one in Thailand, has declared prostitution and all related activities as illegal, but actually allows the sex tourism industry to function, where brothels are flourishing and there are open buying of women as commercial sex workers.2 Sweden, on the other hand has adopted a diverse form of legal procedure for dealing with prostitutes where customers are penalised, while simultaneously the women prostitutes are decriminalised. Therefore, it is clear that there are varying legal approaches that handle the issue of prostitution (abolition/prohibition or legalization), which are often influenced by different sociological and ideological factors. In this context, the article will examine the various debates that revolve around the issue of legalising prostitution. This article will study and analyse various books and academic articles and derive that legalising prostitution does not help to solve the problem of human rights abuse of millions of women working within the sex trade. Instead, in its legal form the profession tends to flourish, where more girls and women are forced into sex trade and customers become more violent, producing an overall negative effective on socio-cultural values of a country. Discussion The decriminalisation of prostitution in UK The framework that deals with prostitution in the UK is abolitionist in nature and based on two legislations established during the 1950s, the Sexual Offences Act (1956) and Street Offences Act (1959). As per the two acts, a person taking part in prostitution activities, operating alone from his or her own house is not conducting any illegal activities, since a home is not viewed as a brothel (which is considered illegal under the UK legislation).3 A brothel, as per the UK laws, is a place where many people are involved in activities that involve offering sexual services. Therefore, if an individual is more than 18 years of age and works from his or her own home, this form of activity (even though it may involve offering sexual services for money) is considered legal in the UK. However, there were many loopholes within these legislations and they faced severe criticism from all quarters of the debate. In the modern context, many experts contended that that the Acts were archaic lacked coherence and were far removed from the modern problems of the sex trade industry.4 In 2002, the UK Home Office acknowledged the need to modify laws that addressed the issue of prostitution and the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, commented “The law on sex offences is widely recognised as archaic, incoherent and discriminatory. Much of it belongs to an age before the light bulb or motor car yet we now live in a world of global communications, with children two clicks away from Internet porn sites generated by a multi-million pound sex industry.”5 This finally led to the creation of the Sexual offense Act 2003, which did not bring in any landmark changes, but tried making legal provisions for prostitution gender neutral. Under the Sexual Offenses Act (2003), prostitution has been decriminalized,6 in the United Kingdom, however it is considered a crime to “intentionally cause or incite another person to become a prostitute in any part of the world…for or in the expectation of gain for himself of a third person.”7 An individual is also considered a criminal if that person "intentionally controls any of the activities of another person relating to that person’s prostitution in any part of the world” in order to gain personal benefits (financial or otherwise).8 In the UK, it is illegal to approach for sexual activities on streets,9 and maintain brothels for acts of prostitution.10 In order to regulate or decrease prostitution and human trafficking for sexual exploitation, new legislations have been introduced into the framework via the Policing and Crime Act of 2009 or the Crime Act, where customers are penalised if caught during monetary transactions, after receiving sexual services, since the act is then translated as controlling the prostitute for personal gain.11 Here the new legislation establishes a stringent liability offense on the customer, where “an offence is committed regardless of whether the person paying …ought to know or be aware that the prostitute has been subject to exploitative conduct.”12 However, there is a general overall feeling that the UK government has failed to take effective measures to tackle sex trade, even though the government published a consultation paper in 200413 and a proposal paper in 2006.14 In both the papers, the main objectives were to decrease prostitution on streets, improve standard of living of communities that have adopted prostitution as their livelihood and abolishing or reducing sexual exploitation (commercial or otherwise). Even though there were no actual changes made to the UK law after the minor changes introduced in 2009, demands for stringent actions are on the rise, especially after a series of incidents, known as the Ipswich serial murders and the Bradford murders, where eight street prostitutes were murdered between 2006 and 2010. These murders led to the UK government proposing to re-look on decriminalising prostitution,15 however, pressure from the conservatives (abolitionists) and prohibitionists disallowed the government from proposing laws for legalising prostitution, and focus more on abolitionism, like taking more stringent actions in order to stop the trade completely.16 The debate on legalisation of prostitution Various approaches that deal with the problem of prostitution range from prohibition to legalization17 based on a number of social and legal policies that vary from country to country, based on the social and cultural values of a nation.18 The notions of prohibition is grounded on the framework that sex trade and prostitution are closely interlinked, therefore making it impossible to legally purchase or sell sex,19 thus, turning prostitution into a form of slavery.20 Such a viewpoint demands that decriminalisation of prostitution is necessary since the prostitute is clearly a victim.21 On the other hand, Sweden penalises the customers through a 1999 law that imposes a maximum six-month imprisonment and/or fines. Here the laws are based on social views that a majority of the women are forced into sex trade. From the perspective of a prohibitionist, prostitution is seen as constituting gender violence and human rights abuse,22 reflecting a feminist viewpoint where prostitution is regarded as representing male domination and sexual exploitation within all societies and culture in the world,23 with a wrong depiction of women and prostitutes. 24 As per this theory, all regulations should be removed on prostitution and it should be legalised, since making prostitutes appear as “victims” results in social alienation and dilutes their demand for workers’ rights. 25 This ideology conceptualises that prostitutes should be dealt like any other legitimate workers, and allowed to work freely.26 Here it is clear that there are three main legal ways to deal with prostitution: prohibition, as shown by Sweden; legalisation, as seen in Netherlands; and abolition, as seen in the UK. From various reports it has been seen that legalisation of prostitution in Netherlands, made with a view of regulating the trade, led to negative results. The country soon turned into a popular destination for those involved in sex trade, and was “identified as one of the main destinations within Europe for trafficked women…[where there were more] non-EU nationals in Dutch prostitution.”27 The presence of increasing number of prostitutes from outside Europe28 signified the fast developing sex trade industry involving foreign women within Netherlands, a major setback for the country after legalising prostitution. Another example where legalization of prostitution has led to disastrous results was observed in the Australian state of Victoria. Here prostitution was legalised in 1984, in order to stop the thriving black market associated with sex trade and to reduce crime. However, this decision produced adverse effects and led to a further increase in prostitution, more customers that were violent and greater number of organized crime syndicates, thus overall, producing widespread negative socio-cultural consequences.29 Since in Victoria prostitution is legally permissible (and hence acknowledged by the society), this acknowledgment, has led to increased instances where there are now social and cultural reinforcements that support general abasement of women and violence against them.30 On the other hand, reports from Sweden show that in contrast to the Netherlands, a prohibitionist attitude towards prostitution has led to fewer children and women being smuggled into Sweden as part of sex trade, with the numbers falling every year. 31 Thus, studies from the three countries logically helps one to derive (as per the rules of positivism, that gives scope for positive and quantitative verification)32 that legalised prostitution, instead of protecting the rights of women and reducing sex trafficking, helps to establish an even larger demand for prostitutes.33 Subsequently the sex industry expands even further to supply more sex workers (leading to an increase in illegal sex trafficking) and meet the increased demands of clients.34 This in turn produces a devastating effect on the ethics and moralities of the society, destroying some of its own cultural values. Thus, we find legalising prostitution (the basic debate being between law and morality) goes against the theory of natural law, where it breaks a basic value or right determined by human nature35 (to respect women and not perpetuate violence against them). In the Hart-Devlin debate, the contention between morality and law is clearly represented, where Devlin believed that law should have the power to enforce ethical and moral norms on all aspects of social life (since laws without morality turns into tyranny).36 However, he failed to take into account the voice of the minorities within society, and the fact that moralities are transient in nature and change faster than policymakers can make laws.37 On the other handle, Hart made more reasonable arguments where he stated that unless an incident is harmful to the society in some form (as in the case of legalisation of prostitution, or in general sex trafficking) the government and the existing laws should refrain from interfering.38 However, since in recent times sex trafficking is causing harm to the society (where women are forced into the trade) and street prostitutes becoming easy targets for murderers,39 the UK government must start looking for stringent laws to tackle the customers (more in line Sweden’s laws). Instead of legalising prostitution, that causes more harm and results in a universal breakdown of social and moral values, the UK government must look to providing alternative livelihood to the women. Therefore, instead of criminalising the supply part of sex industry (prostitutes), results are “most effective when accompanied by diversion programs offering women ‘routes out’ of prostitution through education and compulsory drug rehabilitation.”40 Conclusion Legalising prostitution is not a solution to reduce sex trafficking or abolishing prostitution, and simply results in greater complications that adversely affect the society as a whole. On the other hand, criminalization of prostitution along with rehabilitation programs for those in the trade effectively word towards combatting the industry. The legislation in each state should vary, based on their social, cultural, political and legal systems and values. 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