As for legalization as opposed to making new laws, here's my plan - drop any and all laws pertaining to it, then make new laws. Create registration, which would give them an ID card, access to free/reduced cost STD costs, healthcare, etc., as well as certify when they had their last STD exam. Allow brothels, etc., if they want to form, but do NOT force the creation of Brothels. The registration would be a database inaccessible to any non-governmental agency. Offer rehab to anyone who wants it, make it attractive, and make sure it is not tied to any ID system accessible to anyone. There would be an 800 number where you could call with a prostitutes ID number, and get the date of their last STD exam and the results. Their ID card would not have their legal name on it, but it would have a number and a picture.
Now you have full legalization, and improved protection. Now we can land like a ton of bricks on the actual evils in the system - the pimps and the pushers. Coercion is against the law, and it is wrong. Currently there's a large problem with prostitutes testifying, because they are breaking the law, and because they are unsure of their income and status after their pimp is gone. This removes that fear. Crush the pimps, make the concept as out of date and foreign as speakeasies or the people who brewed bathtub gin in their basement.
Full, unrestricted legalization. Of course normal laws would apply - sex with a minor is rape, exposing yourself in public is indecent exposure, and businesses have the right to regulate what goes on in their establishment, as does any property owner (do you see people selling video games, haircuts, or beanie babies in Home Depot?).
Actually, this sounds like the beginnings of a halfway decent plan to me. I think you've got a ways to go before you're ready to submit it to your town council, though.
What would be the incentive to get prostitutes to register and get an ID card? Would there be any negative reaction for those that choose not to?
Any thoughts as to how the access to free/reduced STD costs, healthcare, etc should be financed?
How would you keep people who aren't prostitutes from accessing the free/reduced cost healthcare?
You mentioned brothels forming, or allowing them to form.. Where? Anywhere in town? Out of town? Any restriction on size or operating hours? Do the neighbors in a community have a right to declare whether they want a brothel on their block or not? Do the people of a town have a right to vote whether they want prostitution in their town or not?
The idea of an 800 number johns could call to find out a prostitute's latest std results is interesting. I suspect that would be in complete violation of current hipaa laws, though. Do you think we need to change those too?
I very much like the idea of this:
Crush the pimps, make the concept as out of date and foreign as speakeasies or the people who brewed bathtub gin in their basement.
and would like to hear what real methods you might suggest to accomplish it, and how this would be financed. This, in my opinion is the only aspect of your plan that seem to be getting close to what would improve protection for prostitutes.
According the DOJ paper I linked to before, (
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/38790.htm )
89% of women in prostitution want out.
60-75% of women in prostitution have been raped,
70-95% percent were physically assaulted, and
68% met the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder in the same range as treatment-seeking combat veterans
According to this list of "prostitution facts"
http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prostitution/prostitutionfacts.html
"78% of 55 women who sought help from the Council for Prostitution Alternatives in 1991 reported being raped an average of 16 times a year by pimps, and were raped 33 times a year by johns. (Susan Kay Hunter, Council for Prostitution Alternatives Annual Report, 1991, Portland, Oregon) 85% of prostitutes are raped by pimps. (Council on Prostitution Alternatives, Portland, 1994)"
Girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average.
75% of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide
Prostituted women comprised 15% of all completed suicides reported by hospitals.
ID cards and STD tests are all well and good, but they don't protect prostitutes from their most prevalent danger; assault, rape and murder by their own pimps and johns, and the mental anguish they suffer from living through the ordeal.
There are many many posts championing a prostitute's rights to sell her vagina, yet only a few of us are championing a prostitute's right to work without being raped, assaulted or murdered.
I suspect that the individual liberty that most concerns some here is more about a man's "freedom" to purchase a hooker if he wants one, and that he really couldn't care less what happens to her before or after that.
GreyICE, I like that you are really starting to think seriously about this. And I think you are on to something. I hope you will spend some more thought on the above, though, before you declare "Now you have full legalization, and improved protection."
