Not every popular-but-illegal activity benefits from becoming legal. Selling alcohol is very different from selling people. Don't conflate the two activities.
Seriously, the existence of problems related to legal prostitution in any particular location doesn't necessarily indict the entire practice. Also, in close analogy with drug prohibition, the state gives criminals space to thrive whenever it limits the free movement of people.
It's not a job when the most desirable "employees" are the least experienced ones.
The idea that sex is having something done to you, as opposed to something you're doing for or with someone, strikes me as a rather old-fashioned and sexist attitude. I'd like to believe that my wife and I share something better than that.
Of course, there are a lot of personal values tied up in this question, so I don't think that either your opinion or mine necessarily prevails. That being the case, I think the best indicator is what each individual chooses to do of their own free will.
The problem with "what each individual chooses" and prostitution is that it's extremely difficult to get an accurate reading of what people truly want. There's lots of coercion, pressure, and outright threats. I think it's fair to say that given the opportunity, most people would not choose prostitution. It's very important to have a society where no one ever feels the need to become a prostitute.
The whole "consent" argument also tries to ignore the question of harm. If someone consents to be harmed, should we harm them? If a drug addict wants to keep drugging themselves, should we not do anything about it? I'm not outright saying that prostitution harms every prostituted person or not, just that this question should be considered, not elided with the "consent" argument.
I'd say that is incorrect and based on incomplete understanding. I'd say it's a choice, made, no matter how incomprehensible, for money. Like other choices people make, eg choosing such and such career path, or such and such relationship, sometimes there's peer pressure. And because it's connected with orchestration by criminal enterprises, tainted by that association. However, when you come down to it, people could sell themselves before criminals wanted a cut. It works to consider how you might come to make that choice, and whether your assumptions about prostitutes are filtered through the landscape of what you perceive as your own possible choices.
So before I pronounce prostitutes as victims to fit a narrative of exploitation I've chosen (seductive also for it suggests my moral superiority that I would never make such a choice! :), maybe I'll remember it doesn't work to victimize the people I'm talking about by pretending they had no autonomy. Isn't that, the very same hypocrisy I'm trying to accuse others of? Using a person for a purpose? And when that person may have done the choosing, and I in my argument may be doing the using, haven't I neatly reversed the roles all by myself, and undermined the very argument I was making?
Tl;Dr - when you're talking about people you want to paint as victims it works to consider them as autonomous, choice making beings, to gain more accurate insight, even tho it's seductive to pretend that somehow you've more autonomy than they.
Stl;Dr - fantasising that prostitutes have no autonomy is trying to use them for an intellectual "dry sex", without paying, for the sake of argument without their consent! Definitely only for scoundrels!! :)
Given the opportunity, most people would not choose to work.
That being said, from my neighbourhood, women who did chose prostitution could have done some other work instead. They picked prostitution because it was 1. easier and 2. it paid better.
I've known three strippers (for reasons unrelated to their careers), and I know for certain that in all cases their choice of profession was absolutely a personal choice. The cost/benefit opportunity was the best one open to them, and they took it.
Like I said, stripping isn't the same thing, and of course anecdote isn't the singular of data. But my experience personally, and what I hear second-hand elsewhere, makes it difficult for me to believe that violence and force are significant factors in that world. And to the extent that they are present, it seems more likely that they enter the picture precisely because it's an outlaw black market lifestyle, and if allowed in the light of day that aspect would likely disappear.
A quick google leads me to http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-average-prostitution-price...
From this, it looks like the price for prostitutes increases with quality.
I'm in favor of legalization, but there is some economic research suggesting that at least in the short term, expansion of the market for prostitution (through decriminalization or legalization) results in a net increase in illegal trafficking, because market sector growth >> the substitution effect (whereby many customers prefer the legal alternative). It's not the simple 'ban it or legalize it' dichotomy that advocates on both sides suggest.
I think you're right about a certain segment of the market. After all, we know that pedophiles exist, so some "customers" would want the "services" of a child who lies there crying, which would require no "training". I think those would be few in number when compared to a legal market for adult prostitution, although they would necessarily be a larger portion of any illicit market.
Also, in a country with legal prostitution, aren't there regular inspections? interviews with the workers? I can understand in a poor country but how are these women being held against their will in shady establishments in a country with strong laws and an effective police force.
afaik (i have no real, direct, experience of this tbh, so don't quote me) there are none of these safety measures that you see in Vegas or Amsterdam etc. its basically treated as a form of self employment and is completely unregulated.
you should also consider the psychologies of vulnerable and desperate young women and criminal gangs. there is a long history of techniques they will both use to avoid problems with the police and both types will see it as protecting themselves from harm...
Also, I'd like to see a reference on the 'most' and 'frequently'.
There is a reason that a person chooses to be a prostitute. You may not agree with that person's decision, but criminalizing one party of the exchange doesn't change the prostitute's available choices. In many cases, prostitution is the only way to finance drug addiction, because of drug prohibition. You can criminalize any party -- the prostituted or the customer -- and it doesn't address the root issue, it only suppresses it.
What it does is destroy the market for those exploiting prostitutes. I.e. traffickers. It changes very little for those who want to engage in sex with prostitutes.
Citation? I ask because that's not my personal experience and I haven't heard the same information from the sex workers I know.
I'm slightly suspicious of these claims. I've seen reports about trafficking in my country showing numbers of foreign people trafficked that are completely unrealistic. NGOs are just making up these numbers when they are pleading to well-meaning but clueless people for donations.
The point here is that if someone can actually bring up evidence that there is a huge criminal organisation, then that organisation can be shut down effectively. But there is no evidence. It's a bit like so many conspiracy theories that tell about the secret conspiracy; the proof of existence of conspiracy consists of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence, because the conspiracy is so effective.
In the context of prostitution, the term "human trafficing" itself us primarily used for shaming purpose where prostitution is no longer illegal. For this reason it should be avoided like the plague.