
Seattle's Tech Growth Fueling Local Sex Trade - beachbound
http://crosscut.com/2016/05/how-the-tech-industry-is-fueling-the-local-sex-trade/
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jzila
There has been at least one high-profile sex trafficking bust in the Seattle
area recently [1]. That seems to correlate with an uptick in opinion articles
decrying prostitution and all its problems.

I think most people can agree that sex trafficking is terrible, and we should
pursue approaches to minimize it. Studies have shown that existing attempts at
legalizing prostitution do not at all curb trafficking: in fact the increase
in demand cancels out the increase in supply, keeping the market open for
traffickers and abusers [2]. Given what we know so far, it's probably worth
keeping prostitution illegal if we can't figure out a better way to keep sex
trafficking down.

That said, there is a fascinating paper that analyzes the economics of the
regulatory approaches that have been tried in various countries, and makes a
recommendation for a legalization framework that might benefit all parties
[3]. The authors note that while criminalizing supply (prostitutes) has no
downward effect on trafficking, criminalizing demand does, and in fact trends
toward 0 when the penalty is severe enough. They recommend a hybrid approach
that regulates and licenses voluntary prostitution, while heavily
criminalizing consumption of unlicensed prostitution.

If nothing else, this is a fascinating topic with plenty of room for further
research. Conflating prostitution (transactional sex) with human trafficking
doesn't serve to further that discussion, and they should be reasoned about
separately.

[1] [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/online-
site-w...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/online-site-where-
men-rated-prostitutes-is-shut-down-charges-to-be-filed/)

[2]
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065)

[3]
[http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1303&conte...](http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1303&context=nyu_lewp)

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mikhailt
> existing attempts at legalizing prostitution do not at all curb trafficking

That's because most of the attempts have been for a different reason, to
protect the sex workers, not to combat trafficking. This is the right
approach, we need to start protecting the sex workers, give them protections,
rights, health services and so on.

Prostitution and sex trafficking are two different concepts, trying to combat
them together will never work.

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lwhalen
More sex-culture shaming. How about instead of wasting all this effort on law
enforcement, 'company policy', and (extra creepy) banner-ads that display
right when the john searches for sex, how about legalizing, taxing, and
regulating it? I hear that worked pretty well for another popular human
pasttime that was outlawed in the 30s, especially in Seattle.

