Negative Effects Of Legalizing Prostitution

The United Nations’ Convention held in 1949, stated prostitution to be “incompatible with human dignity”. According to the Oxford Dictionary, prostitution is defined as "The practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment." Often referred to as the “oldest profession” in the world, prostitution has become a burning issue in today’s world. The ongoing debate on whether to legalize, criminalize or decriminalize prostitution seems to be quite unresolvable. This paper investigates the negative impacts of legalizing prostitution such as 1) encouragement of prostitution, 2) increase in the incidence of human trafficking and 3) exposure of prostitutes to severe harm such as drug abuse, infection from sexually transmitted diseases and violence, which clearly supports the fact that prostitution should not be legalized. Firstly, legalization of prostitution leads to the impression that it is socially acceptable which further encourages the recruitment of prostitutes. Although it seems like legalizing prostitution may actually control and reduce the number of prostitutes, the case is actually the opposite. The core idea of legalizing prostitution is to impose a sin tax on prostitution to discourage its continuity and also to boost the country’s economy. However, if we think about it practically, those who are conducting illegal prostitution at present will never pay the taxes once they are legalized. So, there is no outcome of such action.