The implications of human trafficking debates and preventative policy is heavily intertwined with border security policy and has major impacts on the treatment of migrants to western states. I think that differing political, economic and social contexts can dictate weather abolishing prostitution or regulating it would be appropriate.
An abolitionist stance on prostitution believes that prostitution is a violation of human rights by definition, and is a patriarchal tool of oppression.
I also believe that within the current gendered world we live in, simply legalizing prostitution will not ensure the safety or autonomy of people who sell sex and has resulted in increases of human trafficking in the past. Countries that have legalized prostitution have also often experienced spikes in human trafficking across their borders.
For example, the Netherlands have been attempting to combat this issue by trying to introduce policy that would require sex workers to register in order to work legally Netherland Info Service, I think that a more effective model might be to create self-regulating boards of sex workers who have social connections and access to networks that law enforcement and other agencies do not.
People actively engaged in sex work have the local knowledge and social capital to know when a new sex worker has been trafficked, and are more effective at resolving the issue without involving law enforcement Bandyopadhyay. Many people consciously left their home country and allowed themselves to be trafficked and were then sexually exploited against their will. The role that demand for trafficking is easily ignored in favor of pointing to the supply of trafficking victims. Pro-regulation standpoints operate under the ideology of validating sex work as a form of labor and guaranteeing protection and positive working environments for sex workers through decriminalization and regulation of the sex work industry.
