According to the International Labour Organization, more than 49.6 million people are victims of human trafficking. Far from being a thing of the past, modern slavery still persists today, and it will take our combined efforts to dismantle it. In this fight, one of our most powerful tools is legislation. As the EU strategy on combating human trafficking states, legislation “allows us to define the crime, set sanctions and common objectives to prosecute criminals, and protect the victims.” There are three main models aimed at reducing human and sex trafficking through sex work legislation: Full Decriminalization of Prostitution, Full Criminalization of Prostitution, and the Equality Model.
It is important to remember that sex trafficking is not sex work, though many confuse the two. However, legislation around sex work directly impacts sex trafficking victims who are forced into the sex work industry.
Full Decriminalization of Prostitution:
One of the principal models aimed at combating sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation is the full decriminalization of prostitution. This model seeks to decriminalize the actions of both sex workers and those who purchase sex work. Fundamental to this approach is the notion that decriminalizing sex work will bring the sex industry “out of the dangerous margins and into the light where people are protected — not targeted — by the law.”
Proponents of full decriminalization argue that by removing the legal stigma surrounding the consensual sex industry, more attention can be placed on ending human trafficking. By decriminalizing sex work and ending the prosecution of consenting adults, more resources could be allocated to fighting “crimes like human trafficking and the coerced sex trade.” Furthermore, by removing the legal consequences for those engaged in acts of prostitution, victims of sex trafficking will feel more confident to report their situation. As Senator Summer Lee noted in a memo aimed at decriminalizing sex work, “decriminalization removes the fear of arrest while giving people who are victims of violence or exploitation a way to safely come forward and report what they are experiencing.”
Some countries have adopted this model. In 2000, the Netherlands legalized prostitution. Since then, government and health officials have conducted periodic visits to businesses involved in sex work to ensure adherence to basic health and working standards. Essentially, the decision to legalize prostitution moved sex work out of the margins and into a light where it could be protected by the law. As a result, the increased visibility surrounding the sex industry has made it harder for sex traffickers to conceal their criminal activity. As a report by the Ministry of Justice found, since legalization in 2000, “it is likely trafficking in human beings has become more difficult, because the enforcement of the regulations has increased.”
Full Criminalization of Prostitution:
Many who oppose decriminalization support full criminalization of prostitution as a means of reducing human trafficking, instead. In 2021, a commission of the European Union did just that, endorsing full criminalization in the EU Strategy on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings.
The strategy argued that, at its core, criminal activity is driven by the economic principle of supply and demand. It went on to state that “in the EU, in one single year, criminal revenues of trafficking for sexual exploitation, which is the most prevalent purpose of trafficking, are estimated at about EUR 14 billion.” The report operates under the assumption that the high demand for prostitution drives increased rates of human and sex trafficking. As a means of combating this tendency, the report thus proposes fully criminalizing prostitution in order to reduce demand in the sex industry and lower human trafficking as a whole. Other reports have drawn similar conclusions. In 2012, Seo-Yeong Cho, Axel Dreher, and Eric Neumayer analyzed cross-sectional data from 116 different countries in order to evaluate how legalized prostitution affects human trafficking. Their report found that “countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited.”
However, while decriminalization may at first seem to reduce sex trafficking, it is not the clear-cut solution. One major issue posed by this alternative is that human trafficking victims face the possibility of being wrongfully convicted. If prostitution is criminalized, and sex trafficking victims are falsely identified as sex workers, they face the risk of being prosecuted for a crime they had no choice in committing. In 2016, the National Survivor Network attempted to highlight this link and conducted a survey about sex trafficking survivors’ relationship to the law. While the study only consisted of 130 participants, it nonetheless found that a whopping “91 percent of trafficking survivor respondents reported having been arrested.”
Furthermore, the survey found that criminalization will not put an end to the sex industry but merely drive it underground and force sex workers to keep their professions secret, making it more difficult for them to access health services and safe working environments. A study conducted by Human Rights Watch has found that the criminalization of prostitution “may force sex workers to work in unsafe locations to avoid the police,” “undermines sex workers’ ability to seek justice for crimes against them,” and leaves “sex workers reluctant to carry condoms for fear of arrest, forcing them to engage in sex without protection and putting them at heightened risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.”
The Equality Model:
Splitting the difference between full decriminalization and full criminalization is the Equality Model. It was originally conceived in Sweden in 1999 and is also known as the Nordic or the Swedish model. Put simply, this approach seeks to decriminalize the actions of sex workers or trafficking victims who are involuntarily involved in the commercial sex industry while criminalizing those who purchase or pimp sex work.
Proponents of the Equality Model contend that it reduces the number of people exploited in the sex trade. Similar to the model of full criminalization, this model recognizes the dangers associated with the sex industry. As Max Waltman reported for the New York Times, “a study of 854 prostituted persons in nine countries found that 89 percent wanted to escape prostitution but felt they could not, and that two-thirds met clinical criteria for post-traumatic stress equal to that of treatment-seeking Vietnam veterans and victims of torture or rape.” The Equality Model thus seeks to make the sex industry as safe as possible for those involved in it. In decriminalizing the actions of sex workers, proponents of this model hope to improve their safety, their ability to access health services, their confidence in reporting injustices, and their opportunities to find different employment. On the other hand, this model also seeks to reduce overall demand in the sex trade by criminalizing those who purchase or pimp sex work. After the model was implemented in Sweden, for example, such a decline in demand was evident as street prostitution dropped by 50 percent.
Others see this model differently and argue that rather than dismantling sexual exploitation and reducing sex trafficking, the model merely conflates sex trafficking with consensual sex work. As a result, critics contend that in criminalizing those who purchase sex work, the industry will be pushed further out of sight, and sex workers will be forced into dangerous situations, which could include “working in unsafe locations, accepting unfair pay, and engaging with violent clients.”
Lydell, whose home rests on a quiet street in Bonn, Germany, is currently a junior at Brown University studying English and Political Science. As an aspiring writer, Lydell not only appreciates the beauty of language, but recognizes its extraordinary power. It is through reading that many of us learn, and so it is through writing that we can educate and tackle the complex issues that pervade the world around us. Especially given his background as an African American, Lydell is passionate about facing modern iterations of slavery, and dismantling the injustices that populate our landscapes.
