Written by: Jubin Maharjan - 22026, Grade XII
Posted on: 15 September, 2021
Prostitution is the act of engaging in sexual activity with someone in exchange of money or any other economic benefits. The act of prostitution is done by both men, women or transgender. Prostitution has been around in our society for centuries and there has been many arguments about whether it should be legal or not. Currently prostitution has been legalized in 53 countries and illegal in 35 countries including Nepal.
Across different countries whether the act of prostitution be legal or illegal, the effects of prostitution has been the same. Many countries legalize prostitution believing that it reduces crime rate, improves the public health, increases tax revenue, boosts Tourism and many more, but these optimistic beliefs are easily over shadowed by the many negative effects of prostitution.
People believe that legalizing prostitution will have some positive effect but legalizing prostitution itself will bring many other negative effects on the society such as objectification of women, normalization of violence against prostitutes, increases the rate of women trafficking, reinforcing gender inequalities. A lot of clients of prostitution have a disgusting mindset that if they paid the prostitute, they have the right to do anything to them which in terms has caused many criminal activities such as sexual assault, rape, women trafficking, etc. In the countries where prostitution was legalized many of the women working there were victim of sexual or physical abuse. Whenever a prostitute says “NO” to the request of the client, violence and force is used to receive “consent”. The countries with legalized prostitution also have higher rate of human trafficking than the countries where prostitution is illegal. Prostitution reinforces gender inequality as mainly the women are lured into the act of prostitution due to the higher number of male clients.
Even if prostitution is legalized it still has its negative impact. Legalizing prostitution does not change the fact the women working in the industry are getting assaulted or violated. In comparison to countries where prostitution is not legalized the crime rate is even high in the legalized countries. It has more negative impacts than positive one as commodification of the human body will have a different mindset.
