Economics and human rights

United Kingdom

Prostitution in the UK is legal. However, since 2009, contact with a prostitute, who was forced to engage in body trafficking, is criminally punishable, even if the client did not know about the slave position of the employee.

Hungary

In Hungary, a prostitute is a law-abiding entrepreneur and has the same rights and protections as an employee of any other service or trade. A prostitute has the right to open a business, register it and work as legally as any store. Advertising of services is allowed. Including in the newspapers.

Germany

Prostitution in Germany is legal for EU citizens. State bodies protect the rights of prostitutes, the consequence of this is the safe behavior of clients and the absence of criminal activity around this legal business. Prostitution is considered an official profession. A prostitute pays taxes, complies with laws, and after the end of his career, receives a pension, like people from other professions.

About 400,000 women are engaged in prostitution in Germany. The annual turnover of this legal business is approximately 6 billion euros. With this money, taxes are paid in full, replenishing the budget.

In Bonn for the payment of tax by street prostitutes there are special devices similar to automatic machines for parking payment. A prostitute, going to work, pays through this device 6 euros per shift. As a result, in 2011 the city budget received an additional 250 thousand euros. A quarter million extra income only within the same city! The annual turnover of the entire sex industry in Bonn is about 2 billion euros. (28)

The legalization of prostitution in Germany significantly reduced the risk of crime in this business. Prostitutes can complain about the client to the police, file a lawsuit against him.

Of course, legalization gave prostitutes in Germany not only the right to protection, but also the duty to pay taxes, contributions to the pension fund.

Like in any other country, prostitution is one of the favorite topics of political chatterboxes. And most of their arguments are about morality. The historical perspective allows us to take a close look at these moralists and understand the true value of their arguments.

So at the beginning of the 20th century, in Germany, the faction of the Nazi Party (ie Fascists) in the Bundestag was against the legalization of prostitution, because it “threatens the moral and racial bases of the family”. Der Sturmer believed that the adoption of the law on the legalization of prostitution “is beneficial to Marxists and Jews.”

On February 28, 1933, the day after the Reichstag arson, an “Extraordinary Decree on the Protection of the People and the State” was adopted. A man in his right mind can not understand how prostitution and the arson of the Reichstag are connected, but the arson and the “Extraordinary Decree” led to the arrest of tens of thousands of prostitutes throughout Germany.

For example, in Hamburg in the spring and summer of 1933, 3201 women were arrested, only on suspicion of prostitution, 814 of them remained in prison for quite some time.

Prostitutes “disappeared”. The party of the Center of Germany was pleased and voted on March 24, 1933 for giving the government of Hitler emergency powers. The Social Democrats objected to these powers (well, the members of the Communist Party of Germany were already in prison at that time).

Those. in pursuit of morality… Germany received Hitler.

A very clear story for moralists and champions of the prohibition of prostitution. Which is not tricky. As it was said above – the legalization of prostitution ensures human rights for work, life, health and recreation. And human rights and Hitler are diametrically different concepts.

But back to history.

Very soon, the Nazi government, which received full power, softened its moral principles.

On September 9, 1939, the Nazi government issued a decree restoring the regulation of prostitution. The decree stated that “where special prostitution houses still do not exist, the police should organize them in suitable areas for this.” By 1942, the police organized 28 brothels in Berlin. (4) That’s all there is to know about moralists, the price of their words and arguments.

Greece

In Greece, prostitution is also legal. It can be used by men and women who have reached the age of 21. Of course, from their income they pay taxes that supplement the country’s budget. Employees of this profession (as, indeed, the employees of many other professions – cooks, drivers, pilots, etc.) should undergo regular physical examination.

Denmark

In Denmark, by law, only those people who have some other source of income can be engaged in prostitution. (31) There is a certain logic in this. The source of income outside of prostitution allows us to assert that it was not poverty and need that pushed the market for sex services, but something else. To some extent this is an insurance against trafficking in human beings and compulsion to engage in prostitution. A well-fed person is difficult to force something, if he does not like it.

Proponents of morality in this connection want to point out that at the main place of work, a prostitute can be a teacher, an educator, and a trainer. Or a financial worker, a pilot, a bus driver, a waitress. Danes do not care. They are worried about another – some Danes believe that the services of a prostitute must be included in the state social package for the disabled, along with medical assistance.

Israel

Prostitution in Israel is legal. Brothels and pimping are illegal. The annual turnover is approximately $ 2 billion shekels a year. (4)

Spain

Prostitution in Spain is illegal. And this immediately leads to the growth of crime. So, according to Wikipedia, in 2007 in Spain, only officially found 1035 victims of sexual slavery.

However, it is useful for moralists to know certain facts. So in 1076, in some parts of Spain, the ban on prostitution was treated very ingeniously. A woman who was at night in the vicinity of a male bath could be raped with impunity. Such an unusual concern for morality. It was herded, probably also by select moralists…

Morality quite often took very bizarre outlines when it came to prostitution. So in 1325, King Jaime II founded the first red light district in Spain in Valencia and surrounded it with a high wall. The king ordered all women of easygoing demeanor to move into this quarter. It is important to note the word “move”. Those. despite the prohibitions, prostitution continued to exist.

Further medieval moralists did as follows…

Many municipalities began to ask the king to allow them to create the same neighborhoods in their cities. The permission was obtained and the “red lights” appeared in Tarragona in 1325, in Barcelona in 1330, in Castellón in 1401 and in Mallorca in 1411. Also brothels were opened in the kingdom of Valencia in the cities of Orihuela, Elche, Sagunto, Vila-reale, Alsir and Gandia. And before 1450, also in the cities of the kingdom of Aragon: Daroca, Huesca, Jaca, Barbastro, Sobreba, Cataluyde and Zaragoza.

In 1476, Queen Isabella, the wife of King Aragonese Ferdinand, ordered all prostitutes in Castile to pay tax. Probably, to maintain morale in society.

Catholic kings widely distributed licenses to open brothels to city municipalities, charitable organizations and their associates. As a result, brothels were opened in 1479 in cities such as Segovia, Cuenca, Toledo, Valladolid, Logroño, Madrid, Medina del Campo, Palencia, Ecija, Carmona, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Malaga, Salamanca, etc. As they say… all for the sake of morality…

Since then, prostitution in Spain has been banned, it has been allowed many more times.

Currently, brothels in Spain are banned, but there are quite a few “clubs” that do not hide much and function as semi-legal brothels.

On 25 January 2005, the Spanish National Court of Justice declared prostitution a legitimate economic activity in the lawsuit between the National Association of Entrepreneurs of Messalina and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Spain. A judge from Barcelona recognized the right of a prostitute to pay contributions to the system of state social insurance, because the woman is engaged in “labor for the benefit of society.” However, the courts referred to the European Court’s decision of 2001, in which prostitution is regarded as a “legal form of economic activity”.

Italy

In Italy, there are no brothels, they are prohibited by a special law from 1958. But in private, sex services are not prohibited. Punish only pimps and traffickers. Clients who did not pay prostitutes are treated as rapists. In 2010, in Italy, 70,000 prostitutes from 60 countries worked. In December 2002, the Italian authorities passed a law permitting prostitution in private homes. And street prostitutes face fine and arrest. (28)

In the Middle Ages in Italy, some cities tried to expel prostitutes (Bologna in 1259, Venice in 1266 and 1314, Modena in 1326), but unsuccessfully, for demand generates a proposal. Florence in 1287 ordered that within a radius of 0.5 km from the city there were no brothels, but already in 1325 again began to register urban prostitutes and the allocation for them of separate areas. In 1355 prostitutes were forbidden to appear in the city on all days, except Saturday and Monday. And according to the decree of 1384, prostitutes were ordered to wear bells on the head, gloves and shoes with high heels.

Since 1401, Naples began to impose prostitutes tax.

On April 30, 1403 in Florence, the Onesty police were created, which controlled prostitution, based on the writings of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who considered prostitution an indispensable institution for satisfying the sexual desires of men and an alternative to homosexuality. In the latter part, their views coincided with the position of Minister of the Interior of Nazi Germany Himmler, who was also a homophobe and saw in prostitution salvation from homosexuality.

Since 1823, the municipality of Palermo began issuing licenses to open brothels in the city. In 1841, at the request of the King of Naples, a compulsory medical examination for prostitutes was introduced. Likewise, Bologna also entered, having established even a special hospital for prostitutes.

The first law on prostitution in the united Italy was adopted on February 15, 1860. The number of registered prostitutes reached a peak in 1881 – 10,422 girls; in 1948 there were 4,000 of them, and in 1958, 2,560.

In 1923 Mussolini ordered all prostitutes to wear special passes, in which the results of their examination for venereal diseases were noted.

During the occupation of Ethiopia, special houses of tolerance for the needs of the army were created in Addis Ababa. Separate brothels were established for Italians, separate brothels for local residents.

Colombia

In Colombia, prostitution and brothels are legal. The activities of prostitutes are limited to “zones of tolerance” – districts specially designated for legal activities.

Latvia