After two years of study, a U.N. commission produced a new report on “HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health,” which advocates for the international legalization of prostitution. Proponents say legalization will decriminalize “voluntary sex work” and prevent the spreading of HIV/AIDS. Others, like Dr. Janice Crouse, the director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, say that legalized prostitution has historically spiked illegal trafficking as well, resulting in a slew of other problems.
From the article:
A report issued by the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law; recommends that nations around the world get rid of “punitive” laws against prostitution – or what it calls “consensual sex work” — and decriminalize the voluntary use of illegal injection drugs in order to combat the HIV epidemic.
The commission, which is made up of 15 former heads of state, legal scholars and HIV/AIDS activists, was convened in 2010 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and is jointly backed by the United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS – the Joint U.N. Programme on AIDS/HIV.
The commission recommends repealing all laws that prohibit “adult consensual sex work,” as well as clearly distinguishing in law and practice between sexual trafficking and prostitution.
