Human trafficking is illegal in all 57 US States (right, Barry Obama?), but in recent years, this illegal practice has escalated, and human sex trafficking is rampant despite its illegality. The State of Vermont is proposing two nearly identical pieces of legislation that would make prostitution “not illegal” while pretending they are also protecting sex workers from human trafficking.
“repeal the prostitution laws that currently prohibit ‘indiscriminate sexual intercourse’ and consensual engagement in sex work for hire by adults while retaining prohibitions and felony criminal penalties for human trafficking of persons who are compelled through force, fraud, or coercion to engage in sex work.”
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The bills would not create a legal, licensed framework for the prostitution industry, but would merely ban prostitution as a criminal act and attempt to provide safeguards against using minors as prostitutes and coercing prostitution by threats or other means, including withholding passports and immigration documents.
Legalizing “sex work’ didn’t stop trafficking in Vegas, where prostitution has been loving you a long time, for a very long time. It also didn’t stop it in Rhode Island, where ‘indoor’ “sex work” was legal for 29 years and human trafficking was not – but it not only continued, it escalated.
From 1980 to 2009, prostitution in Rhode Island was decriminalized. Prostitution was not prohibited or regulated by law if it was performed indoors. The lack of laws or regulations created a unique and permissive legal, economic, and cultural environment for the growth of sex businesses. Although a few counties in Nevada have legalized prostitution, no other state or county has decriminalized prostitution in recent decades. During the twenty-nine-year period from 1980 to 2009, sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls were integrated into the economic development of Rhode Island’s urban areas.
Everywhere we make sex work legal, we incentivize sex trafficking. It’s as if the opportunists can’t help themselves despite the law. But liberals are stupid, so Vermont will likely advance this legislation and drag it willingly into law.
And it will not go well for women, nor will it reduce crime or violence against them. Here are a few examples from the Rhode Island experiment.
- [The researcher] found that in 1998, there were two or three Asian spa-brothels. Eight years later, in 2006, there were ten to twelve. By the end of 2008, there were twenty-two. Then over just a five-month period from January 2009 until April 2009, ten new spa-brothels opened, bringing the total to thirty-one.
- The burgeoning sex industry in Rhode Island and unregulated nature of indoor prostitution attracted predators who targeted women in the sex industry. The cases of attempted robberies and assaults against women engaged in prostitution increasingly alarmed law enforcement officials and the general public in Rhode Island.
- Because Rhode Island had no law on indoor prostitution, local and state police had no authority to investigate prostitution. A letter to Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children stated, Under current Rhode Island law, commercial sex between adults inside a building is considered a private activity and is thus protected.
I’m not being prudish. I’m not here to tell you that local police should be chasing your tail if you exchange sex for something. I am pointing out that the odds are good that if you pursue this course, you will get beaten and abused, if not trafficked, raped, and robbed, and pretending it’s not illegal (as in making it legal) has never mitigated these risks.
If you decide that it’s none of the government’s business until someone is assaulted, raped, trafficked, robbed, or murdered, then a lot of people would say that makes more sense, but pretending that’s what your doing isn’t the same thing. And pretending that you can do one while increasing protections for the other will put more people in harm’s way.
There’s no Pretty Woman scenario waiting. Burlington isn’t going to be opening high-end “establishments” with elegant ‘escorts’ who are clean, sober, tested, and safe from the men who might request such services. Sex work always attracts traffickers, gangs, organized crime, drugs, and violence, and any opportunity to use legalization or decriminalization or simply a statute telling the police “hands off” will result in more rape, assault, drug abuse, human trafficking, or death. At least, that’s been our experience so far.
Is now a good time to point out that this legislative effort isn’t even about women or sex or work?
The progressives, who are hellbent on undermining any vestige of Judeo-Christian ethic in their pursuit of nothing but the state, don’t give a damn about your safety. Don’t believe me?
The Left happily subjected millions to drug, child, and sex trafficking when they opened America’s borders. If you complained, they defended it (and still do).
They funded activist groups and fed the Black Lives Matter movement, which led to defunding police, which resulted in a rise in property and violent crime, including against women. If you complained, they defended it (and called you racist).
Progressives gave predators access to bathrooms and locker rooms under the guise of transgender rights (predators will always find prey, especially if you line them up like bait). These policies also resulted in girls and women losing scholarships and awards or being injured in competitions.
Democrats dropped bail for many offenses and refused to prosecute a long list of crimes, the result of which harmed inner cities, minorities, children, and women. They continue to push these policies until the bitter end because Democrats hate women.
The entire exercise is so that Democrats in Vermont (and the RINO Republicans who back this play) can virtue-signal each other (with a wink and a nod) as they check another box.
If these bills pass, more women will be abused and trafficked, and the already understaffed police departments in Vermont – who don’t have the time or resources to investigate the current rise in violent and property crime created by democrats who embraced the defund movement – won’t be chasing that anytime soon.
