Laws Against Prostitution Violate Basic Human Rights

The Penal Law, s230 violates basic human rights after it penalizes people for voluntarily engaging in sexual behavior for monetary gifts. Although anyone can go back and forth to discuss which rights are being breached, the purpose of this paper is to illustrate that the fundamental right of being free and equal, the right to life, the right to privacy, and right to meet where you like is infringed solely because our society has built traditional morals and values that view, more preferably, a woman’s sexuality and alluring desires as something that should not be expressed or discussed.

In other words, women are more deemed to only engage in sex for the purpose of reproduction - not for personal pleasure and/or work. Therefore, when women go against the social norms, it is almost natural to immediately receive backlash and implementations of potential rules and regulations that aim to strengthen the attempt to control, in this case, a woman’s body.

The chart above demonstrates the significant relevance of the topic over the past 23 years alone, with two familiar search engines. As the years go by, available literature increases. Google scholar shows a steady rise in its literature regarding the Penal Law, s230. Although it may seem like the literature has decreased between 2016 - 2018, it is essential to keep in mind that we have not finished the 2018 year yet, thus more time is available to continue increasing and should be understood when reviewing the findings for OneSearch as well. By observing this information, we can presume that the issue, itself, has affected the society in more than just limited ways to continue the thrive in relevancy. The literature used within this paper emphasizes why activists and various organizations have and continue to participate in radical activism and call for a course of action til this day. Predominantly, laws against prostitution are laws against women and throughout history, this has been used to politically oppress women.

The law eventually makes its way to deny human rights, such as forbidding an operating brothel (the right to meet where you’d like). By doing so, sex workers are denied an indoor, clean and safe work space that can be well maintained and regulated. Additionally, the law discourages prostitutes and sex workers to report any violence they may have suffered due to fear that they’d be punished instead of the abuser, resulting in even more brutality. By discouraging these reports, society forms a black market nature that attracts other illegal activities on top of the prostitution and/or sex work. To excuse these laws, one may say it is to maintain traditional values and morals. However, before we even refer to values and morals which may not be ingrained by all individuals, we must first view natural human rights that are inherent to all human beings.