I asked this 6 years ago… I think any prostitutes at the time are all legal in the US now.
it does seem that nobody ever answered the original question: are there countries where it is legal for someone under 18 to work as a prostitute?
For my purposes I’ll add the clarity that countries where patronizing a prostitute is illegal shouldn’t count. We’re talking only about 100% legal “Yeah, hire a prostitute if you want to” countries.
The legality of foreigners patronizing those prostitutes is completely aside, a this is only an academic question. But are there countries that go “Yeah, 14-year-olds are adults, and as such may pursue any career they want, and yeah, that includes prostitution?”
Or has the entire world decided that, either patronizing a prostitute of any age should be illegal, or that people under 18 (or maybe 21) aren’t ready to be making that decision.
Which brings up the related questions:
Are there countries where the minimum age for a prostitute is above 18? and
Do countries that have legal prostitution have a minimum age for customers thereof, and if so what age is it?
Sweden and the UK have different laws. In Sweden it’s legal to sell sex but not to pay for it. In the UK it’s entirely legal to sell sex and to pay for it, as long as this takes place indoors. One thing they share is that in both countries a person who works indoors with another person selling sex can be prosecuted for brothel keeping.
Edit: Norway has the same law as Sweden, more or less.
There was some debate for a while as to whether the 1992 actually conferred a right to travel for abortion. Some Justices took the position that this was only a right in circumstances where the abortion would be legal in Ireland anyway - such as the X and C cases. In the latter, the High Court stated (obiter) that there would be no such right for an elective abortion. This was the basis for the HSE trying to prevent Miss D, a girl in their care, from travelling to England in 2007. It was only then that the High Court finally confirmed that the travel amendment applied to all abortions. There’s probably still some Youth Defence nutters who hope the Supreme Court will overturn this, but at this point you’re right - there really is no debate, at least among sane people.
To my knowledge, every country where sex work is formally legal - as in the law specifically states that it is legal - 18 is the minimum age. Below that, the customer (and employer if she has one) are committing an offence, but she’s not. It used to be 16 in Switzerland, and there’s been talk of raising it to 21 in the Netherlands, but for now I think it’s 18 everywhere.
In Ireland, which has the same law as the UK (see above), as far as I can tell it’s 17, in line with the age of consent. That’s simply because there’s no regulation of adult indoor consensual sex work where the person is working alone, and the legislature has never put in an exception to the age of consent laws for sex that is paid for.
Did you ever get the answer you wanted?
Just a quickie check on Wikipedia gave the age of consent in some states in Mexico at 12, same as Phillipines. 13 in Japan, which kinda surprised me. 16 in Canada which was almost as common as 18.
The concept doesn’t exist in some Muslim countries where sex outside of marriage is illegal …
Hope this helps …
In practice, going to the police means the police know they are engaging in a transaction which is criminalised, and leads to the police following them in order to arrest their customers (ie their source of income) and threaten their landlords with prosecution if they aren’t evicted (because it’s also illegal to rent out a premises that is used for prostitution). Yeah, that makes life pretty tough on them.
Well one would hope so!
Before this legal imperialism by the USA there was an old joke about the most popular law effecting only non-citizen foreigners abroad(har har) now it almost seems not funny.
Just to add about Singapore: Prostitution in Singapore in itself is not illegal, but various prostitution-related activities are criminalized. This includes public solicitation, living on the earnings of a prostitute and maintaining a brothel.
The main issue from the point of view of prostitutes is a bit different : johns require much more discretion, which results in much less safety for the prostitutes. Also, quite obviously, many “customers” will be intimidated, hence reducing their numbers. Of course a plus from the point of view of people who want to fight prostitution, but not something that prostitutes are going to like : less money and less options to be picky.
When France decided to implement this policy, prostitute associations were totally ignored. As were NGOs working with them. So called “abolitionist” Christian associations were associated, on the other hand. Note that this wasn’t a child of the conservative right, but rather of the feminist left.
I’ve noticed sex-worker-rights advocates say they want decriminalization, not legalization. Is that because “legalization” means things like the Nordic Model? Because to me “decriminalization” sounds like “prostitution should not be regulated the way other businesses are regulated” which seems like an unreasonable demand.
IIRC there was a window in the 90s/early 2000s were both child pornography and child prostitution were technically legal in Russia because when the government repealed Soviet era laws criminalizing prostitution and pornography it neglected to set a higher age of consent for those activities (I think the age of consent for sex was only 14 or 15). It may have been another post-Soviet country.
No, you have that totally backwards. Decriminalisation (as sex worker rights advocates define it) means that sex work is regulated more or less the way other businesses are regulated. This means it’s subject to labour laws, occupational health and safety rules, perhaps planning regulations, but not to a range of special rules that apply only to sex work (and that are a criminal offence to breach). Where you have the latter - as in Nevada, parts of Australia, the Netherlands, Germany - that’s where you have legalisation.
I have no idea what the legal minimum age for prostitutes in Denmark is, but I would imagine that a country which openly tolerates brothels catering specifically for bestiality with most species of domesticated animals would be fairly lax about minimum age regulations for human prostitution.
Apparently bestiality has become illegal in Denmark earlier this year (so no more bestiality brothels). Most countries have 18 as the limit, as one would expect, but Switzerland only raised it from 16 in 2013.
Many countries are now considering to move the age limit up to 21 (Netherlands and Germany fi). Dutch “contact websites” supposedly are already refusing new girls that advertise being under 21 (although existing adds are still allowed). There recently was a big case where a 16 year old was found to have “entertained” many clients by pretending to be over 18 (and a boyfriend in the background of course). They went after the clients fairly harshly, considering none of them were actually looking to have sex with a minor.
In germany they are also working towards raising the minimum age, although the 18 year old I talked to a few days ago had no idea this was on the cards.
OK, for Denmark substitute Hungary, Finland and Romania.
How could the government prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that a defendant travelled to country X with the intention of engaging in the illegal sexual activity? Wouldnt they have to present the prostitute as a witness?
I’m not sure why you would think that. Offense against humans are usually considered more grevious than offenses against animals.
The current Prime Minister (Harper, so far) was instrumental in raising the age of consent in Canada from 14 to 16 a few years ago, because, you know, all those bogeymen on the internet luring young girls. More likely it followed a “Focus on Family” agenda.
Canada like the USA has a sex tourism law. I imagine by now most western countries do. I recall something in the news that the USA does not focus on the “intent” provision of the law:
http://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/frequently-asked-questions-faqs
I recall also reading something about the Netherlands having age 16 as the age to consent for things like pornographic pictures… (I assume this may have changed in recent years?) So something legal in one country can be illegal if imported or downloaded in another country.
As for drug testing at the border - Americans might not be denied entry when returning home, but I have read stories about visitors being denied for trivial reasons. Someone writing about Burning Man mentioned that some Canadians who said they were headed there were asked a series of questions at the border which included “have you ever smoked marijuana?” Once they admitted they had ever, even one time engaged in what would be an illegal act in the USA, they were denied entry.
One way is with computer records that show access to websites catering to sex tourists. A Swedish study from a few years back reported that something like 9,600 Swedes were registered on a Thai sex tourism forum. Easy enough to connect the dots from there.