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In Does Legalizing Prostitution Work?, the author says that even after prostitution is legal, a lot of women are still forced into prostitution.

These women are Amsterdam's leading tourist attraction (followed by the coffee shops that sell marijuana). But an estimated 50 to 90 percent of them are actually sex slaves, raped on a daily basis with police idly standing by.

Maybe all this time I was wrong. Maybe most prostitution are indeed forced. I thought otherwise.

Well, can anyone verify?

Perhaps the issue is on the definition of consent, sex slavery, and rape. If you want to give percentage based on various definition of consent, it would be ideal.

Sam I Am
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    To anyone answering: human trafficking statistics often are a mess. Be careful to read the methodology of what you cite in your answers. – Borror0 Feb 27 '12 at 12:21
  • Finally my first question that got upvote. So what is the difference between this and my other questions that this is okay and the other isn't? –  Feb 28 '12 at 01:04
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    Some people I know consider traditional employment slavery too, because most people do it out of necessity and do not realistically have any choice about working or not working. Does being a sex worker out of necessity count? – RomanSt Feb 28 '12 at 01:11
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    That's my point all along. Most sex workers are not even doing it out of necessity. Some got paid $5500 per hour. Some have marriage offers. Most are smart and hot enough for at least some decent job. Some, like sugar babies variety, simply want marriage like relationship free from governments' interference. Marriage on the other hand actually kicked out the richest most desirable males out of mating market. Yet everyone acts as if it's obvious that all those sex workers exploited. Well, in a sense everyone else is yes. But how? –  Feb 28 '12 at 01:15
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    Take a look at this: http://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/764/does-marriage-terms-tend-to-kick-out-more-desirable-mates-males-out-of-mating-ma It's far more easier for me to see that marriage is non consensual than sugar babies as non consensual. –  Feb 28 '12 at 01:25
  • There is only 1 answer. It doesn't really answer the question. I asked how many get forced. That means I should also be able to tell how many are doing it consensually and rationally as Laura Agustin said (namely 100%-forcedpercentage). It says 60% is exploited. Exploited does not mean forced (based on women trafficking definition). Also there are statistic on various form of forced. The total is more than 100%. –  Feb 28 '12 at 09:44
  • Look at dvk comments here http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3579/does-legalizing-prostitution-lead-to-an-increase-in-human-trafficking –  Feb 28 '12 at 09:51
  • @Borror0 why statistic for prostitution is a mess? –  Sep 13 '12 at 11:35
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    @Jim: I said human trafficking, not prostitution (though that would be a true statement). As all underground activity, estimates is the closest to we have to accuracy. Unlike legal industries, the only way we can quantify is by appropriations and extrapolations of limited data. Then, there's the definition of what qualifies as human trafficking which may be important based on context. Being smuggled does not necessarily imply compelled prostitution - or other forms of slavery. Brooke Magnanti elaborates further on that subject [on her blog](http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.ca) if you're curious. – Borror0 Sep 13 '12 at 12:27

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So far, I have been unable to find any estimates that reach the 50-90% figure quoted.

The Eighth report of the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings (2010) explains the difficulty:

There are conflicting estimates of the scale of human trafficking from different organisations and countries. It is therefore very difficult to be certain about the scale of the problem, which underlines the need for the systematic and coordinated collection and management of data.

...

Since human trafficking is often hidden and victims are often unwilling or afraid to speak out (or do not realise that they are victims), there are probably a large number of unknown cases of human trafficking (a large ‘dark number’). Consequently, statistical trends based on the number of known cases of human trafficking usually do not directly reflect developments in the total number of cases of human trafficking. The number of known situations of human trafficking depends to a large extent on factors such as the public attention for human trafficking, the priorities of the investigative services and the public prosecution service, the method of registration employed by victim support organisations, and changes in the law.

However, they do have a detailed analysis of the reported cases of Human Trafficking in the Netherlands, and the numbers are disturbing, with over 900 victims reported in 2009.

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Of these, at least 45% were being exploited in the sex industry (likely a lot higher, given the significant "unknown" figure):

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Obviously, the unreported crime figures are likely to be much higher. These numbers should be compared with the number of prostitutes in the Netherlands - Wikipedia cites a number of different studies that range from 15,000 to 30,000.

As for consent, the 2004 version of the report includes figures on how the traffickers gained compliance:

enter image description here

Oddthinking
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    You don't give us a percentage, though. It's data relevant to the question, yes, but it doesn't look at the percentage of coerced into prostitution. Also, trafficking does not only mean prostitution (though it often does) so it's lacking depth to be useful or informative with regards to the question asked. – Borror0 Mar 01 '12 at 04:16
  • @Borror0: Good point. The previous version had an estimate, but I realised my method was flawed and removed it. – Oddthinking Mar 01 '12 at 04:32
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    So we don't know. Chance is there are 20%-80% of women that actually are made better off by women trafficking due to higher pay in western world. –  Mar 09 '12 at 12:16
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    @JimThio, I have no idea where you plucked those figures. In any case, it is irrelevant. It is generally considered immoral and abhorrent to threaten and/or commit violence, commit fraud, blackmail, kidnapping or feign love, *even if you pay the victim*. – Oddthinking Mar 09 '12 at 12:30
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    Even studies I cited made by those who have great prejudice against prostitution claim 50-90% NC. That means 50-10% is a low estimate of consenting sex workers. Also many coercion shouldn't count. Voodoo is just a religion. Many women are also forced to get married by threat of christians hellfire. We consider that consensual because the idiot consent to believe nonsense. Mentioning voodoo as coercion shows that the study has insidious agenda. –  Mar 09 '12 at 12:44
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    Oddthinking, are you aware that contemporary women trafficking laws also prohibit consensual trafficking? They count being paid for sex as "exploitation" irrelevant of consent and making that illegal. If a woman can earn $5500 an hour as prostitute in US but ended up marrying some nose cutting caveman in Afghan, something non consensual must have happened. One of it is prohibition against consensual acts of simply selling sex to highest bidders. –  Mar 09 '12 at 12:55
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    I think you have misunderstood the situation. It isn't the people who are paying for the sex; it is the people who are selling the women who are committing these acts. I also think that you are over-estimating what a typical, consenting sex-worker earns in an hour, let alone what these victims are earning. (I'm not dignifying your absurd characterisations of marriage, consent, religion, ethics and the alternatives to being a sex-slave with a response.) – Oddthinking Mar 09 '12 at 12:58
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    You mean being middlemen can't be consensual? I think you have misunderstood the situation. German slaughtered many jews because no countries want to allow jews in. The same way Taliban can oppress women because western countries don't allow those women in. I think the reason why feminists criminalize trafficking is to get rid of cheaper competitors, not to protect those so called victim. It's the same reason why most american workers opposes immigration. Except that now we have women competing for husbands/bfs instead of men competing for jobs. –  Mar 09 '12 at 13:07
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    By the way, Oddthinking, there is indeed a group of people that are paid yet forced. Doctors in Indonesia is forced to work for cheaper price to cure the poor so they can keep their licenses. Doctors then ended up working 18 hours a day because after that they need to make real money opening private practice. Now, THAT's slavery. That's abuse. That's exploitation. Just like tax payers forced to fill tax return like prisoners forced to dig their own grave. Yet, I don't see those commies protesting these workers from being enslaved by majestic coach potatoes. –  Apr 02 '12 at 15:09
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    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence – Oddthinking Apr 02 '12 at 22:27
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    Voodoo, really? That is made up. It problably means the whole table is made up. Confiscation of passport? Don't think so, if someone stole ("confiscated") my passport, how does that make me a prostitute? Watch/lock victim ~70%? Don't think so, it just wouldn't work for prostitution. – oxygen Aug 21 '12 at 19:38
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    Thank you, @Tiberiu-Ionuț, for your speculations. I have provided a report generated by a bureau of the Dutch government to support this position. Here is another [article with anecdotes](http://lastradainternational.org/lsidocs/Nigeria.pdf) about the use of Voodoo. I look forward to some counter-evidence from you. – Oddthinking Aug 21 '12 at 23:23
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    @Oddthinking, this report wasn't generated by the same administrators that were responsible for the food for sex scandal and child porn are they? http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/25/world/child-sex-scandal-roils-unicef-unit.html – user1873 Aug 22 '12 at 03:15
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    @user1873: Here's a [map showing the difference between the Netherlands and Belgium](http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/510.htm), and here is a definition of the term [guilt by association](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_by_association). :-) – Oddthinking Aug 22 '12 at 04:43
  • @Oddthinking Making the women swear before a Voodoo priest sounds like they are swearing willingly, and going into prostitution, also willingly. I don't see how this is exploiting or slavery. Quote from your "evidence": `So, they are hardly willing to testify against their traffickers in courts.`. Not appearing in a court of law to testify against your pimp has nothing to do with the "professional" decision one of those girls makes. – oxygen Aug 22 '12 at 08:21
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    If prostitution is not consensual, why not charge the pimp with rape? Why do we need laws against prostitution? If women are tricked into prostitution, why not charge the pimp with fraud? We already have laws against rape, fraud, false imprisonment, slavery, why do we have laws against prostitution and trafficking is beyond me. I can have a good guess, but it'll piss off moral conservative. –  Aug 30 '12 at 17:43