Vice Myth #527,001: Criminalizing Prostitution Protects Women

Attorneys General across America have been getting themselves press by hounding the online classifieds service, Craigslist, for facilitating prostitution. According to ABC News there is “public outrage” over Craigslist. This prudish moral grandstanding would be less noxious if it did not cloak itself as protecting women.

Supposedly this public outrage grew due to the “Craigslist Killer,” Philip Markoff, who is charged with murdering a woman he found through Craigslist’s erotic services category. According to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Craigslist had to shut down its erotic services listings saying:

We have a responsibility to protect children and women and anyone who may be victims of these kinds of criminal activity that may involve human trafficking, child exploitation, other brutal and violent crime.

What? If it was not for Craigslist, police would not have been able to track down Markoff. (They traced his Craigslist e-mails.)

Driving sex work underground is exactly what makes it dangerous. Sex workers in legal brothels do not have to worry about client abuse or persecution by law enforcement. They can also be easily found by moralists that wish to “save” them.

Blumenthal told ABC News, “We’re not going away.”

Mr. Blumenthal, that is why sex workers’ lives are endangered.

Read more at the prior post “The $1,000/hr Victim”. To hear the voices of proud, intelligent, and fabulous sex workers go to the blog, Bound, Not Gagged.

Sources:

1. Lisa Fletcher, et al., “Fingerprints, Scratches Tied to Craigslist Suspect,” ABCNews.Go.com, 23 Apr. 2009. LINK
2. Sarah Netter, “Craigslist Clean-Up: Is it Really Working?” ABCNews.Go.com, 20 June 2009. LINK