Surely that's more a lack of proper regulations and enforcement. Things designed to keep safety and standards instead of punishment and determent.

Elaborating: If there is sufficient /convenient/, legal, not over-priced, service for the clients that clearly do exist then underground (criminal) fulfillment is much less profitable. Making onerous (for no good reason) regulations are one form of increasing the price of legal services and thus making it more profitable for unwanted fulfillment to occur.

What makes "journalistsresource.org" a credible resource?

It's located at Harvard Kennedy School of Government which is basically an "elite factory" for the (re-)production of the US political elite -- just look at their alumni [2] and faculty [1]. The US's official policy is extremely anti legalisation of prostitution. In this context, "journalistsresource.org" looks like an instrument of projecting soft power [3], a mechanism to communicate US government policy, but obscuring the origin. I recommend being a little bit more reflective on the nature of your sources.

I also recommend to be suspicious of the term "trafficking" in this context. It's an attack term that is intended to appeal to your emotions, you are expected to think of 7 year old girls being 'stolen' from some destitute 3rd world country and being 'sold' into prostitution in a country where prostitution is legal (eg. Holland). However to a pretty good approximation this doesn't happen. Where prostitution is legal, essentially all (to a pretty good approximation) women who work in prostituion are adults and choose their job, in the same way that others become lorry drivers or carpenters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

Prostitution in an imaginary world is a world of free agents doing what they want.

The problem is, just like with markets like room sharing and car sharing, is that you have pimps.

Regarding work, almost nobody does "what they want", we find some compromise between our interests, abilities, and available work opportunities. Work is often understood to be that which we don't do voluntarily.

   you have pimps.

I'd appreciate it if you could be more precise.

1. What do you mean by "pimp"? Is it the same as a co-worker, or is it the same as "boss" or something else?

2. For your chosen concept of "pimp", could you explain which of the following you belive to be true, and what the credible, methodologically controlled evidence you have for your belief:

- All prostitutes in all legislations have one or more "pimps"?

- Some but not all prostitutes in all legislations have one or more "pimps"?

- All prostitutes in some but not all legislations have one or more "pimps"?

- Some but not all prostitutes in some but not all legislations have one or more "pimps"?

For all the "some"s, I'd appreciate quantitative data, are we talking about 99.9% or 0.1%. And: is there a systemic difference w.r.t. "pimping" between legal systems where prostitution is legal, and those where it is not?

Finally, I'd be interested to learn why -- for your chosen notion of "pimp", having one or more "pimps" is good/bad.

Harvard scholars are not credible, but we're debating the virtues of pimps?

I've learned what I need to learn. Moving on.

Have you learned something? Hmmm. I think you are defending a belief system against a principled challenge by looking away. That is a labour saving device and convenient.

The rhetorical device you've used in the last reply include "argumentum ad auctoritatem" and "non sequitur".

And illegal prostitution creates more danger for prostitutes since they can't rely on normal mechanisms for crime prevention.

Yes.

And it's perfectly rational and advisable for prostitutes to move from legal systems where prostitution is illegal (hence dangerous) to legal systems where it is legal (hence safe).

It probably wouldn't in the long term if done correctly, though it's quite obvious why it wouldn't the short term, especially when significant political effort has gone into assuring that all the tools used to fight human trafficking are intimately tied into the prohibition of prostitution because the whole purpose was to use outrage against humanity trafficking as political cover to bolster prohibition of prostitution.

Legalizing cars increases vehicle theft. Legalizing pharmaceutical drugs increases smuggling.

Whenever something can be done legally, someone will try to provide/supply the service/good illegally for his own profit.