Of course it is. But who is to say that those legal businesses don't partake in human trafficking?

There are legal brothels in Australia found with links to international human traffickers. If Australia has this problem with far more police powers than American police have, who is to say that the problem won't be rampant in the US?

I am all for legal prostitution if it reduces human trafficking. My argument is just that you can't assume that what works in Australia will necessarily work in the US.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/legal-brothels-linked-to-inte...

I think it will reduce human trafficking in that it would be much easier to monitor for human trafficking whereas in the past with some sort of grey-zone criminalization, you would have to actively first detect for sex workers, convince them that you are not arresting them, and then figure out if there are human traffickers or crime involved.

Its one less step if you can more easily monitor and the sex workers can speak freely to police.

In fact I'm more about how they treated sex work in several historical governments in the past and that is only government-operated brothels are allowed.

Where are you getting this idea that Australian police have far more powers than US police? There are differences here and there but our legal systems are fairly similar.

For one Australia does not have a "bill of rights". In the US, the police require probable cause to even stop or question someone. In Australia there is no such requirement. While they can't just arrest or detain people at will, they have far more power over every day people.

Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicious_Lawless_Association_Di...

This law would not be possible in the US due to the US constitution's protection of freedom of association, while it has been strictly enforced at times in the state of Queensland. These sorts of powers substantially weaken organized crime but at major cost to civil rights.

>In the US, the police require probable cause to even stop or question someone

They do not need probable cause, they need "reasonable suspicion"[1].

The same standard Aus had until around a decade ago (now reduced). There were nearly 700K stop and searches in NYC in 2011 alone[2] (vastly reduced now) which undermines your suggestion that the BoR provides solid protection in this particular respect. Although I agree there are some protections offered by codified rights.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

2. http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data

There is however less risk and lower operating costs. I think cost benefits are a bit more complex.

However I think germany's decriminalisation was a good testcase. The netherlands don't seem to have problems either.

Prostitution in Germany is definitely far from decriminalized. I am convinced that it is right to legalize it - but it still should be thoroughly regulated. The recently introduced laws are partially a step in the right direction. Other parts of it actually criminalize it to some extent. F.x. unprotected fellatio is now criminalized.

Your point is contradicted by the fact that Germany, where prostitution is completely legal are the single biggest destination for human trafficking victims. Literally dozens of thousands of them.

Legalising brothels removes the social stigma from prostitute clients increasing demand for prostitution by the order of magnitude. Which gives human traffickers additional incentive.

I think that the good solution is what we have in Poland: prostitution is legal for the clients and individual prostitutes but it is illegal for any third party (e.g. pimp) to interfere and make profit from prostitution. This gives a prostitute possibility to just go to the police and denounce her pimp, making it much harder to force her to sex work.

Building construction is a legal trade in Germany. There are a lot of illegal immigrants working on that trade too. Maybe the relation is more to do with the "booming" economy.

> Literally dozens of thousands of them. Citation needed.

> increasing demand for prostitution by the order of magnitude A whole magnitude? Citation really needed.

In Germany a john has to report to the police if he suspects the prostitute is being coerced, if there are legal women, why would he seek an illegal one and risk jail time?

> report to the police if he suspects the prostitute is being coerced

but what would incentivize said john to report it? I don't think the john is going to make a difference in this case.

I see the German situation more a sign for completely negligent authorities. Pimps are illegal in Germany too. Prostitution is only legal as a contract between the client and the prostitute. But all of this only matters, if authorities perform regular checks which they often skip.

Even if we accept what you say as true, it doesn't contradict the point. It is possible that even if trafficking to Germany increases, the global rate of trafficking decreases, which could be explained by a lot of people going to Germany instead of buying illegally locally. You show it concentrates the rate of buying and trafficking, but not that it increases on average. (I do understand that actually showing it increases on average would be extremely difficult given that it would require a continent level study.)

IMHO, the fact that Germany is surrounded by countries where prostitution is illegal is one of the causes of human trafficking victims. If legalization is generalized, this may reduce.

Where do you have that number from?

The numbers in the Wikipedia link is a couple of magnitudes lower.

The problem with Germany is that Germany is now servicing not just Germany, but also its neighbours because it's an island of legalisation. As a result demand is higher than what the local workforce can provide, making human trafficking profitable. Also regulation is lax and mostly unenforced

Not at all. Most prostitutes in Austria are foreigners.