Nowadays, many women from poorer areas, especially Eastern Europe, are brought to the Netherlands to work as prostitutes. Is this just a job or is this modern slavery?
Facts about prostitution
The Netherlands has approximately 25,000 women working in various categories in the sex industry. With the change in the law in 2000, the exploitation of prostitution, popularly referred to as brothel keeping, was legalized. In other words: prostitution has become labor. But in practice, the transition to such a new and more positive approach proves to be extremely difficult and old images and approaches keep reappearing. In short: not everyone is eager to recognize prostitution as normal work.
History shows that the demand for prostitution is so strong that a ban does not help. And if you assume that prostitution exists, it is better to make it legal, many Dutch policymakers must have thought. Prostitution then remains out of the criminal sphere as much as possible. In the event of abuse, the prostitute can more easily call for police help. Moreover, they have protection from normal employment law. All this strengthens the position of prostitutes, and that was the starting point when legalization was chosen. Some equate the legalization of prostitution with the legalization of violence against women. The reasoning behind this is that prostitution is by definition oppression of women: sexual violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and a violation of human rights. The sex industry has long gone hand in hand with crime. The question that arises is how politicians could think that it was sufficient to change the law that was even partly responsible for this. Couldn’t the problems that have come to light since the lifting of the brothel ban have been foreseen? Apparently politicians haven’t thought about it. The fact that sex workers, for example, cannot get a business account at some banks, is hardly a surprise, is it?
Use
Utilitarianism is about maximizing the amount of ,utility, possible. From the above it can be concluded that this utility is not maximized, as there are imperfect market forces. After all, prostitution is often not on a voluntary basis (although this should be the case according to the law), and moreover, prostitution and the crime that can hardly be separated from it have many negative external effects, such as nuisance for the neighborhood. Moreover, when utilitarianism is applied, free market forces are preferred to imperfect market forces.
The legislation makes a distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution (the latter is of course not permitted). However, we believe that all forms of prostitution could be described as involuntary, since people usually only turn to prostitution when they see no other way out. So there is almost never a voluntary, independent choice. Despite the fact that there are prostitutes who say they are satisfied with the way they earn money, we believe that this was not a free choice at some point in their lives. As long as there are other realistic options, we believe women will choose this. After all, the number of girls who decide to enter prostitution in high school in consultation with the counselor will not be very large. From the perspective of rights ethics, prostitution is therefore not acceptable, because women do not freely have their own interests. A woman who prostitutes herself does not freely dispose of her body, but rather gives it away. As the commercialization of the human body continues, it is important to defend the position that the body is not for sale, that this commercialization is the opposite of freedom.
Virtue ethics
From the perspective of virtue ethics, which emphasizes the character of an individual, people, especially men, who use the services of a prostitute or otherwise exploit these women can be regarded as lewd. After all, these men act out of greed and lust. It can also be said from the ethics of care that prostitution cannot be accepted in this way, because there is almost never a valuable relationship when it comes to exploiting women. Unlike the wage worker, who sells her labor power, the prostitute sells her body to satiate someone else’s desire. The prostitute and her body are used not as labor power, but as an object, a commodity. In our view, prostitution is an unacceptable violation of physical integrity and a degrading phenomenon. While its proponents seek justification by talking about a so-called free choice, we should not close our eyes to the importance of this problem. The legislation justifies exploitation of women that has serious consequences. In our opinion, we must fight this system. We are therefore pleased with the proposal that the CDA recently submitted to the House of Representatives, in which the clients of prostitutes addicted to drugs are faced with the prospect of a fine of 11,000 euros and four years in prison. This is because these women can no longer choose their own lifestyle. This proposal recognizes that there are major problems in prostitution.
Conclusion
Prostitutes may call themselves economically independent, but the way in which this independence is achieved, by disrespectfully offering your body, is unacceptable. Now, almost 90 years after the first steps towards emancipation were taken, we have still not managed to shake off the image of the object of desire that many women encounter. And by legalizing the oldest profession in the world, this image is only strengthened. Offering this profession to unemployed women and also obliging them to take up this profession is more proof that there is no respect for the female body or the self-esteem of women. It seems as if legalizing this profession is not serious enough that people are even encouraging it.