The BBC carried a report this week about proposals in Belgium to legalize — and heavily tax — prostitution in that country. Faced with a budget deficit, Belgian lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize the world’s oldest profession and, in return, force sex workers to pay a tax that would raise up to 50 million euros for the cash-strapped country.
Both Germany and the Netherlands have similar schemes, but at least one advocate for prostitutes claims that in those countries prostitutes simply exchanged one form of economic exploitation for another. The BBC quotes Marion Detlefs who works at a prostitute advice center in Germany as saying,
It has, however, been very difficult [to make the transition from illegal to legal]. When it was set up there was much talk of securing proper contracts, proper health insurance but a lot of this hasn’t materializes because of big holes in the legislation. At the moment it looks like all the government cares about is getting their hands on sex workers’ money — women who are already hard-up are giving their earnings away and getting very little return.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that in the Netherlands the law legalizing prostitution only allows Dutch and EU citizens to work as prostitutes — effectively keeping immigrant prostitutes as part of the illegal, underground economy without the protections of legalization.
Source:
Making sex pay. Clare Murphy, The BBC, July 16, 2003.