Skip to main content
How can prostitution ever conform with our employment laws and practice?
ESTHER, from Nordic Model Now! explains how decriminalisation of prostitution, rendering it just another form of ‘work’, would undermine the Equality Act 2010

A CO-ORDINATED international campaign is seeking to reframe prostitution, which is both a cause and a consequence of inequality between men and women, as simply a form of “work” no different from any other which should either be fully decriminalised or legalised.

Germany, the Netherlands and some other states have legalised systems where prostitution is controlled by the government and legal only in certain specified conditions. 

In 2003 New Zealand introduced full decriminalisation, which involves the removal of all prostitution-specific laws, including laws against pimping and brothel-keeping. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Features / 6 March 2025
6 March 2025
Wherever prostitution laws are ‘liberalised,’ the result is a surge in human trafficking and abuse, writes STELLA BAILEY
Features / 4 February 2025
4 February 2025
Attempts to redefine prostitution as ‘work’ conceal the reality of commercial sexual abuse, writes ROBYN MARTIN
TUC 2024 / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
Women need access to meaningful and properly paid work, not coercion into the abusive and dangerous sex industry, write LUBA FEIN and HELEN O’CONNOR
The sex trade and trafficking are intrinsically linked
Features / 24 June 2024
24 June 2024
The Communist Party of Britain issues the following public statement on prostitution