I've heard that the human trafficking numbers increase with legal prostitution since volume increases also, even if the percentage is lower. The Netherlands has huge problems with drug smuggling and human trafficking despite both being largely legal there.
While I don't disagree that prostitution should be legal, it's a bit more complicated than the utopia you just painted.
The situation in the Netherlands is also a lot more complicated.
Drugs are not largely legal at all, they're largely illegal. In fact, they're entirely illegal, there's just a gray area when it comes to a few soft drugs (pretty much just weed now - and I believe truffles in some head shops possibly... but no longer mushrooms.) Bringing weed into the country: still technically illegal. Other drugs: very much illegal. Regarding drug law, I would suggest looking to Portugal as a closer representation to that perfect utopia.
Regarding prostitution, I don't know enough to have much of a personal opinion on whether legalisation would help.
I used to think very strongly that it would. Last year I visited (as a tourist, not as a customer) Europe's largest brothel [0], in Germany, and came away with the opinion that if people are going to pay for sex, in a legal system like this is the best way for it. And I still see the benefits, but I've also since read up a little and found out many of the girls in that brothel were still trafficked over, still have pimps, etc.
But... don't be too quick to jump to one conclusion or the other. Maybe the NL situation would be better if the entire world also legalised it? Maybe there are different ways of doing it to the way NL has done it. Etc.
It is. You can run a "legal" business, but still have to deal with the mob on your back door. I know someone who quit running a coffeeshop for only this reason.
While i'm not sure whether legalization or the Swedish approach works best(criminalization of purchase), but if we want to prevent trafficking, maybe it's possible to use some sort of lie detector(standard, fmri, P300), etc - and ask girls whether they work for themselves, or are forced , or trafficked - and only let girls who work for themselves work in legal brothels ?
It won't be perfect, but maybe it can reduce trafficking ?
EDIT: please down just downvote, explain what's wrong with my line of reasoning ?
While regular polygraphs are not reliable, I think usage for P300(i.e. brain fingerprinting) is more reliable, and even used in some courts.
for some numbers ,see[1]- "With both P300 and P300-MERMER, error rate was 0 %: determinations were 100 % accurate, no false negatives or false positives; also no indeterminates. Countermeasures had no effect. Median statistical confidence for determinations was 99.9 % with P300-MERMER and 99.6 % with P300"
So maybe this could be a good starting point for something useful for trafficking prevention ?
They have an error rate - which makes them in admissable as a tool for deciding whether someone should go to jail. That's reasonable.
On the other hand, their are routinely used in classified agencies for some tasks.
So maybe ,even with this error rate, we could see reduction at trafficking , at some risk of loss for freedom of profession. Maybe the benefits are big and the disadvantages are quite small(depending on error rates, etc) ? Maybe it's a worthwhile tradeoff ?
You make it seem as if lie detectors somewhat work, except that they have a stochastic failure rate of x%. They don't, they're snake oil. Whole libraries have been written about it, one can start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph and follow the literature from there. No civilized country allows lie detectors to be used for any 'real' purposes except the US.
So no, it's not a worthwhile tradeoff, because it's hardly better than rolling dice.
I have also heard that human trafficking increases after legalisation. This makes sense to me since other relatively unpleasant jobs are also done by illegal immigrants in many countries.
My remaining question is how we draw the line between voluntary illegal immigration and human trafficking for this class of work. I'd guess from my perspective even the voluntary immigration would seem beyond harrowing and carries risk of abuse and death along the way, so it would be easy to paint all of it as bad, yet clearly many think this is the best chance for them and their families.
While I don't disagree that prostitution should be legal, it's a bit more complicated than the utopia you just painted.