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Jamaican PM Says No to Decriminalization of Prostitution

By Tim Waggoner

KINGSTON, Jamaica, June 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Prime Minister of Jamaica has flatly refused to entertain a recommendation that Jamaica decriminalize prostitution. 

According to the Jamaican Observer, PM Golding regarded the suggestion as "ludicrous, ill-informed and unauthorized," affirming he will not even consider such a proposition.

The suggestion was made last week, when senior medical officer in charge of the National HIV/STI Program in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Kevin Harvey, told the Jamaican Observer that the decriminalization of prostitution in Jamaica could yield up to $3 billion in tax dollars. 

Yet, according to numerous reports and studies on the issue, any perceived gains from the legalization of prostitution are always far outweighed by crime, abuse, public costs and societal moral decay.

Gregory Carlin of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition told LifeSiteNews.com in 2007 that the legalization of prostitution just doesn't work. "No model of 'prostitution management', not in Europe, Australia, or New Zealand has ever migrated street prostitution into a viable off-street or brothel model. That is simply not the way prostitution works."
 
In many jurisdictions where prostitution has been legalized, governments already have or are currently reconsidering their decision after rates of child prostitution, sex trafficking and organized crime increased dramatically.

Several countries have found this out the hard way, including the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Finland and Norway, which have changed their laws.

Incredibly in 2005, Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen, who was at one time quoted in the media as praising the legalization of prostitution, was forced to admit the scheme's failure.  "Almost five years after the lifting of the brothel ban, we have to acknowledge that the aims of the law have not been reached", said Cohen, as quoted by NCR. "Lately we've received more and more signals that abuse still continues."

Furthermore, according to a study by the Scottish government in 2003 on the consequences of prostitution policies in several countries, those that had legalized and/or regulated prostitution experienced a dramatic increase in all facets of the sex industry, saw an increase in the involvement of organized crime in the sex industry, and found a dismaying increase in child prostitution, trafficking of women and girls and violence against women.

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