Abstract

Our position is that the threat and experience of violence that sex workers face is a crucial issue to address and should be considered in debates concerning the legalization of prostitution because even in countries where prostitution is legalized, prostitutes continue to experience violence. Our focus is to show that violence is crucially important to address because both the experience and the fear of physical, sexual or psychological harm erodes women ’s capacity to choose and act autonomously. We shall argue, then, that despite differences between inside and outside prostitution, all women in prostitution suffer unacceptable levels of violence ; hence, we conclude that all forms of prostitution continue to be morally problematic