[San Francisco, December 1. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - DECEMBER 01: A woman looks on during a memorial service at the National AIDS Memorial Grove December 1, 2009 in San Francisco, California. World AIDS Day was observed around the globe today. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

[San Francisco, November 16. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - NOVEMBER 16: Heidi Kooy holds one of her chickens as she walks through her yard which she calls the 'Itty Bitty Farm in the City' November 16, 2009 in San Francisco, California. Heidi Kooy is one of many Americans that have started to raise chickens in their urban yards to try and save money on food costs during the economic downturn and to find a safer alternative to factory farmed food. Chickens provide eggs and natural fertilizer for gardens while eating the bugs that could harm the crops. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

[San Francisco, August 19. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - AUGUST 19: Children on the yellow team celebrate winning the world's largest game of Candyland August 19, 2009 in San Francisco, California. San Francisco's famed Lombard Street, the city's most crooked street, was transfomed into the world's largest game of Candyland to honor the 60th birthday of the popular children's board game. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The new Economist takes a look at the different reactions of Europeans to the problems of sex work regulation and trafficking and found that no one has a great solution.

In the Netherlands, they legalized brothels in order to attempt to eliminate trafficking and the participation of organized crime — an effect that has yet to be seen in the last eight years. Since women have to work in brothels, they remain subject to exploitation by management. Around the same time, Sweden decriminalized selling sex but criminalized buying it; the country saw a reduction in the numbers of street prostitutes, but sex workers now have a more difficult time vetting clients and clients supposedly aren't willing to report suspected trafficking and are heading overseas to get their paid freak on. All over Europe, countries are tightening their laws, criminalizing the buying of sex and, as we reported earlier, England is even on the verge of making it a separate offense to engage in sex with a woman who it later turns out was trafficked.

The only country with as liberal laws on sex work as those Prop K is proposing is New Zealand — in 2003, the country decriminalized prostitution altogether (although without the bit on trafficking and racial profiling). Since then, police report that the number of sex workers appear to be constant and

More than 60% of prostitutes felt they had more power to refuse clients than they did before. The report reckoned that only about 1% of women in the business were under the legal age of 18. And only 4% said they had been pressured into working by someone else.

One of the major differences between the Dutch (and Nevada) experience and the New Zealand one — other than that its isolation appears to mean that trafficking is less of a problem — is that, in New Zealand, most sex workers own their own businesses, so to speak, and that the law is not only designed to encourage sex worker entrepreneurship but, additionally, bans pimping. Another big difference between the New Zealand law and the San Francisco proposal is that the New Zealand law codifies a series of occupation health and safety standards, such as a requirement that condoms (and other barrier methods) be used, a requirement of sex education for all sex workers and a requirement of regular testing and training. It also allows that sex workers can claim worker's comp if they're injured on the job or contract an STI. None of these things are part of the San Francisco proposal, which seems like a bad idea.

All of this is to say that it's a thorny problem with no simple solutions but — as with health care and the financial system — maybe rapid and unmonitored deregulation of sex work in San Francisco isn't going to be the boon to sex workers there that Prop K proponents hope, or the anaethma to moral values and law enforcement that opponents fear.

Prop K Calls For Decriminalizing Prostitution In San Francisco [SF Chronicle]
Regulating The Sex Trade [The Economist]

Earlier: UK Suggests That Men Who Patronize Trafficked Prostitutes Be Prosecuted

Related: A Guide To Occupational Health And Safety In The New Zealand Sex Industry [New Zealand Occupational Safety & Health Service]
Brazil's Government Gives Tips To Prostitutes [Forbes]

Frida Kahlo Look-Alike Model Open Audition Pictures [Feminist Law Professors]
Frida Kahlo Look-Alike Model Open Audition[Stephan Zielinski]

DailyCandy Atlanta has forgotten that it spends most of its time telling us to starve ourselves pretty and suggests we spend our weekend gorging ourselves on fried Twinkies.

DailyCandy Chicago seems to have forgotten that the whole point of DailyCandy is that it's supposed to refer us to something. Saying "Don't get a sunburn" with no external link = not doing their job.

DailyCandy Dallas thinks we should see Space Jam this weekend. You remember Space Jam, don't you? That cartoon/live action movie starring Michael Jordan and the Looney Toons????

DailyCandy Los Angeles thinks we care about bars that serve things other than booze. And more specifically, about bars where we can pick garden plants.

DailyCandy Philadelphia seems to think it makes sense that we'd fork over $10 to lead ourselves on a self-guided tour.

DailyCandy San Francisco thinks that design-your-own-salad spots are still a new thing. Yawn.