Hong Kong's realistic approach to policing sex work
Grenville Cross says while the buying and selling of sex is legal here, the law comes down hard on organised prostitution and trafficking - in line with a recent global drive to decriminalise the trade
The group's stance, however, is supported by others, including the World Health Organisation, UNAids, the International Labour Organisation, Human Rights Watch and the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women.
Amnesty says that, although the buying and selling of sex between consenting adults should not be an offence, its policy is not to protect pimps.
Instead of prosecuting sex workers and their clients, the focus should be on tackling exploitation and abuse. A trafficked woman, after all, is not a sex worker exercising free choice, but a crime victim. Amnesty's policy adviser, Catherine Murphy, says trafficking in women is "an abhorrent abuse of human rights, and must be criminalised as a matter of international law".
The police have certainly focused more on the evils of the sex trade, such as the ensnarement of underaged girls, rather than on hounding individual sex workers, which is a sensible deployment of resources
In Germany and the Netherlands, which have liberal prostitution laws, brothels are licensed, with sex workers having access to state benefits and health checks. High levels of security, not available to freelancers working alone, are also in place. Amnesty discovered that sex workers felt that criminalisation made them less safe.