It's been a while since I've thought about this important question. I'm generally about harm-reduction and therefore decriminalization. But Janice Raymond is someone I respect, and she makes some pretty strong arguments against legalization/decriminalization, claiming that legalization does neither empower women nor improve their health: http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/issues/prostitution_legalizing.html

I don't have a clear position on this one.

i read those arguments. they are compelling. i think the problem is that you cant legalize prostitution without having the paradigm shift. attitudes must change for their to be a market for cruelty free prostitution. this means we have to have the discussion that women own their bodies and feminine sexuality lives in the minds and bodies of women, not a patriarchal cultural construct. it seems like in the case of trafficking into the netherlands it only attracted perverts and predators to the netherlands because then they could exploit girls legally. exploitation has to be taken out of sexual desire. this probably ties in alot with the overwhelming misogyny we're sold through marketing. also, what kind of men frequent brothels? its a thorny subject.

It's a very complex question. I think I have to agree with Raymond, and I do remember with great respect the way she shredded the UN paper on legalization. But the intolerable status quo remains. I think that street prostitution at least would disappear if drug laws as currently enforced in my country did not in fact facilitate addiction.