U.N. report calls for decriminalizing prostitution

BANGKOK — Thailand and New Zealand sound like the best places for prostitutes in Asia and the South Pacific, because they don’t face the repressive laws that exist in the rest of the region, according to a new U.N. report that calls for the decriminalization of the voluntary sex trade.

The worst countries to be caught possessing a condom while appearing to work as a prostitute include China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

In those countries, an unused condom can be used as evidence that a person is an illegal sex worker.

Renting bodies for money in Asia also involves niche demographics.

On the Indian subcontinent, for example, so-called “flying” sex workers are people, such as students, who work part time.

Organizations focusing on prostitution, HIV/AIDS and related legal problems discussed these and other issues at a recent meeting in Bangkok, where they discussed the U.N. study “Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific.”

“Nearly all countries of Asia and the Pacific criminalize some aspects of sex work, … criminalization increases vulnerability to HIV,” said Cherie Hart, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), describing the dangers of contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The report called for the decriminalization of prostitution because it found “no evidence from countries of Asia and the Pacific” that outlawing the sex trade has prevented HIV epidemics among sex workers and their clients.

New Zealand and Australia’s New South Wales province are models of how decriminalization of prostitution boosted condom use and slowed the spread of HIV, resulting in “extremely low or nonexistent” transmission of sexual diseases among prostitutes, said the report.