About structural injustice: Prostitution and sex buyers’ responsibility

Prostitution in Amsterdam has a long history, and for a long time the Wallen area has been viewed as a great example of tolerance and freedom. However, the demand for prostitution also results in human trafficking and forced labour in the prostitution sector. Recent research on self-reported forced labour in the prostitution sector in The Netherlands has shown that the lower bound of forced labour is 8 out of 100 prostitutes. Clients in Amsterdam agree that this is a problem, and some feel responsible. This is because it is hard for buyers to recognize whether a prostitute has been forced into the job or not. Furthermore, buyers in other countries are aware of the fact that trafficking plays a role in this sector (Keren-Paz 2013, Chapter 6)

In a recent Dutch opinion article on www.spatialeconomics.nl I argued that responsibility for systematic injustice and violence in this market should be moved much more to the buyers. This observation is in line with developments in private law research and regulations in some European countries (see Keren-Paz, 2013). However, an unnoticed argument in the debate on buyers’ responsibility is that sex buyers often buy sex multiple times, which increases the probability of having at least 1 times sex with a prostitute who is forced. Research shows that given the nature of the sexual interaction this can be considered as rape according to the definition of law.

When a sex buyer visits Amsterdam, the average number of visits of a client is between 1-5 (weekend versus full week). Without taking a stance on what the exact probability of force is, Table 1 shows the probability of at least 1 rape for different assumptions on the share of forced prostitutes (p) and the number of visits (n). This is helpful for sex buyers as they can use this table to look up the probability that they rape at least one prostitute when visiting Amsterdam or another city in for example Eastern Europe where probabilities of forced labour in brothels are very high.

For example, if a sex buyer visits Amsterdam for a long weekend and goes to a prostitute 3 times and we assume a probability of force of 10%, the probability to rape at least 1 prostitute during this long weekend is 27, 1%.
The median regular buyer in Amsterdam visits prostitutes for about 5-6 times. Multiplying with the number of years, this implies that for buyers who go for longer than 5 years we can be sure that they raped at least one prostitute although it is not known where and when. Note that the average number of rapes is higher.
The first take away from this simple exercise is that when applying probabilities to investigate buyers’ responsibility it is better to look at a series of transactions of a buyer rather than investigating isolated transactions.
The second take away is that the argument developed here is independent of the moral beliefs of persons and only depends on law definitions of rape. Including moral considerations would most likely raise the probability of force and therefore the estimates above can be viewed as a very conservative lower bound.

Questions, suggestions and recommendations can be sent to Paul Koster (author, Department of Spatial Economics and John Stuart Mill College, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

January, 2020

References and links

Opinion article in Dutch:
https://spatialeconomics.nl/over-gedeelde-verantwoordelijkheid-en-markten-het-prostitutiebeleid-kan-veel-eerlijker/

Buyers’ behavior:
https://www.mensenhandelweb.nl/document/rapport-ggd-amsterdam-gesprek-met-de-klant

Violence and prostitution in The Netherlands:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2018/09/13/tk-bijlage-2-onderzoek-prostitutie

Law responses to sex trafficking:
Keren-Paz (2013). Sex Trafficking: A Private Law Response