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Comment by csomar | Hacker News Reader

> Both are dangerous work

Because the regulation is crappy. Current regulation and laws is what made them dangerous.

> Both have high degree's of human trafficking

Again. This is due to the current laws. If woman were able to travel to another country (say, USA) and do short-term entertainment work for a few months on her own terms, you will reduce human trafficking.

The current laws benefit lots of people. For politicians, this problem doesn't exist since prostitution is illegal. For human traffickers and clubs, this brings them money because if woman were to operate legally on a freelance basis, they'll have no business mode. The customers don't really care.

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> For human traffickers and clubs, this brings them money because if woman were to operate legally on a freelance basis, they'll have no business mode.

Operating legally on a freelance basis is the norm for strippers right now. The club's business model is that they charge the stripper for use of the floor.

> If woman were able to travel to another country (say, USA) and do short-term entertainment work for a few months on her own terms, you will reduce human trafficking.

I don't think regulation would fix this. Is the main impetus for human trafficking the inability for sex workers to independently travel? Doesn't fit my mental model of the issue.

It could be a factor, but probably not a main one.

I know first hand that there are organizations that will help people in poor countries get a tourist visa to a wealthier country, and set them up with under the table jobs for a few months so they can go home with enough cash to support their families for the rest of the year. Not legal, but relatively harmless.

I've heard stories, but no personal knowledge, of traffickers pretending to be one of the above organizations, but once the victim is in the foreign country, they effectively enslave them using some combination of confiscating their documents, direct threats, threats against relatives, and lying/exaggerating what the local law enforcement will do if they find out they came to work illegally. By the time people back home realize something is wrong, the traffickers have already moved on. No idea how accurate or how common this is.

Same would apply to orgs offering to smuggle people into a wealthy country without a visa with the intention of staying indefinitely. In either case, I suppose a freer flow of labor could reduce that grey market and therefore the opportunity for abuse.

> Because the regulation is crappy. Current regulation and laws is what made them dangerous.

Regulation will never work to create better working condition. There will always be more laborers willing to replace you than amazing job opportunities. Also, labor regulation is constantly being worked around by companies. Eg. in Europe, due to tough regulation of working conditions, many workers are now being employed as freelancers and therefore receiving exactly zero worker protections.

Competition for workers is what has empirically worked to improve working conditions. UBI or just reducing monopolistic living costs, such as real estate rent, could give people the option not to work - the biggest contribution to competition for workers.

> Regulation will never work to create better working condition.

Regulations do already create better working conditions, including making workplaces safer and things like overtime pay for wage earners. Why do you think that more regulations can’t improve the conditions further?

> Current regulation and laws is what made them dangerous.

Could you please elaborate a bit more?

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