Prostitution

The exchange of sexual services for money or other consideration between consenting adults, an activity whose legal status varies markedly across the world, ranging from full criminalization of both selling and buying, to decriminalization or legalization with regulatory licensing, to models that criminalize only the purchase of sex while decriminalizing its sale. Where it remains a criminal offense, it is prosecuted as distinct from human trafficking and pimping, which involve coercion or third-party exploitation of the person providing the service, since prostitution as legally defined in most statutes concerns a transaction between two consenting adults rather than the exploitation of one by another. Debate over the appropriate legal model has continued for decades among lawmakers, public health researchers and advocacy groups holding differing views on how best to reduce the harms associated with the sex trade.