Should Prostitution be legalise in Papua New Guinea?

[Alming Lotof]

Guys, any debating point about this? I suggest prostution should be legalise in PNG.

Point1. illegal prostution is the major course of increasing HIV/AIDS. As with legalisation, there will be controlled measures, laws an regulations to safeguard the sexworker and the customer

Point2. Those who are causing rapes and other sexual abuses are those people I believe who can't maintain successful sexual relationship, some are too busy, others unattractive,even shy. Some even want variety of fullfillment of sexual fantasy in them. With legalisation I believe there will be decline in rape, sexual abuses, and even HIV/AIDS. this will create alternative for people who wana have sexual relationships in proper manner instead of rape and so forth.

[Kara]

Nice topic to raise up Alming.

As we all know and are aware of, prostitution is not a new thing in PNG,let alone the whole world. Prostitution exists in every corner of the world and in various forms. There is Traficking of women and children for the sake of prositution, child prostitution, forced prostitution, "passangeer meri" and the list goes on.

From my perspective, the question at hand is not whether to legalise prostitution, rather, we should be looking at the causes of prostitution. What are those causes, reasons or factors that cause men, yes men, women and children to go into prostitution. After all, what is there to say that with the legalisation of prostitution, HIV/AIDS will still increase? It is merely a normative statement, to say that prostitution is the major cause of the increase in HIV/AIDS. No one can tell who has the dreaded virus, so how can we say it will be controlled or minimized with legalisation? (that is unless with legalisation, they plan on checking every single customer to see if he/she has the virus befor allowing them their service!)

What we need to collaborate upon and find are the factors that "force" men, women and chldren into prostitution. One such factor could be the economic circumstances facing the individual and his/her immediate family. Life is hard in today's world and people are struggling to make ends meet. Women/Mothers who do not have husbands or guardians to look after them turn to selling their bodies as the only means of making money. True, many may argue that they can still till the soil and sell garden produce, but what land will they use? With an increase in rural to urban migration, where will they grow food? There is not even enough land back home to cater for them, even if we do say that we have the wantok system to fall back upon. Most wantoks today will be hesitant,even reluctant, to feed extra mouths.
PNG is mainly a patrilineal society where land mostly goes to the man, with the exception of the matrilineal societies, so where will unmarried women grow their food?

We may argue that legalising prostitution will solve other social problems like, rape, increase in HIV/AIDS, etc., but personally, I highly doubt that. There is no proof that legalising prostitution will decrease the number of rape and HIV/AIDS cases. For instance, rape does not come about because prostituton is not legalised. The motives behind rape of women (and men) are varied. Some see it as a quest of power or dominion, they want to be seen as someone who has power over someone else. Some may see women as merely sex objects. We hear about cases where a young girl gets raped, or a mother gets raped, and we say "turangu sore lo em" and yet we do nothing to stop what is happening to our mothers, sisters,aunts,bubus. We even go to the extent of saying that it was the lady's fault! What are we coming to? It all has to do with the attitudes, mind sets and mentality that we all have with regard to the person next to us. How we view one another.

But that's out of the topic. It is in my opinion that we all should work collectively as one, as a group, to find the causes that force our mothers,sisters, children into prostitution. Do not discriminate and look down on them,we do not know the circumstances that brought them to where they are now: selling their bodies to buy bread.
Once we get to the bottom of those causes, we can then help our fellow contrymen and women. It is not a matter of legalisation of prostitution, it is a matter of using our eyes and having an open mind to see what we can do to help our country men and women.....and it starts individualy. It starts with ME...and it starts with YOU....

[joe ckirio]

I personaly agree with what you say.Legalising protitution will only increase Hiv/Aids. thankyou.

Kara said:

Nice topic to raise up Alming.

As we all know and are aware of, prostitution is not a new thing in PNG,let alone the whole world. Prostitution exists in every corner of the world and in various forms. There is Traficking of women and children for the sake of prositution, child prostitution, forced prostitution, "passangeer meri" and the list goes on.

From my perspective, the question at hand is not whether to legalise prostitution, rather, we should be looking at the causes of prostitution. What are those causes, reasons or factors that cause men, yes men, women and children to go into prostitution. After all, what is there to say that with the legalisation of prostitution, HIV/AIDS will still increase? It is merely a normative statement, to say that prostitution is the major cause of the increase in HIV/AIDS. No one can tell who has the dreaded virus, so how can we say it will be controlled or minimized with legalisation? (that is unless with legalisation, they plan on checking every single customer to see if he/she has the virus befor allowing them their service!)

What we need to collaborate upon and find are the factors that "force" men, women and chldren into prostitution. One such factor could be the economic circumstances facing the individual and his/her immediate family. Life is hard in today's world and people are struggling to make ends meet. Women/Mothers who do not have husbands or guardians to look after them turn to selling their bodies as the only means of making money. True, many may argue that they can still till the soil and sell garden produce, but what land will they use? With an increase in rural to urban migration, where will they grow food? There is not even enough land back home to cater for them, even if we do say that we have the wantok system to fall back upon. Most wantoks today will be hesitant,even reluctant, to feed extra mouths.
PNG is mainly a patrilineal society where land mostly goes to the man, with the exception of the matrilineal societies, so where will unmarried women grow their food?

We may argue that legalising prostitution will solve other social problems like, rape, increase in HIV/AIDS, etc., but personally, I highly doubt that. There is no proof that legalising prostitution will decrease the number of rape and HIV/AIDS cases. For instance, rape does not come about because prostituton is not legalised. The motives behind rape of women (and men) are varied. Some see it as a quest of power or dominion, they want to be seen as someone who has power over someone else. Some may see women as merely sex objects. We hear about cases where a young girl gets raped, or a mother gets raped, and we say "turangu sore lo em" and yet we do nothing to stop what is happening to our mothers, sisters,aunts,bubus. We even go to the extent of saying that it was the lady's fault! What are we coming to? It all has to do with the attitudes, mind sets and mentality that we all have with regard to the person next to us. How we view one another.

But that's out of the topic. It is in my opinion that we all should work collectively as one, as a group, to find the causes that force our mothers,sisters, children into prostitution. Do not discriminate and look down on them,we do not know the circumstances that brought them to where they are now: selling their bodies to buy bread.
Once we get to the bottom of those causes, we can then help our fellow contrymen and women. It is not a matter of legalisation of prostitution, it is a matter of using our eyes and having an open mind to see what we can do to help our country men and women.....and it starts individualy. It starts with ME...and it starts with YOU....

[Rips Amesii]

Broda,
Thanks for creating this forum about prostitution in PNG.We must know that prostitution is part of life for all the developing countries of the world and our beautiful country,PNG is no exception.Especially, most of our young girls are invovled in this illicit activity because most of their parents and guardians cannot afford what they need to beautify their bodies and to have what they need as young girls.As a result,they go out to the streets and look for men who have the money and sleep with them in return of money.Therefore, to reduce this illicit activity from happening it is good that our governmet should legalise prostitution in PNG as Lady Carol Kidu and Luther Wenge are continuously stressing on fighting this issue in the parliament house.
Just recently, our dailies have reported that sex workers in Mt.Hagen and Madang are using nearby bushes to conduct their illicit activities and that suggests that they need a proper place to do that so that they can be registered legally and earn their living through providing sex to the public.
Therefore,I personally think that even though our country is a Christian country,since it is still poor,it is good that prostitution be legalised for the good of those sex workers and our young girls to prevent them from being infected by HIV/AIDS.If other developed countries can legalise prostitution,then we can legalise it if we want to advance with them in terms of fight against HIV/AIDS.Remember, "Prevention is better than Curing"....