Talk:Prostitution in Europe

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Stylistic uniformity
Both the following expressions recur.
 * In ... prostitution is legal
 * In ... prostitution is not illegal

It'd be better if the words 'legal' and 'illegal' were used and double negatives avoided.

Prostitution in the Vatican
No article on prostitution in the vatican? I'm disappointed! ;) 74.78.116.93 (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess the male citizens of the Vatican would cross the border to Italy when such needs would rise ;)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.210.121.77 (talk) 11:58, 18 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually there is prostitution in the Vatican. Call-boy rings and so forth. It's just that the good people running this article won't let anyone add that to the article.
 * There is a WP article about the 2010 Vatican employee sex scandal. The main issue preventing its incorporation here would appear to be that this article focusses on the legal situation regarding the sex industries of various European nations, whereas the Vatican story appears to describe a single incident. - Polly Tunnel (talk) 11:48, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Romania
Romania on the map should be changed to blue or green Prostitution in that country is decriminalized earlier this year 174.91.155.111 (talk) 16:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * An English language ref would be useful. If (as the map claims) it is illegal to buy sex, then prostitution is illegal - not decriminalised. Jim Michael (talk) 17:35, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Slovenia
The information about prostitution in Slovenia is sooooo outdated! It's legal with accordance with The Court of Justice of the European Communities —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nenir (talk • contribs) 03:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Prostitution is illegal in Slovenia, but the police often turn a blind eye. I once got busted in a raid on a brothel, the Police let me go in exchange for paying for them to have sex as well. 77.234.159.97 (talk) 11:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Prostitution in Slovenia is legal but not regulated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.77.182.228 (talk) 00:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I come from Slovenia and know that prostitution is decriminalised. Prostitution is legal, pimping is illegal. Police can not put prostitutes in the jail, so please, put the blue colour on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.212.162.89 (talk) 17:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Greece
Prostitution is not "NOW" legal and regulated in Greece. It was always legal and regulated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.66.30.182 (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

why is Crete blue in color? it's part of Greece thus bares the same laws 91.140.89.75 (talk) 22:13, 15 June 2018 (UTC)


 * You are correct. I've updated the table --John B123 (talk) 19:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Russia
Prostitution is not a crime but administrative offence in Russia (like walking nude on the street, drink beer in public place or publicly using derogatory words). Prostitution article has been removed from Russian criminal code.--MathFacts (talk) 13:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Ukraine
more than 50 percent of women support their children and families through sex work - I think the source is misinterpreted. That is more than 50% of prostitutes support their families, not of all women.--MathFacts (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"Criminal administrative offence"
There is no such thing in Russian law. Offense is either criminal or administrative. The US state department invented this term to further their agenda on human rights violations in Russia. Please stop citing US government on issues of Russian law.--MathFacts (talk) 09:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Kazakhstan = Europe?
Kazakhstan is Central Asia, whoever add Kazakhstan on the article is not smart enough to be a 1st grader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.68.114 (talk) 12:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you think Uralsk is not European city?--MathFacts (talk) 14:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a small part of the country that lies within Europe (just like in e.g. Turkey). --Oddeivind (talk) 09:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Latvia
"In 8 European countries (Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Hungary and Latvia) prostitution is legal and regulated." That means that Latvia should be green on the map. It's not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.29.77.101 (talk) 20:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The map is wrong.--Hebbes No1 (talk) 22:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Spain
The information about Spain is incorrect, and the citations don't say what they are supposed to. Brothels are legal in Spain, as evidenced by several recent articles about a giant brothel in La Jonquera near the French border called "Paradise," like here and here.

I can't find any information about exactly what the law is there, but I'm changing the text in Spain to at least acknowledge what I can verify.

Can someone change the map?

Cranialsodomy (talk) 01:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Split
I think if we split it as suggested someone may do some serious work on it Michael Goodyear 19:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Map
I think the map is misleading - regulatory systems don't fit into neat categories - after all what does "illegal" mean? Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC) The map also does not reflect the current reality that Belgium has decriminalized prostitution as of June 2022 Desmond Ravenstone (talk) 17:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Poland
I think we have enough material to start a separate page Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Prostitution in Europe template
The template in the bottom of the article is not correrct. For example "Prostitution in the Netherlands" do not work. I am not a established user, so I can not edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.89.34.82 (talk) 10:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Can anyone get this fixed? 88.91.90.34 (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarification about Slovenia?
The US State Department source given in note 91 says: "Prostitution is illegal but decriminalized". What the hell does this mean? Is this not contradicting itself? Is the act of selling and buying sex illegal or not? -- Darthdyas (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I come from Slovenina and know that prostitution in Slovenia is decriminalized, only pipmpin and borthels are illegal. So you have to mark picture as blue, not red! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.212.162.89 (talk) 17:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Scandinavia vs. Eastern Europe
Quote: ''In Sweden, Norway, and Iceland it is illegal to pay for sex, but not to be a prostitute (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute). In Eastern Europe, the anti-prostitution laws target the prostitutes, because in these countries prostitution is condemned from a moral\conservative viewpoint.''

There is a bias towards the scandinavian model here. I would claim the reason in these countries are also a moral / conservative viewpoint. Therefore this remark, should be removed. AnderzJensen (talk) 20:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with mr. Jensen. It could definitely be argued that the Scandinavian cases also represents a conservative viewpoint. As the article reads at the moment, it clearly presents a point of view. About the east european cases, there is no info abt the customers. The article does not state whether the customer commits a crime in this countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.210.127.117 (talk) 16:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Concubine Helvetica
The article is false, it is not true that Switzerland has already banned underage whoredom! To this day there are thousands of hungarian females working as immigrant pleasure dolls in CH and hundreds of them are mere 16-18 year old, many not volunteers, but trafficked. Allegedly, an average of 2-3 hungarian prostitutes are found murdered in CH every week and sometimes they are minors!

The EU has refused to permanently de-Schengenize Switzerland, even though strict border guard controls could stop the influx of minor "chick meat" into the swiss sex market. The citizen security problem is so severe for Hungary and the swiss are so cheeky, that some even recommended trying to invoke NATO 5th articles on this issue!

There is some support from US christian-cons. circles to block Gripen jet engine transfers unless the swiss comply in the red district, but they have to keep low profile, because the outrages of .CH protitution are much similar to .IL prostitution and poiticians from W. DC can't touch the latter topic, obviously. 87.97.100.112 (talk) 20:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Argentina ?
New edit lists argentina as a location where sex workers are traffic'd to. This is on europe. should we leave that in ? --RichardMills65 (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Map problems
The island of Bornholm belongs to Denmark and therefore should be blue, not pink. Malta should also be blue, as prostitution is legal but unregulated. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 01:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Reorganization
All Prostitution by Region pages have been reorganized to be consistent - using UN region classification. Some template entries may need editing (redirect)--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Contradictions between table and map
Blue on map = legal, but still listed as "not legal" in table. Countries with contradictions are e.g. France, Denmark, Finland, etc.. Could someone with background fix this? Otherwise I'd rather remove both from the page until the problem is resolved. --80.141.14.54 (talk) 17:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It is hard to consider. One can draw accurate conclusions about legality from current image.  Occult Zone  ( Talk ) 02:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I removed the table. It is unsourced, and not fully correct. (procuring is illegal in Hungary) 2A02:2F0A:508F:FFFF:0:0:50C:91C1 (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Brothels legal in Spain
Are you crazy? Look at that map. Brothels are legal in Spain and there's plenty of them. My uncle runs one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.33.60.75 (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

What does "illegal" mean?
Sometimes in the article it is only written that prostitution is illegal, without sufficient explanation. For instance in Lithuania it is written that it is illegal to sell sex, but it says nothing about whether it is illegal to pay for sex. In Sweden it is illegal to pay for sex, but not to sell sex. Are both illegal in Lithuania? The article is not clear on this. --Vitzque (talk) 09:19, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Pimping is NOT legal in Germany!
According to the table in the article pimping is legal in Germany, but this is not true.

Section (§) 180a of the German "Strafgesetzbuch" (German penal code) says:

Exploitation of prostitutes

(1) Whosoever on a commercial basis maintains or manages an operation in which persons engage in prostitution and in which they are held in personal or financial dependency shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(2) Whosoever

1. provides a dwelling or on a commercial basis an abode or a residence to a person under eighteen years of age for the exercise of prostitution; or

2. urges another person to whom he has furnished a dwelling for the exercise of prostitution to engage in prostitution or exploits the person in that respect,

shall incur the same penalty.

http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1600

_

Section (§) 181a of the German "Strafgesetzbuch" (German penal code) says:

Controlling prostitution

(1) Whosoever

1. exploits another person who engages in prostitution; or

2. for his own material benefit supervises another person’s engagement in prostitution, determines the place, time, extent or other circumstances of the engagement in prostitution, or takes measures to prevent the person from giving up prostitution, and for that purpose maintains a general relationship with the person beyond a particular occasion shall be liable to imprisonment from six months to five years.

(2) Whosoever impairs another person’s personal or financial independence by promoting that person’s engagement in prostitution, by procuring sexual relations on a commercial basis, and for that purpose maintains a general relationship with the person beyond a particular occasion shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(3) Whosoever commits the offences under subsection (1) Nos 1 and 2 above or the promotion under subsection (2) above in relation to his spouse shall incur the penalty under subsections (1) and (2) above.

http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1607

So please correct the table in the article. Thank you. --87.78.9.185 (talk) 23:31, 9 September 2015 (UTC) Arjo


 * I have taken the liberty to correct it myself. --81.173.186.71 (talk) 16:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC) Arjo

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Corsica?
So according to the map it's illegal to pay for sex in mainland France but leagal in Cosica? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.33.104.238 (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

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"Uncertain" status in Spain
The table says that the legality of prostitution in Spain is "Uncertain, but prostitution itself isn't a crime". How can it be "uncertain"? What does uncertain mean? Are clients charged or not? Or it is legal in some parts of the country and not in others? Either way, it can only be legal or illegal - not uncertain. The description should reflect that. Taxodermist (talk) 18:52, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. I've amended the table to be consistent with the content of the article below. - Polly Tunnel (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Remove table
Should the table be removed and replaced by infoboxes for each country as per Prostitution in Oceania? John B123 (talk) 16:45, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Arrangement by region
Is there a good reason for listing it this way, rather than just alphabetically? Samer (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It was changed from alphabetical to regional in March 2013. Although this was before my time, I think it was to harmonise with other articles. See Reorganization above. --John B123 (talk) 19:49, 22 February 2019 (UTC)