We asked sex worker rights groups and allies around the world to discuss what works and doesn't work when arguing for the decriminalisation of sex work. This series reports what they said. It is the process of removing specific criminal laws.

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Human Trafficking & Child Sex Victims
I mean, it's famous; and famous for sex, no less. We love sex. And though we were aware of the all-too-seedy underbelly, we were assured by more than a few people that the current version of Patpong was a watered down from its nefarious predecessor. The last time the New York Times recommended something "gritty and dangerous" it was a Michael Moore film. The real question, then, was should we go to a sex show? They're all the rage and we were curious. In our heads, it was a s burlesque: sultry music and scantily clad women dancing around a stage, perhaps with a horse whip. Good times. In hindsight, maybe we should have known that a place like Thailand — where the last prime minister was ousted when he went to the U.
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By Michael Kaplan. Grimy, neon-splashed Walking Street, populated largely by young hookers and pie-eyed Western men, is the main attraction of a Thai beach town called Pattaya. Some people may have been surprised by the outrageousness of it all.
Thailand has had a long and complex relationship with commercial sex work that persists today. Despite all its other tourist draws, it's still known as a sex tourism destination, a designation that began around the time of the Vietnam War. The industry targeted to foreigners is very visible, with multiple red-light districts in Bangkok alone, but there is also a more clandestine domestic sex industry and myriad informal channels of sex-for-hire. Commercial sex work in any form is technically illegal in Thailand.