--headline in Pravda.sk, a Slovak newspaper (online edition)
A Slovak woman was murdered in Vienna. She was registered as a prostitute there. (Prostitution is legal in Austria.) The article indicates that the living woman has contacted a lawyer and plans to take legal action against the Austrian media. The dead woman and the living woman have the same name.
http://spravy.pravda.sk/
I mention only in passing: Even when prostitution is legal, women who work as prostitutes face such dangers. I am not competent to discuss the topic in detail, but I will say that I am convinced by Debra Satz ("Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale") that so long as the fundamental situation between men and women is not equal, many things which might be unproblematic in a just society will only contribute to that inequality. When I lived in Slovakia I did hear anecdotes about prostitution under communism. In at least one case, the person speaking suggested it was very informal and --as compared to prostitution controlled by a mafia--innocent.... I myself am sceptical whether there was full equality under the old regime, but, at any rate, it would have been different, and, I suppose, in some respects better. (That in no way amounts to an endorsement of the brutality of what used to be.)
As I recall, Colin McGinn in a little book on ethics once discussed the hypothetical case of harmless prostitution; and went on to acknowledge that in the real world, there may be no such thing.... or that it might be rare....(But as I think of it now, and without looking at McGinn's little book, I wonder how helpful the imaginary or hypothetical or possible case is....)
No comments:
Post a Comment