Reply #145: How Does Making Prostitution Illegal Prevent Trafficking?

[Yavin4]

In countries where prostitution is llegal and the government is repressive, there's still trafficking.

See Saudi Arabia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Saudi_Arabia
See Cuba: http://news.change.org/stories/human-trafficking-in-cuba-denial-is-a-river-in-havana

According to a 2005 U.S. State Dept study, the worst countries for human trafficking are all those where prostitution is illegal:

With respect to human trafficking, Saudi Arabia was designated, together with Bolivia, Ecuador, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Burma, Jamaica, Venezuela, Cambodia, Kuwait, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea, and Togo, as a Tier 3 country by the United States Department of State in its 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 on which this article was originally based. Tier 3 countries are " countries whose governments do not fully comply with the maximum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so." The 2006 report shows some effort by the Kingdom to address the problems, but continues to classify the Kingdom as a Tier 3 country. The report recommends, "The government should enforce existing Islamic laws that forbid the mistreatment of women, children, and laborers..." Both the 2007 and the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Reports by the United States Department of State designate Saudi Arabia as a Tier 3 country.<1>

Your argument is that women in the west don't want to be prostitutes, so trafficking fills that demand. Well, if it's illegal, does not the same rules of supply and demand apply? If not more so?

Again, how does making it illegal prevent trafficking?