Regulating Prostitution

Project: Increasing Competence in the Creation of Policy Responses to Prostitution in the Czech Republic (2011 - 2012)

The project is funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung CZ and implemented by the ProEquality Center at the Open Society, p.b.c. with supervision of Blanka Hančilová (Univesity of Vienna) and Barbara Havelkova (University of Oxford, Exeter College).  The primary aim of this project is to raise awareness among the policy and decision makers in the Czech Republic on issues related to various policy choices in regulating prostitution. The project does not propose any specific policy to regulate the issue of prostitution.

Background:

The Czech Republic has been struggling to identify an appropriate response to the phenomenon of prostitution. Proposed solutions have ranged from prohibitionist proposals of criminalization, to proposals of filming clients and prostitutes and publicizing their engagement in prostitution, to regulation/legalization proposals. However, none of the proposals included a human rights approach – i.e. the wellbeing of prostitutes and the protection of their rights is a legitimate policy aim.

Project’s Activities:

A Policy Delphi Study
Preliminary discussions with experts in the Czech Republic showed that there is pronounced need for research on prostitution and experts’ opinion about its regulation. Delphi technique has the capacity to foster communication among experts and policy makers. The respondents in the Delphi study will be from the relevant policy making and executive bodies at the central as well as the local level, academic and research institutions and civil society.

Conference
A one day conference, presenting inter alia results of a Policy Delphi study, and expert’s presentation of different models on regulating prostitution, a legal analysis of the Czech proposal and a media discourse analysis of the prostitution. The conference will combine three panels featuring expert presentations with extensive interactive sessions (discussions and questions/answers) with the audience. The debates will be moderated and recorded.

Publication
The aim of the publication is to put the Czech debate into a theoretical, international and comparative perspective and thus to contribute to the closing of the above-mentioned gaps in the Czech discourse on the legal responses to prostitution. The forthcoming publication, edited by Barbara Havelková and Blanka Hančilová, is due in March 2012.

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