Prostitution panel separates trafficking from sex work

Prostitution and trafficking are not the same thing: the panel that reopens the debate

A panel lasting almost two hours brought together anthropologist Carmen Meneses, writer and sesso Valerie Tasso, and content creators Efosy and Ramsey Ferrero to discuss an issue that usually reaches public opinion wrapped in slogans. The most repeated conclusion: equating prostitution with human trafficking is a confusion that the participants consider self-serving and dangerous. This is no minor nuance. On that distinction, they argue, depends the ability to fight the mafias without incivil those who engage in sens work voluntarily.

The panel, moderated by Alfredo, ran for **1 hour and 46 minutes**, a length that already hints at the density of the subject. The four guests agreed on a starting point: banning prostitution would not end trafficking, but would increase it by pushing the entire activity underground. The argument is not new, but this time it came with a concrete counterexample: **Switzerland**, where regulation makes it possible to detect trafficking quickly. The logic is simple: if the sector operates in the open, inspections can step in; if it is hidden, the business becomes opaque and the victims invisible.

The underground argument

Efosy and Ramsey Ferrero added a practical consequence that usually stays out of the headlines: conflating prostitution and trafficking **diverts police resources**. If everyone who works in the sector is treated as a potential victim, efforts are scattered and incivil networks gain room to maneuver. The distinction, therefore, is not an academic subtlety but a tool of public policy. Anthropologist Carmen Meneses, who has researched the phenomenon, insisted that comparative evidence does not back the abolitionist thesis: countries that have banned prostitution have not reduced trafficking, they have only made it harder to detect.

The panel did not shy away from slippery ground. The participants acknowledged that voluntary prostitution coexists with situations of exploitation and that the line between the two is not always clear. But their proposal is to reverse the burden: instead of starting from suspicion toward everyone in the sector, design inspection and reporting mechanisms that separate the wheat from the chaff. Regulation, in their view, does not whitewash exploitation; it makes it more visible.

What the headline leaves out

The conversation also offered a generational portrait. Efosy and Ramsey Ferrero represent a group that has grown up with digital platforms and claims their activity as work, not stigma. Their presence on the panel shifts the focus from the abstract debate to working conditions, taxation and safety for those in the sector. It is no coincidence that the format was a podcast: the issue is now discussed on channels that did not exist a decade ago.

The most uncomfortable moment came when abolitionist positions came up. Part of the feminist movement holds that prostitution is gender-based violence by definition and that regulating it amounts to legitimizing exploitation. The guests did not dodge the objection: they argued that this position, though well-intentioned, rests on a premise that is not empirically sustainable. Prohibition, they said, does not protect women; it pushes them into a black market where they lose rights and visibility.

A debate that remains open

The panel ended without a single conclusion, as befits an issue that mixes law, economics, feminism and incivil policy. What did become clear is that the status quo satisfies no one: neither those demanding abolition nor those calling for regulation. The difference lies in the starting point. If one assumes that all prostitution is trafficking, the only way out is prohibition. If a distinction is made, the door opens to a legal framework that, according to the participants, would allow exploitation to be fought without punishing those who choose to do the work.

It remains to be seen whether this approach gains ground on the political agenda. For now, the panel leaves one thought-provoking fact: almost two hours of conversation for an issue that headlines dispatch with slogans. The gap between the complexity of the phenomenon and the simplification of public debate remains the main obstacle to any solution.