889 articles
Prostitution in Europe
Prostitution in Europe: national laws span decriminalization (Belgium 2022), regulation (Germany, Netherlands), criminalization, and the Nordic client-purchase ban (Sweden 1999, France 2016); Croatia uniquely bans selling. Evidence on rape rates, HIV, and trafficking is contested.
Prostitution in France
Prostitution in France: selling sex is legal but buying it is a crime under the 2016 law (1,500 euro fine), the Nordic model. Brothels banned since 1946; France regulationist until World War II, abolitionist since 1960.
Prostitution in Germany
Prostitution in Germany is legal for adults under a regulated regime: the 2002 Prostitution Act (ProstG) granted contract rights, and the 2017 Prostitute Protection Act (ProstSchG) requires registration, health counseling, and business permits; about 32,300 workers were registered in 2024.
Prostitution in India
Prostitution in India: sex work itself is not illegal, but the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 criminalizes brothel-keeping, soliciting, and living on earnings; Supreme Court rulings in 2022 and 2026 expanded sex workers' rights.
Prostitution in Kolkata
Prostitution in Kolkata centers on Sonagachi, one of Asia's largest red-light districts, home to the 1992 Sonagachi Project and the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee sex worker collective, operating under India's Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956.
Prostitution in Mexico
Prostitution in Mexico: not criminalized federally, regulated by states; formal sanitary regulation ran 1862-1940 (Reglamento of 1865), with abolitionism from the 1930s and sex work still lacking federal labor rights.
Prostitution in Nevada
Prostitution in Nevada is legal only in licensed brothels in rural counties; Nevada is the only U.S. state allowing legal sex purchase. County option, a 700,000-population ban excluding Las Vegas and Reno, independent-contractor workers, weekly health testing, and a 2026 unionization drive define the system.
Prostitution in Pakistan
Prostitution in Pakistan is criminalized under the PPC 1860, Hudood Ordinance 1979, and Suppression of Prostitution Ordinance 1961 (women only). Centered historically on Lahore's Heera Mandi courtesan district, it has dispersed into hidden urban networks serving female, male, and hijra sex workers.
Prostitution in Thailand
Prostitution in Thailand is formally illegal under the 1996 Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act but operates semi-openly via the 1966 Entertainment Places Act, with an estimated 250,000 sex workers and a Vietnam War-era origin.
Prostitution in the Czech Republic
Prostitution in the Czech Republic (prostituce) follows an abolitionist model since 1922: selling sex is neither banned nor licensed, brothels are prohibited, municipalities regulate street prostitution by ordinance, and procuring and child-proximity prostitution are criminal offenses.
Prostitution in the Netherlands
Prostitution in the Netherlands is legal for voluntary adult sex work; the brothel ban (1911) was lifted 1 October 2000, with municipal licensing, Bibob checks, and pending reforms raising the age to 21.
Prostitution in the United Arab Emirates
Prostitution in the United Arab Emirates is illegal but documented in Dubai and other emirates; the country is a sex-trafficking destination from Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union, governed by Federal Law 51 of 2006, replaced by Decree-Law 24 of 2023.
Prostitution in the United Kingdom
Prostitution in the UK: buying and selling sex between consenting adults is legal in England, Wales and Scotland, but soliciting, kerb-crawling, brothel-keeping, and advertising are criminal offences; Northern Ireland criminalises purchase.
Prostitution in the United States
Prostitution in the United States is criminal in all 50 states except licensed brothels in some Nevada counties. Covers its Progressive-era criminalization, the Mann Act, Nevada's system, and health evidence on criminalization versus decriminalization.
Prostitution in Turkey
Prostitution in Turkey is legal only in state-licensed brothels under the 1933 venereal-diseases regulation, with twice-weekly medical exams, Turkish-citizen-only registration, and criminal penalties for pimping.
Prostitution law
Prostitution law covers the legal models governing sex work: full criminalization, Nordic client criminalization (Sweden 1998), regulated legalization (Germany, Nevada brothels), and decriminalization (New Zealand 2003, Belgium 2022), with health evidence favoring decriminalization.
Prostitution statistics by country
Prostitution statistics by country: estimates of sex worker populations and market size, drawn from HIV-programme methods such as capture-recapture and multipliers, with regional FSW prevalence ranges, European per-capita rates, and GDP shares.
Public intoxication
Public intoxication: an offense covering intoxication in a public place, also called public drunkenness or drunk and disorderly. Varies from criminal misdemeanor in Texas and Pennsylvania to abolition under the Uniform Alcoholism Act and health-led reform in Victoria, Australia.
Pump and dump
Pump and dump, also called ramp and dump, is securities fraud in which promoters inflate an asset's price with false statements, then sell into the inflated market; it targets microcap stocks and cryptocurrencies and is banned under US, UK, and EU market-abuse rules.
Pyramid scheme
Pyramid scheme: illegal business model where returns come mainly from recruiting new paying participants rather than product sales; contrasts with Ponzi schemes and legitimate multi-level marketing; mathematically certain to collapse.
Rachel Wade
Rachel Wade, Largo, Florida woman convicted of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing 18-year-old Sarah Ludemann in Pinellas Park on April 15, 2009, after a feud over Joshua Camacho; sentenced to 27 years.
Racketeering
Racketeering, defined in US law by the 1970 RICO Act (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968), is conducting an enterprise through a pattern of at least two related predicate crimes such as mail or wire fraud, carrying 20-year-per-count penalties, forfeiture, and civil treble damages.
Ransom
A ransom is money or other consideration paid or demanded for freeing a kidnapped person or recovering stolen property, from medieval war captives to modern ransomware extortion.
Rape
Rape is a crime in which a person is subjected to a sexual act without their consent, whether through physical force, threats, incapacitation, or coercion.
Rape by deception
Rape by deception, also called rape by fraud or sex by deception, is sex obtained through lies or non-disclosure that vitiates consent. Covers fraud in factum versus inducement, Lawrance, CPS guidance, US, Canadian, Israeli, and Indian law, and stealthing.
Rape by gender
Rape by gender covers how rape law and statistics treat victims and perpetrators by gender: gender-specific versus gender-neutral statutes, consent-based reforms, CDC NISVS rape and made-to-penetrate definitions, and prevalence and reporting differences for women and men.
Rape in India
Rape in India is a criminal offense defined in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, formerly IPC Section 375; police recorded 31,516 cases in 2022, with a 27.4% conviction rate.
Rape in Islamic law
Rape in Islamic law (ikrah ala al-zina) is coercive intercourse treated under zina doctrine. Key facts: hadd punishments, four-witness rule, Pakistan's 1979 Hudood Ordinance, 2006 Protection of Women Act, 2021 reforms.
Rape in Japan
Rape in Japan, now non-consensual sexual intercourse (不同意性交等), is a Penal Code offense redefined by 2017 and 2023 reforms; recognized cases rose from 1,655 in 2022 to 3,936 in 2024.
Rape in Pakistan
Rape in Pakistan is criminalized under Pakistan Penal Code Sections 375 and 376, reshaped by the 1979 Zina Ordinance, the 2006 Protection of Women Act, and 2016 and 2021 amendments, with special courts and a sex offenders register but under 3 percent conviction.