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Prostitution in Australia
Prostitution (sex work) in Australia is regulated state by state: NSW, NT, Victoria, and Queensland have decriminalised it, the ACT licenses it, and SA and WA criminalise it, with street soliciting illegal nearly everywhere.
Prostitution in Canada
Prostitution in Canada is governed by the 2014 PCEPA, a Nordic-model law criminalizing buying sex while sparing sellers. It followed the Bedford ruling and was upheld by the Supreme Court in R. v. Kloubakov (2025).
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.
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
PAFACA, a 2024 U.S. federal law in Division H of Public Law 118-50, bans distribution and hosting of foreign adversary controlled apps such as TikTok unless divested, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2025.
Protecting power
A protecting power is a neutral State designated by one side of a conflict and approved by the other to perform humanitarian duties under the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Protection of Diplomats Convention
The Protection of Diplomats Convention, formally the 1973 Convention on Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, is a UN anti-terrorism treaty in force 20 February 1977 with 180 parties, requiring criminalization and prosecution or extradition of attacks on diplomats and other protected persons.
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA), India's civil domestic violence law, Act 43 of 2005, in force 26 October 2006. Covers physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, and economic abuse; grants protection, residence, custody, monetary relief, and compensation orders; enforced by district Protection Officers.
Protocol (diplomacy)
Protocol (diplomacy): a formal international agreement with the same legal force as a treaty, usually less formal in name or supplementary to a parent convention; types include Protocol of Signature, Optional Protocol, and Protocol to Amend, exemplified by the Montreal Protocol.
Protocol (treaty)
A protocol, in international law, is a treaty instrument that supplements, amends, or extends a parent treaty; the name carries no fixed legal weight, as with the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons
Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (Protocol IV to the 1980 CCW), adopted Vienna 13 October 1995, bans using and transferring lasers designed to cause permanent blindness; entered into force 30 July 1998, first weapon banned before battlefield use since 1868.
Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, known as the Madrid Protocol, is a 1991 treaty designating Antarctica a natural reserve and banning mining.
Protocol on Incendiary Weapons
Protocol III to the 1980 CCW, the Protocol on Incendiary Weapons, restricts napalm-type weapons: it bans attacks on civilians in all circumstances, bars air-delivered incendiaries in concentrations of civilians, and is criticized for excluding white phosphorus.
Provincial and territorial adoption regimes in Canada
Provincial and territorial adoption regimes in Canada are the thirteen separate sets of provincial and territorial statutes governing adoption, because Canada has no federal adoption law.
Provincial and territorial tribunals of Canada
Provincial and territorial tribunals of Canada are administrative decision-makers created by provincial or territorial legislation that resolve legal disputes in specialized areas such as tenancy, labor relations, and human rights.