Colombian sex scandal calls for legalising prostitution in U.S.

Hiring a prostitute was never outlawed in the military until 2006, when the Bush administration made changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), ABC News reports.u00a0

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Today, it is banned even if prostitution is legal in the country. Military personnel who patronize prostitutes can receive up to one year''s imprisonment, get a dishonorable discharge, and lose all pay and allowances.

Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan, and others have said that the policy was ridiculous, and that criminalizing prostitution was not only a human rights violation, but also a safety and labour issue.u00a0

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Sienna Baskin, co-director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York, which works for the sex workers and survivors of human trafficking, said that sex workers are afraid to go to police when they are victims of crime, including theft, rape and human trafficking.

Baskin added that they are also subject to bad policing practices and police brutality, who had recently returned from Albany, to pass Bill A1008/S323, which prohibited police and prosecutors from possessing condoms as evidence of prostitution.u00a0But while the U.S. acknowledge the potential dangers to national security owing to the acts of Secret Service agents, sex workers in the country think the ''breach'' argument is another form of discrimination against prostitutes.

Eleven Secret Service agents were recalled to the U.S. from Colombia after alleged involvement with prostitutes there. Ten U.S. military personnel are also being investigated for their role in the affair.