Dear Next President,

1 in 25 women and 1 in 45 men will become prostitutes in Oregon every hour. Prostitution is the most dangerous and widely known profession. 204 out of every 10,000 prostitute are killed a year; that's roughly 10 times more than the national average. This has to do with the severe beatings, drug use, starvation, and murder from pimps or clients. Despite these shocking facts only 58% of prostitutes report abuse, rape, etc. That's 42 % that endures this pain daily and that's because of four main reasons. The biggest reason most sex slave victims don't report is because even if they did they wouldn't have anything. 26% of these people are homeless and can't afford a life because their pimp takes all their money. The 2nd biggest reason they don't come out is our justice system has discriminated against this group of people as “druggies”, “hookers”, “sluts”, and placed a huge label on them making them seem dirty. Society has now this image as hookers being gross, hollowed out, permi fried thefts. This is not the usual case, 78% of prostitutes are actually between the ages 14- 28, and lured into this profession without knowledge of it. We need to change our view, as a society towards prostitution.

The life of a prostitute isn't what everyone thinks it is, as I'm sure you know. Most of these men and women who start doing this act more than likely to have issues, whether it's at home, they don't have money, drug addiction, or even taking care of a family or family member. I’d like you to make prostitution legal, and make an efficient organization to protect these people, have free drug testing and medication, guaranteed profit, health insurance, and check for abuse and check ins daily. The men and women involved in these acts can form PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders and other mental illnesses. While most people in this line of work want out, there are people who like this line of work even if they are dancing with old fat men or selling themselves, some find a well established life in this. My point of this letter is to explain that no matter what age or how wrong they are everyone deserves a chance to get themselves a normal life.

Someone could just as fairly argue that everyone needs out and they need to be punished for this; it's disgusting etc. In all reality this is the mindset that makes girls have a hard time getting out. We can't stop prostitution no matter how hard we try, but if we make a legal job where girls who want to do this can go and work and have their benefits and a safe place where the customers know what can and cannot happen and there are supervisors, not only would it benefit the people who want to actually do this, it would make it easy to stop illegal prostitution.  Most men would want to go to a private place they can't get arrested for going to and finding the fetish or “delight” they want. Also not to mention when we do find girls or break down their tracks it would be more comfortable for them to come out because they wouldn't get into that much trouble and get the help they need. Assuming you'd have them get licensed it'd be easier to arrest pimps for longer. Again you'll never be able to stop it completely but you might as well make these numbers go lower instead of increasing.

Lastly it would benefit the government and the community. You guys could make some pretty good money off this, 200-300 dollars an hour? That's like 40 times what a doctor or lawyer makes. To write this out more clearly so you can't say no, I'm going to use the legalization of marijuana as an example. For one, you guys made bank, and still are. You had the biggest boost in revenue we have had in awhile and since it's something so popularly used in places like Colorado, taxes on it have been able to bring in millions. It's all boosted the justice system; now that it is legal it has given the police force more capability to go after bigger crimes and drug busts, and made it increasingly harder for dealers to sell large amounts or even sell on the streets. It's also given society a chance to feel better about their personal freedom. Also another example is Germany; not only is drinking at 16, smoking cigarettes, and prostitution legal, but they also have some of the lowest numbers for teens smoking and drinking, and selling themselves. This is also true in other foreign places like France. I believe the tactic is when we know something isn't okay and we , as a society, are ashamed by it and are open about what it does and how it affects you, we sway in the other direction. When it's a secret it's easier to fall into but when its public and everyone knows about it, it becomes more difficult to keep secretive.

Speaking for not only me but for the public too, making prostitution legal would surely bring these benefits and maybe more to our falling society. As the next president it's your duty to gives us the tools we can use to protect ourselves and make this world better. I know you can do something about this issue. We went through years of trying to eliminate discrimination towards all parities of race and gender, and this step can bring us closer to being the safe world everyone keeps talking about.

Sincerely, Emily Nelson