The world’s oldest profession emerged from its Victorian closet in the late 20th Century and became a more-or-less legal, if not quite respectable, service industry in much of the western world. In European countries like Germany and Holland, especially, “sex workers” were allowed to ply their trade with few legal constraints. But it has since become clear that legalizing prostitution hasn’t ended the coercion and exploitation endured by women and children involved in the trade. If anything, it may have fuelled the growth of sex trafficking and “sex slavery” by organized crime. That’s why Europe is now moving aggressively to re-regulate the industry, Jeremy Cherlet explains, and why the Harper government in Canada is heading down precisely the same path…