'Decriminalising prostitution would lead to fewer murders'

London, July 25 (ANI): An Aussie expert on prostitution says the decriminalisation of the sex industry would lead to fewer murders.

Prof Basil Donovan, the head of the Sexual Health Department at the University of New South Wales, has witnessed the effect of legalising sex work - the Australian state made prostitution legal about a decade and a half back.

"Decriminalisation results in a healthier sex industry, which means that if your son or your husband sneaks off to the brothel at night, he's far more likely to come home healthy," Sky News quoted Donovan, as saying.

He said sex workers are more likely to cooperate with police investigations, when they are not threatened with prosecution.

The professor said: "One of the things criminal status does is it depersonalises people. People lose their rights to protection by the state."

Twenty-six year old Randy Dollars is a sex working in Amore, a nine-room brothel in the west of Sydney.

In some other parts of Australia, she would be charged with the breach of law and run the risk of having the premises raided by police. But not in New South Wales.

She said: "I can actually ask the police for help and support and they're not going to try to arrest me, and I don't have to hide my profession.

"If there's a client or a person that I feel is of interest to the police, I can call the police and tell them. In a criminalised setting, I would not do that."

Consequently, sex work, she said, is like any other job, just "less stressful".

Dollars added: "It is meant to be a relaxing environment and when you're worried about things like police raids, or what's going to happen next? Is someone going to bang on the door and rush in and arrest you? It's not relaxing."

Decriminalising the profession, she said, meant it is no longer prone to police corruption or links to the underworld. (ANI)