[makomk]

By making it as difficult and dangerous as possible for everyone involved. For example, Sweden - which is generally used as the model example of this approach by those who support it - criminalized people who paid for sex and landlords who knowingly continued to rent to women who had sex for money, amongst others. One of the consequences of this is that sex workers in Sweden who've been raped by a client and reported it to the police have been evicted as a result; the police have gone to their landlords and told them that unless they evict those women, they could go to prison. I believe this was a big reason Amnesty took the position they did. The response of the "end prostitution" campaigners was basically to lie, claiming that Amnesty were making the issue in question up because Sweden hadn't criminalized the sex workers. (Which was half-true but irrelevant because Sweden had criminalized their landlords instead.)

[marvin]

The effect of the pimping laws making it illegal to rent apartments to sex workers in Oslo has in fact made life a lot more difficult for sex workers.

The Oslo police has had a long-running operation called "Operation Houseless" (official name), where the police threaten landlords with prosecution unless they evict suspected sex workers from their home.

Just thought I'd share that tidbit - the left's rhetoric has the sex worker laws painted as protecting women from exploitation, but the enforcement of the law doesn't support this goal at all. (Not to mention that enforcement of these laws when the sex workers are male, is non-existent). My skeptic view is that the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services came about mostly because there were a lot of Nigerian prostitutes in the main street outside of Parliament in 2008, and that the politicians needed a palatable legal excuse for getting rid of what seemed like a disgraceful situation.

[vacri]

I think you're underestimating humanity's sex drive. It's called "the oldest profession" for a reason. Making something so inherent to us "as difficult and dangerous as possible" demonstrably does not stop prostitution, which continues even in places where there are harsh physical penalties for it.

Here in Melbourne, I think they've got the right answer. Brothels are perfectly legal and get government inspectors, but street prostitution is illegal. Basically it's a regulated industry, and the form of prostitution that's subject to the bulk of the problems is the banned one. It's a bit like the War on Drugs, where almost everyone agrees that legalisation and regulation is a better answer to the ills of drugs than blanket bans.

[gozur88]

>By making it as difficult and dangerous as possible for everyone involved.

This ends up causing more problems than the prostitution caused.