Did you know that Nevada has the highest rate of prostitution in the country—63% higher than the next highest state?? None of this is surprising because research has shown that legal prostitution increases the demand for prostituted persons and thus increases the market for sex. As a result, there is a significant increase in instances of human trafficking. For example, in 2012 researchers Seo-Young Cho, Axel Dreher, and Eric Neumayer published their findings in World Development establishing that “The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking…On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.” Please tell the governor and AG offices to side with the research and the facts and to oppose legal brothels. A first step is that the Governor and the AG should withdraw their opposition from Rebekah Charleston's (a sex trafficking survivor who was trafficked in two legal Nevada brothels) lawsuit and publicly support to end of selling women's bodies in Nevada.

Nevada is the only state in the US where legal prostitution exists and because of this the entire state has a reputation for being a safe haven for pimps, traffickers and sex buyers. As such legalized prostitution in Nevada has created an enabling environment for sexual exploitation to flourish. In Nevada alone, there is a demand for over 20,000 innocent women and children sold online every year. To put in candidly, we must stop any system that condones buying human beings for sex. It’s an injustice against our sisters, our friends, our neighbors, and our daughters. Please tell the Governor and the AG to get on the right side of history and support women finding jobs and housing instead of resorting to prostitution to survive. Ask them to end legal brothels in Nevada.

Legal prostitution in Nevada has brought severe harms to the women and girls who have been pulled into prostitution over the last 48 years. One of the largest studies conducted on prostitution, published in the Journal of Trauma Practice, surveyed 854 prostituted women in nine countries. It concluded that 63% of women in prostitution were raped, 71% were physically assaulted, and 68% met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder in the same range as treatment-seeking combat veterans and victims of state-organized torture. It’s time to end the harmful prostitution industry in Nevada. It has to stop. Now. Until it does, Nevada is a haven for exploiters and Nevada is not safe for women. Please get the Governor and Attorney General of Nevada to support efforts to end legal brothels in Nevada.