Illegal prostitution is classified as the exploitation of a brothel without a license, prostitutes without health checks, prostitutes without a license or prostitutes without registration. Exploitation of illegal prostitution is punishable by up to 1 year in prison. Under this heading, we can cite one of the examples where the understanding of sex workers harassed in the article on prostitution of the Turkish Penal Code is ignored. For the two sex workers who live in the same house and work independently, the one whose name appears in the lease is considered the perpetrator (the one who provides the space) and the other whose name does not appear in the contract is considered the victim. This situation is so common. “They don`t understand that closing licensed brothels won`t eradicate prostitution, but will only push it to the streets and underground, endangering the lives of sex workers and public health,” said Sevval Kilic, co-founder of Women`s Gate, an organization dedicated to supporting sex workers. The legislation governing sex work is the Public Health Act and the provisions on which it is based, the General Provisions Governing Women and Brothels, and the Ordinance on the Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases through Prostitution. [3] As its name suggests, this regulation mainly aims to combat sexually transmitted diseases (contagious infections) in the form of a legal expression. There are certain definitions in the law, such as the general definition of women, the general conditions of being a woman, brothels, the place of sexual intercourse, houses where prostitution takes place alone. These definitions show us that sex work, sex workers and the place of sex work are defined in legislation. The crime of prostitution under the heading of crimes against public morality in the Turkish Penal Code is one of the first provisions that directly or indirectly affect sex work in Turkey. This arrangement makes us think that prostitution is a crime, whatever the meaning of the word.
The Turkish-speaking institution defines the word prostitution as “sexual intercourse with one or more people for money in a manner that is not in accordance with the rules of society.” [2] In fact, sex work – prostitution with its use in legislation – is not regulated as a crime in Turkey. If we look at the content of the article, the person who commits prostitution is considered the person who has been drawn into prostitution and is defined as a victim. For this reason, it should be said that the title of the article, in which acts such as encouragement, mediation and complicity in prostitution are punishable, should be updated accordingly. For Ms. Kilic, that is precisely where the problem lies. If there was only an open debate about prostitution, the benefits of the system could be discussed, she said. “But the authorities dodge the question, preferring to discreetly close the brothels under the pretext,” she said. As a result of interventions against sex workers, we can constantly think: why is every act considered a crime by sex workers, is sex work a crime? The fact that we know that the regulation that there is no crime is not enough on its own, the well-established social perception of sex work can lead us to go back to the beginning again and again. If we look at the news about sex work, we can see that the photos of sex workers, who are defined as victims in the law, are displayed as if they were abusers. Sometimes their faces are censored, sometimes sex workers cover their faces in videos, we are shown photos of sex workers taking turns walking to the police car, and we can even see police footage pushing the sex worker`s head into the car.
However, these people are “victims” under the law, and we have seen the victims put in a vehicle with their faces covered. In my opinion, if we think of the title “prostitution operation”, the picture that appears in our minds could be these images. In addition to the Turkish Penal Code, another regulation that is regularly applied to sex workers in practice is the Law on Administrative Offences. Although prostitution is not listed as one of the offences listed in the Misdemeanours Act, sex workers who wait to find clients on the street are fined for reasons such as “disturbance, violation of orders, failure to declare identity, noise”. Although it is sometimes said that action is taken in response to a complaint, we can conclude from experience in the field that the application of administrative sanctions is generally not.