engleski

Criminalisation of sex workers in Croatia: rethinking the public order

In most countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia prostitution is criminalised through public order laws, based on the socialist legacy which defined prostitution as unproductive and immoral. Criminalisation has not been much challenged in these societies despite its serious impact on sex workers’ human rights. In this article we challenge the assumption that criminalisation of sex workers could be justified by the protection of public order. Based on the analysis of case-law of the municipal misdemeanour courts in the two largest Croatian cities (Zagreb and Split), in the period from 2014 to 2019, we show how laws criminalising sex workers are not only ineffective, but also harmful for public order if public order is conceived as based on the principle of equality, legality and respect for human rights.

prostitution ; sex workers ; public order ; case-law analysis

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