Legal Status
Prior to 1999, a person was permitted to engage in sex work only if prostitution was not his or her main source of income. Prostitution was then fully decriminalized on 17 March 1999 when changes were made in the penal code (Straffeloven); in practical terms, prostitution had been tolerated for many years prior to the change in legal status. Both selling and buying sexual services are legal, but activities such as operating brothels and pimping are illegal. Also, the age of consent in Denmark is 15 years, but is 18 years for anyone wishing to undertake or purchase sex work. The Danish police have a special "morality" unit (sædelighedspolitiet) to enforce the state's prostitution laws.
Since sex work is not recognised as a lawful profession, sex workers are not entitled to the protection of employment laws or unemployment benefits, but are still required to pay tax.
Read more about this topic: Prostitution In Denmark
Famous quotes related to legal status:
“In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends—an attainment conditioned in this way by universality—there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)