Is prostitution safer when it’s legal?

This is the topic of a debate in The New York Times. The data from New Zealand should be able to speak to this question. Have any of the debaters bothered to look at the situation in New Zealand?

Some say laws against prostitution unfairly victimize women. A Canadian court recently ruled that laws preventing brothels endangered prostitutes by forcing them to work on the streets. And as the recent Secret Service scandal makes clear, in Colombia, prostitution is legal in “tolerance zones.” But in Spain, prostitution is essentially legal, and the nation has become a magnet for sex trafficking. Can legalized prostitution ever be safe and free of exploitation? Or should laws against prostitution remain?