The world's oldest profession has been much in the news of late, in ways ranging from salacious to appallingly tragic.

Item 1: A court decides to release the names of some of the 100-plus clients of a Zumba dance instructor charged with selling sex (and videotaping the encounters) in a small Maine town.

Item 2: Disgraced IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn acknowledges taking part in lavish Eyes Wide Shut-style sex orgies, but says prosecutors investigating him for his involvement in a prostitution ring are trying to "criminalise lust."

Item 3: A 20-year-old Afghan women is beheaded in her home village, allegedly because she refused to be forced into prostitution.

The context behind each of these stories is vastly different. But they all raise important questions about the sex trade and how society deals with it. Who are the victims and survivors, how can we help them and how can we keep from creating more victims? Do some of the ways we deal with prostitution cause more harm than the sex trade itself does?

Drug war/sex war

The decades-old "war on drugs" can be a useful frame for looking at the sex trade. Both are attempts to eradicate ancient practices that can undoubtedly cause serious harm. Countless lives are blighted or destroyed each year by drug addiction, much as untold numbers of women and children are exploited and degraded (or even killed) by sex trafficking.

But the attempt to eradicate drugs has often amplified the harm. Certainly the war on drugs has done little to deter people from taking them. What it has done quite successfully – for example, in Latin America – is enrich narco cartels, spawn horrific violence, feed massive corruption and create a climate where real victims fear to seek help.

In much the same way, treating prostitutes as criminals certainly hasn't stopped people from paying for sex. A glance at the personal ads in nearly any weekly newspaper proves that. Still, police and courts spend lots of time and money on arresting, prosecuting and jailing prostitutes and their clients.

A choice for some ...

It's important to distinguish between freely entered into sex work and trafficking. Some argue there's no difference, and that prostitution is inherently exploitative. Some sex workers object to that, saying it doesn't acknowledge that they are adults who can make up their own minds about what they choose to do with their bodies.

At the same time, let's get real. As the world becomes more globalised, human trafficking is growing into a vast black market business. The trade in humans is now second only to the drug trade as a source of illegal income, surpassing even the arms trade. And it's no exaggeration to describe most of this traffic as tantamount to slavery. Particularly horrifying are tales of the organised criminal gangs that lure women and underage girls from poor countries with promises of work as nannies or housekeepers, only to force them into prostitution by rape, beatings and threats to family members.

Ways and means

More than half the countries in the world have legalised prostitution to one degree or another, and approaches to prostitution run the gamut. On one extreme is Afghanistan, where any extramarital sex, commercial or otherwise, is banned, and jails are full of women convicted of "fornication", a charge that carries a penalty of up to 15 years. In Taliban-controlled areas, women have been publicly flogged or stoned to death for "adultery". Even rape victims are liable to be punished, as though they chose to have sex.

At other end of the spectrum, New Zealand has some of the most liberal prostitution laws in the world. There, sex workers are free to ply their trade alone or in brothels, and there are only a few regulations, such as licensing of brothels and a ban on underage sex workers. Switzerland, too, has liberalised its laws, and sex workers there are regulated, taxed and even unionised. In Canada, a recent court decision ruled that sex workers can set up brothels and hire staff to protect them, rather than be forced to work on the streets, where they're more vulnerable. There's even been a push in Brazil, where prostitution has long been legal but stigmatised, for labour rights for sex workers.

In recent years, though, some previously tolerant countries have been tightening up their prostitution laws. In Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which is famous for its "red light windows" where sex workers pose and entice clients, dozens of brothels have had their licenses withdrawn amid rising concerns about crime and trafficking. Increasing numbers of foreign prostitutes, many of them trafficked, are changing the equation as organised crime gangs have moved in.

Other countries are adopting the increasingly popular Swedish approach of legalising prostitution but criminalising the clients as a way to dry up demand. The Swedish model is based on the idea that prostitution is a form of violence against women and should be discouraged, while sex workers should be helped to find healthier ways of earning a living. Finland and Norway have adopted such laws, and France is moving in that direction as well.

What works best?

The answer may not always be legalisation. The evidence so far is not conclusive.

For instance, the official evaluation of New Zealand's legalisation law showed that there were somewhat fewer sex workers after legalisation, and that their working conditions were improved, but not as much as had been expected. The government report on the Swedish "jail-the-johns" approach was hotly debated, with supporters of the law and its opponents both saying it proved their points.

By the same token, the question of whether legalised prostitution hinders sex trafficking or encourages it is just as fraught. Some studies say it opens the market for sex and makes trafficking worse. Other data suggest it doesn't.

But what is needed is a focus on policies that reduce harm and help victims: changing police culture so victims aren't treated like criminals and will feel free to seek help, and guarantees that trafficked people aren't deported to places where they'll be victimised again.

Just as with drugs, the harm-reduction approach would take prostitution out of the criminal justice system and run it through the social service system instead, so victims are offered support, not prosecution. People who are not "bad guys" shouldn't be treated as though they are.

The task ahead

Make no mistake: sex trafficking is modern sexual slavery. The global rape trade, in which women are coerced into prostitution and often trafficked around the world, is one of the most horrific and under-addressed criminal enterprises of our time. And it keeps growing, abetted – much like the drug trade – by official corruption and complicity. Author and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls it "gendercide," a global assault on women on a par with genocide. We must work to stamp out that horror in all the ways we can.

But in our zeal to do that, we have to recognise that while a lot of trafficking is prostitution, not all prostitution is trafficking. And free people have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. History shows we can't stop people from buying sex from each other any more than we can stop them from getting high or drinking alcohol. And as with drugs, we can, and should, find ways to reduce the harm to society and the individuals involved. The key to that is providing a pathway out – so that prostitution really is a choice, not a trap.

Read more: Forbes interviews Siddharth Kara about the challenges and potential for fighting human trafficking throughout the world. Also, check out this interesting blog post and lively discussion about whether sex work is sexual exploitation.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Sky News, Avaaz, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Stop the Traffik, American Journalism Review, ProCon, Chronicle of Higher Education, TIME, CBS News, Free Speech Radio News, New Zealand Government, Nordic Prostitution Policy Reform, Economics of Security Working Paper Series, Rights Work, Guardian, Forbes, Right Now