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Following national identity, mafia and other organized-crime groups, and Franco Basaglia‘s democratic psychiatry, Prostitution in Italy, with a specific focus on the 1958 Merlin Law, is the fourth topic forthcoming from the collaboration with Elio Baldi and Linda Pennings at the Department of Italian Studies, aimed at broadening the UvA Library holdings (with acquisitions on topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion) and at increasing students’ access and use of the UvA Library (books) collections.
Named after its first proponent, Socialist senator Lina Merlin (1887-1979), the Italian Law 75/1958 – as summarized on the website of IROKO (an Italian NGO “supporting victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation”) – «abolished brothels – 560 of them when it was approved -, the embodiment of State regulation of prostitution. It abolished the keeping of records of prostituted women, freeing them from the heavy stigma and providing an opportunity for them to escape from prostitution. Essentially, this law aimed to avoid any woman being forced, coerced or encouraged to get into or to remain in prostitution. The Merlin Law can be seen as a pioneer for recent abolitionist laws, approved in various countries around the world and it serves as our point of reference to reflect both culturally and politically on prostitution itself. Nonetheless, or perhaps precisely for this reason, the law periodically comes under fire».
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