Procurers and pimps, who both victimize prostitutes and live off their earnings, are rarely arrested or charged with a crime even though it is they who cause much of the violence and abuse that prostitutes suffer. Almost all the money derived from prostitution is controlled and used by the pimps, and the "prohibitionist" system, as exists in the USA (with the exception of Nevada), is morally hypocritical, as it acknowledges the need for and inevitability of prostitution but still makes it illegal. Thus the women who practice it are punished while the men who derived profit and pleasure from it, the procurers and customers, are virtually ignored in both the eyes of the law and in society.
Exploitation of the prostitution of others is a gross violation of a large number of human rights. It endangers the dignity and integrity of the human person and produces considerable illicit profits. Its situation is specific to each country (dependent on historical factors, standard of living, social policy, culture, relaxation of standards of behaviour, break-up of family values, and sexual tourism), even though common factors may exist at the regional or international level.