Interior Ministry to prepare bill to legalise/regulate prostitution

The Czech government has given the nod for the Interior Ministry to prepare legislation that would legalise prostitution while bringing it under regulation of the state. Under the bill prostitutes would pay taxes for plying their trade and would be required to take monthly medical check-ups. Licences to prostitutes would be issued by offices in authorised municipalities to both Czech and foreigner sex workers over the age of eighteen. Professional facilities, meanwhile, offering sex would also have to pay a set annual fee, early estimates say, of 200, 000 crowns. The sex trade is widespread in the Czech Republic: some reports have as many as 25, 000 individuals currently working as prostitutes throughout the country, roughly half of those foreign nationals.