In an ideal world in which all were afforded equal opportunities, with no discrimination whatsoever on the basis of sex, creed, wealth, or color, prostitution within those countries would be considerably lower than then are in any one country, today. While there are many reasons why prostitution exists, there are two basic driving forces for it; which is a desire for sex as a commodity bought for by men, and the willingness or coercion of providing that sex by women for money. Anytime, that you have a situation in which there are men that have lots of money or an excess of money, through whatever means, as well as there being an underclass of women or underage girls that have typically neither money, opportunity (including education), yet need money or its equivalency in order to have shelter and food, then you will invariably get prostitution.
While there are some people that like to believe that prostitution is just another form of barter, and to a certain extent it is, the field is never level, it always favors the man in any situation in which he has the money and she lacks it but needs it. In addition, the policing of prostitution always favors the man, as in most jurisdictions throughout the world, prostitution is either illegal or socially unacceptable or both, but invariably the penalties for prostitution are almost always borne by the female and never by the male. This means, that the male need not excessively worry about being arrested, being fined, or any other concerns that would adversely affect his life, whereas the female, is placed into a position to which she has little or no recourse to policing elements to help her in regards to any harm or damage done to her while a prostitute, and thereby having often to obtain her own protection via male muscle to protect herself from danger as well as to hopefully mitigate circumstances with any law enforcement.
While certain moral elements within society will rail against prostitution, with justification, their voices are often more vociferously directed against females, rather than against the males, when in actuality, in most cases, it is the male that is the pursuer, it is the male that is the instigator, and it is the male that leads with his money; always willing to corrupt or persuade or validate females of all ages in pursuit of carnal pleasure.
Political society in most countries with widely unequal income and widely unequal opportunity, deliberately pretend that all is alright, because for those at the top, it is. As the real truth of the matter is that those that have both money and power, prefer things just the way that they are in order to exploit those that have neither of these things. At best, the females that gravitate to prostitution, do so, because their opportunities are so limited, their education so anemic, and their lives so desperate, that this is the one thing that will enable them to get something to live on, despite the risks and despite their aversion , rather than the most basic alternative, of giving in to quiet desperation.
They say it's a dog-eat-dog world, but really it isn't, it's more akin to a fixed poker game in which one player has all of the fifty-two cards marked, and that player never loses, although during the playing of the game he might buy you a drink or two.