These days prostitution is legal in many country and other country doesn't have any harsh punishment regarding this matter.

 

These days prostitution is legal in many country and other country doesn't have any harsh punishment regarding this matter.

But in early 16th century prostitution was seen as a sin and punishment was brutal

Prostitute or brothel keepers would be branded with hot a iron and banished from the town and sometime the iron rod was inserted in some private parts of the prostitute

This was the popular punishment in the major parts of Europe

This picture depicts a famous incident of Lady , who ran a brothel in Aberdeen, was branded with a hot iron on both cheeks by a hangman and made to wear a paper crown, before being banished from the city.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, church leaders attempted to rehabilitate penitent prostitutes and fund their dowries. Nevertheless, prostitution flourished: it was not merely tolerated but also protected, licensed, and regulated by law, and it constituted a considerable source of public revenue. Public brothels were established in large cities throughout Europe. At Toulouse, in France, the profits were shared between the city and the university; in England, bordellos were originally licensed by the bishops of Winchester and subsequently by Parliament.

Stricter controls were imposed during the 16th century, in part because of the new sexual morality that accompanied the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Just as significant was the dramatic upsurge of sexually transmitted diseases. Sporadic attempts were made to suppress brothels and even to introduce medical inspections, but such measures were to little avail.

In the late 19th century a variety of changes in Western societies revived efforts to suppress prostitution. With the rise of feminism, many came to regard male libertinism as a threat to women’s status and physical health. Also influential was a new religious-based moralism in Protestant countries. Antiprostitution campaigns flourished from the 1860s, often in association with temperance and women’s suffrage movements. International cooperation to end the traffic in women for the purpose of prostitution began in 1899. In 1921 the League of Nations established the Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, and in 1949 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a convention for the suppression of prostitution.