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http://equalitynow.org:80/english/campaigns/sextourism-trafficking/sextourism-trafficking_en.html

 

EQUALITY NOW

Campaign Against Sex Tourism/Trafficking

Equality Now addresses the commercial sexual exploitation of women in its campaign against sex tourism and trafficking. Millions of women around the world are victimized by traffickers, pimps, and johns each year. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to the trafficking industry. Some are abducted; some are deceived by offers of legitimate work in another country; some are sold by their own poverty-stricken parents or are themselves driven by poverty into the lure of traffickers who prey on their desperation. Regardless of how they are propelled into the multi-billion dollar industry of sexual exploitation—whether through force, deception, coercion or simply through desperate poverty—these women and girls suffer unimaginable human rights violations as commodities of the trade in human beings by third-party profiteers.

Women’s Actions issued by Equality Now that deal with trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of women include:

Protesting the failure of the Japanese government to investigate the death of Maricris Sioson, a woman from the Philippines who was killed shortly after she went to Japan to work as an entertainer, having apparently been dragged into the sex industry.

Shutting down the New York-based sex tour operator Big Apple Oriental Tours, a company organizing sex tours to Thailand and the Philippines.

Protesting the role of United States military forces in patronizing and contributing to the growth of the commercial sex industry.

Shutting down the Hawaii-based sex tour operator Video Travel, as well as supporting the enactment of a Hawaii state law prohibiting the activities of sex tour companies.

Calling for the prosecution of Texas-based sex tour operator G&F Tours under federal law.

Additionally, in 2007, Equality Now established the Fund for Grassroots Activism to End Sex Trafficking (The Trafficking Fund) in order to support grassroots organizations working to end the commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Other initiatives Equality Now has undertaken in the campaign against sex tourism and trafficking include working for the passage of international and US legislation on trafficking, investigating the willingness of "mail-order bride" companies (PDF, 408K) to provide services to violent men, and organizing an event highlighting true stories of women who survived commercial sexual exploitation.

On December 9, 2005 the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Equality Now submitted an amicus curiae brief (PDF, 208K) to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of 19 groups around the world that work with women in the commercial sex industry, many of which are led by survivors of prostitution and sex trafficking. The brief was submitted in the case of Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. et al v. United States Agency for International Development et al. to rebut the amicus curiae brief submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union. A similar brief was also submitted to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in the case of DKT, International v. United States Agency for International Development et al.

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