WUNRN
Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women & Girls in Latin America & the Caribbean
SIGN PETITION - SAY NO TO SEX TOURISM & EXPLOITATION AT THE 2014 WORLD CUP BRAZIL & THE 2016 OLYMPICS
Brazil
is the sixth largest economy in the world with 200 million inhabitants and is
hosting the World Cup from June 12 to July 13, 2014 and the Olympic Games in
Summer 2016. An estimated 600,000 tourists will attend the Soccer World Cup,
mainly from the Americas.
While most tourists enjoy Brazil’s beautiful sites and beaches, many individuals travel to Brazil for sex tourism or while attending these major sporting events, will exploit women and children in the sex trade. Brazil is one of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the highest incidences of sex tourism, along with the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.
Brazil is a large source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking. Reports of sexually trafficked children are particularly high in Northeastern Brazil, where Fortaleza, the site of the World Cup, is situated. Child sex tourists typically arrive from Europe and the United States, but local demand for prostituted sex is also prevalent. Many transgendered Brazilians are also severely exploited in the sex trade.
The Government of Brazil has taken steps to prevent human trafficking in the country, including allocating funds to address trafficking, assisting victims and launching widespread media campaigns about trafficking. However, it must increase its efforts to prevent, suppress and punish sex trafficking. Brazilian law defines trafficking as a movement-based crime contrary to the UN Trafficking Protocol (the Palermo Protocol), which Brazil has ratified. The Government must commit to prosecuting those who engage in the commercial sexual exploitation of human beings, including through child sex tourism. A 2006 University of Brasília study found that approximately one-fourth of Brazil’s tourist destinations had an active sexual commercial market for the exploitation of children and adolescents. With approximately 500,000 children reportedly sold in the sex trade, Brazil is poised to become a country with the highest number of prostituted children in the world.
In 2002, the Brazilian Labor and Employment Ministry included prostitution on its list of authorized working activities and professions open to anyone 18 years and older. The average schooling suggested as necessary for prostitution is between fourth and seventh grades. Section 5198 of the Brazilian Classification of Occupations is in clear violation of Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Brazil ratified.
Poverty, discrimination and gender-based violence are among the factors that promote the commercialization of millions of women and girls in Brazil. “It’s easy to buy a girl, it’s like buying chocolate…it’s out of control,” says Carlos Da Bomb, youth counselor. “Even in daylight on the beaches, sex tourists come in their cars looking to buy sex,” says Susani, a teenager exploited in tHe sex trade. Many taxi drivers, hotel workers and drug traffickers participate in an underground network that connect the supply and demand in Brazil’s commercial sex industry.
Having sex with underage girls is “immoral and reprehensible,” said the High Criminal Court in Brazil on March 27, 2012. However, according to another decision, the same Court noted that a man who had sex with 12 year old girls did not commit any crime. Overturning the lower court’s judgment, the judges of the High Criminal Court ruled that the age of consent (14) in the provision was not absolute, but could be maintained or modified depending on circumstances. In the case of the three girls, the Court decided that they were “working as prostitutes” and that they were not “innocent, naive, ignorant or misinformed about sexual matters.” The Court decided that these children were mature enough to give consent.
All these factors – the growth of sex tourism, the recognition of prostitution as a legitimate profession and the exponential growth of all forms of child sexual exploitation – combine to lay the groundwork for an alarming increase of domestic and international sex trafficking and prostitution during the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. There are clear links between the increase of demand with the occurrence of major sporting events, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, and the increase exploitation of women and children in the commercial sex trade. Pimps and traffickers provide buyers of sex, the demand, with a supply of vulnerable human beings, especially women and children.
Recognizing the progress that Brazil has made in the human development index in recent years, we deplore Brazil’s role in normalizing prostitution as a cultural practice and allowing the buying and selling of human beings in the sex trade, most especially women and girls, with impunity. Women and children are not sexual commodities and Brazil must invest efforts, with determination and political will, to accelerate gender equality and the human rights of women and children.
SIGN PETITION: http://www.catwlac.org/inicio/2014/03/18/english-manifesto-no-to-sex-tourism-buying-sex-is-not-a-sport/
DECLARATION
Given the situation in Brazil as described above, we women and men hereby declare that:
- The bodies and lives of women and girls are not
commodities.
Purchasing a woman for prostitution treats her as an instrument of commerce
– a product — and violates her human rights.
- Buying Sex is not a tourist activity. Tourism should
promote respect between people and the environment and encourage diversity
and equality.
- Buying sex is not a sport. Paying for sex
promotes the sexual exploitation of women and girls that leads to sex
trafficking. Sport should promote fair play and equality.
- Without demand there is no supply. The sexual
exploitation of women and girls exists because there are men who pay for
sex. Because they pay and create demand, prostitution exists.
- Real men do not buy women. Buying sex is
financing the sexual slavery of women and girls.
- It is a human right to be free of sexual
exploitation. We
do not intend to restrict sexual rights of women and men, but to protest
the unequal social, cultural and economic conditions, which facilitate the
prostitution of many women and girls. Prostitution is not a choice for the
majority of women who are sold in the sex trade. It is instead an absence
of choice. Prostitution perpetuates the stereotype that women and girls’
bodies exist for the sexual pleasures of men.
WE URGE:
- The 32 countries participating in the World Soccer Cup
Brazil 2014 and that have ratified the conventions and/or international
protocols against trafficking in persons, especially women and
girls: Take an official position against sex tourism that
accompanies and increases during sports events.
- The FIFA Committee, its President, directors of
national teams, managers, coaches, technical staff and players: Promote
“Fair Play” in sports tournaments, free of sex tourism.
- The players of the national teams: Pledge not
to purchase women for prostitution. Athletes should serve as role models
and their actions influence the youth’s social behavior.
- The tourism agencies in Brazil and around the
world: Promote ethical tourism free of violence against women and
girls.
- Individuals, organizations and institutions: Join
this cause in favor of a life free of exploitation of women and girls in
the sex trade
- Everyone in the general public: Commit not to
remain bystanders in the commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls
by legally and culturally accepting prostitution as “work.”
- The Government of Brazil, especially its President: Design
and implement a policy against sex tourism and respect the international
treaties ratified by Brazil to abolish all forms of contemporary slavery
and exploitation in the sex trade, especially of women and girls.
SIGN AND SAY NO TO SEX TOURISM AND
COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION!
SAY NO TO SEX TOURISM DURING THE 2014
WORLD CUP BRAZIL AND THE 2016 OLYMPICS