WUNRN
Does Amnesty International
want legal prostitution?
By
Robin Morgan
March 8, 2014
A German prostitute, called Eve, waits for clients
behind her window in the red light district of Amsterdam.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Amnesty International put forth a document calling for the
legalization of prostitution
- Robin Morgan: Prostitution is selling and buying human beings,
which amounts to slavery
- Morgan: Prostituted women have high rates of PTSD, many are child
abuse survivors
- She says we should criminalize buyers. Amnesty should reject
decriminalization
Editor's
note: Robin Morgan, activist and
author of 22 books, hosts the radio show/podcast "Women's Media Center
Live with Robin Morgan": WMCLive.com
and iTunes.
(CNN) -- What if the world's most distinguished human
rights organization decided to condone pimping? Unthinkable, right? But that's
what happened when Amnesty International put forth a document calling for the
legalization of prostitution.
For 50 years, the global women's movement
has been fighting the selling and buying of human beings, which has a name:
slavery. For decades, feminists called for criminalizing the buyers while
decriminalizing the women they buy; offering women support services ranging
from safe harbor through drug rehabilitation to education and skills training;
and enforcing laws that criminalize pimps, traffickers and brothel owners.
The response was that it would never work
(and feminists were crazy, sex-hating Puritans).
The sex industry fought back, both openly
-- It's the "oldest profession, always been with us"; it represents
"sexual liberation" -- and covertly, through funding
happy-hooker-type groups, rebranding prostitution as "sex work," and
praising it as a career choice indistinguishable from any other. Have you ever
met an 8-year-old who said, "Ooh, I wanna grow up to be a hooker"?
The numbers of prostituted women who
suffer post-traumatic stress disorder are in the same range as combat veterans
and refugees from state sponsored torture. They are also disproportionately
survivors of child sexual and physical abuse, rape and battery, kidnapping,
assault with a deadly weapon, and addiction to drugs and/or alcohol.
Vednita Carter, a survivor activist, has
noted that every prostituted woman has been forced, whether or not she
seems to "choose willingly." Racism, violence and poverty are ever
present forms of coercion in the sex industry; consequently, poor women and
women of color have a disproportionately large presence. And we're only now discovering
the enormous
impact of prostitution on women in native
communities.
As the survivors succinctly depict it: $
Does Not = Consent.
There is, as Kathleen Barry pointed out in her classic, "The Prostitution of Sexuality," a single interrelated mega-enterprise of sexual exploitation.
We know the trajectory of, say, a young runaway from an abusive home: First, the offer of work in "films." Then, the "temporary" turning of a trick or two, which becomes a permanent deployment in prostitution. Finally, she finds herself being moved around as a trafficked commodity.
Despite this reality, the phrase "sex
work" became fashionable among some well-meaning people who assumed that
this term meant respect for the women involved -- when actually it signifies
approval for the context in which such women were trying to stay barely alive,
or from which they were trying to escape.
Nevertheless, progress seemed possible.
Sweden, Norway, and Iceland p
assed legislation holding customers
responsible for buying human beings for sex, criminalizing the buyers and
offering the women support programs.
This is known as the Nordic Model. The French parliament voted last December to follow Sweden's model; similar laws are pending in the parliaments of Belgium, Ireland, Scotland and Canada, and the European Parliament favored it with a strongly affirmative vote on February 24, 2014.
See, the model works. Since Sweden began enforcement, street prostitution has been reduced almost by half and trafficking has declined. This unglues the arguments of those who treat trafficking as a separate issue from "sex work." Is it less enslaving to be bought in your own country rather than another? Contrarily, countries with legalized prostitution have greater inflows of human trafficking, according to a study published in ScienceDirect.
Then, just when it seemed sanity was winning,
the respected human rights organization Amnesty International appears to have
come out on the side of the sex industry.
An Amnesty International document, "Decriminalization of Sex Work," argues that pimps and
johns should be "free from government interference" and allowed to
"exercise their autonomy."
It says governments have an obligation to
establish an environment where pimps can operate freely to engage prostituted
people; to do otherwise "threatens the rights to health,
nondiscrimination, equality, privacy, and security of persons." The
document also insults the disability community by claiming that men with
disabilities require access to prostituted women to further their sense of
"life enjoyment and dignity."
Amnesty International has argued that the
document is a draft and is in the discussion stage. But Amnesty International
representatives appeared at the Northern Ireland Assembly in January, lobbying
to strike down proposed legislation that would criminalize customers for
buying prostituted women.
What's even more stunning is that a former member of Amnesty, is proudly claiming credit for having first raised the issue of legalizing pimps and brothel owners at the organization, which he says resulted in the policy recommendation. A campaigner for the International Union of Sex Workers who and calls himself a "sex worker", he and his partner run a major escort service. Amnesty, however, denies his involvement in the draft document, saying he had "zero input." Amnesty came to this on its own, then? Hard to know which is worse.
It took decades for the global women's movement to convince Amnesty that human rights were not reserved for male people. Now, Amnesty International London has set things back by considering a shocking violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But this time, the "crazy,
puritanical feminists" can't be dismissed; we're backed by national
governments who've proved our point—and saved women's lives. This time
survivors must be heard.
On March 8, a mass protest will be held at Amnesty International's London headquarters, and a worldwide virtual protest is building online. A global petition to Amnesty and a Facebook page called Virtual Protest of Amnesty International has full information. We hope Amnesty will regain its soul -- and realize that survivors' rights are women's rights are human rights.
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SEX WORK
POLICY DISCUSSION PAPER
http://www.scribd.com/doc/230714911/Amnesty-Sex-Work-Policy-Discussion-Paper-Org410142014en
Amnesty International Secretariat - London
11 June 2014
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CATW
Letter to Amnesty International
CATW
International
- Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Amnesty
International is currently discussing, among its Country Sections and within
its International Secretariat, whether to adopt an official position calling
for the decriminalization, or legalization, of the commercial sex industry,
including prostitution. Below is CATW's letter to Amnesty urging them to
abide by the principles of human rights and international instruments that
protect and promote the fundamental rights of women and other individuals
bought, sold and exploited in the commercial sex trade. If you are a
member of Amnesty, find out what legal framework your Country Section is
promoting on this issue. You can also send Amnesty a letter to express
your concerns on this issue.
June
16, 2014
Salil
Shetty
Secretary
General
Amnesty
International
Ann
Burroughs, Board Chair
Steven
W. Hawkins, Executive Director
Amnesty
International USA
Dear
Mr. Shetty, Ms. Burroughs, Mr. Hawkins, and the Amnesty International Board of
Directors:
We are writing on behalf of the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women (CATW), one of the oldest international organizations to
fight human trafficking and address commercial sexual exploitation as
gender-based violence and discrimination. We join our voices to the numerous
national and international organizations, and individuals that have expressed
deep concerns about Amnesty International's (Amnesty) reported deliberations on
a policy position for the decriminalization or legalization of the commercial
sex trade, including prostitution.
As you debate this purported policy, we are urging
Amnesty to examine the related issues and the violations that are perpetuated,
primarily against young women and girls, in the context of
decriminalization/legalization of the sex industry.
We and our partners around the world who are advocates,
survivors, and frontline organizations that serve victims of trafficking and
exploitation in the commercial sex industry are firmly convinced that approving
such a policy would condemn millions of women to the systematic violence,
inequality and degradation inherent in commercial sex. Instead, we urge the
adoption of legal frameworks and policies, also known as the Nordic Model, that
address and prosecute the demand for prostituted sex and decriminalize only
those exploited in the sex trade.
Establishing that the sex trade, including prostitution,
is inherently exploitative and unequal, inflicting harm on women and society
and recognizing a direct link between prostitution and sex trafficking, the
Government of Sweden passed national legislation in 1999 decriminalizing those
sold for sex while criminalizing the purchase of sex. The governments of
Iceland and Norway followed suit. Currently, the governments of France,
Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel, and Canada are among jurisdictions exploring
the passage of the Nordic Model. The European Parliament passed a resolution in
February 2014 urging European Union members to adopt such legislation.
Convincing evidence shows that this gender-based approach is effective in
placing the legal burden for prostitution on the buyer rather than the people
who are sold. The official evaluation of the impact of the Swedish prostitution
law found a 50% to 70% reduction in street prostitution and a significant
reduction in human trafficking cases compared to surrounding countries that did
not implement such a law (Swedish Government Report SOU 2010:49, 2010).
While criminalization of demand has provoked hypothetical
concern regarding the welfare of prostituted women, no valid research supports
this fear. To the contrary, it is the countries and counties that have opted
for decriminalizing/legalizing the sex trade that are witnessing an exponential
increase in sex trafficking, including of children, and other illegal,
dangerous, and damaging forms of prostitution. Survivors of prostitution
denounce the violence they experienced in brothels, on the streets and
elsewhere and reiterate their desire to exit and to prevent other women from
being equally exploited. In a decriminalization/legalization framework, it is
not the prostituted who are protected but instead the traffickers, pimps,
procurers and other exploiters.
From India to the United States, from Cambodia to Canada,
research demonstrates that at the heart of the experience of prostitution is
violence, physical and psychological harm, and dehumanization. Survivors of
sexual exploitation consistently insist that sex buyers should be held
accountable for the harm they cause, because the prostitution transaction is
not neutral and harmless. Prostitution is not "sex work," a term
invented by the sex trade and its supporters to normalize and mainstream
exploitation in the sex trade. Rather, prostitution is an exercise in power
inequality with men violating vulnerable and marginalized women who would
prefer shelter, safety and an occupation that does not subject them to
violence, sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Also demonstrated clearly is that where prostitution is
decriminalized/legalized, the legal and illegal markets for exploitation
explode. The sex trade is the end goal, the destination, and the purpose of sex
trafficking. In addition, governments have increasingly expressed concern about
their inability to control organized criminal networks, traffickers and pimps
in a full decriminalization context.
To illustrate with only two examples: first in the
Netherlands, where prostitution was decriminalized/legalized in 2000, it is
reported that Amsterdam has between 5,000 and 8,000 women in prostitution, 80%
of whom are foreign-born. The Mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, has
recognized egregious abuse of power of brothel owners over the women found in
these establishments. While the law was designed to allegedly "protect
women" and curb trafficking, the Dutch government has acknowledged that the
precise number of victims of human trafficking, coercion and exploitation is
unknown, with estimates ranging from 8 to 90 percent. Unmistakably, the law's
goal of women registering with the authorities for purposes of safety and
control is a failed experiment.
Secondly, since Germany passed its law to
decriminalize/legalize the sex trade, the country now has the largest
prostitution market in the European Union and was coined the "Bordello of
Europe." In May 2013, the German magazine, Der Spiegel, exposed the truths
about legalization and recognized that the decriminalization of the sex trade
has strengthened the rights of pimps and not the prostituted. One social worker
has witnessed a tripling in numbers in the two decades she has worked with
prostituted women, 65 to 80 percent of which are foreign. It is estimated that
Germany now has 400,000 prostituted women, 40 of which are registered with the
government (The Economist, November 16, 2013). "Mega brothels" offer
nudist floors where the women wear nothing but high heels while buyers pick and
choose them for paid commercial sex. Other floors are reserved for "gang
bangs" where men can bring their friends to gang rape women for 100 Euros
or less (Der Spiegel).
The German Government established that since decriminalization/legalization,
it has not recorded any measureable improvements to prostituted women's lives
and social protections, nor has it seen any reduction in prostitution-related
crimes (Report by the German Federal Government on The Impact of the Act Regulating
the Legal Situation of Prostitutes, 2007).
Should any other disenfranchised population be subjected
to such violence and denial of rights with impunity, not to mention torture in
the guise of employment, we have no doubt that Amnesty would immediately launch
a campaign calling for the protection of their human rights from these
atrocities. Imagine, for instance, millions of African-American men facing such
dehumanization for the profit of others. Would Amnesty opt for legalizing the
abuses perpetrated on these men?
The fact that most of the individuals being
systematically violated in prostitution are women cannot except and extinguish
Amnesty's responsibilities to uphold the principles of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. An Amnesty policy calling for the
decriminalization/legalization of the sex trade would be irreconcilable with,
and a deep betrayal of, the movement for gender equality. Amnesty would not
only severely compromise its integrity and cast a dark shadow on all of its other
extraordinary efforts to tackle human rights violations around the world; it
would also irreparably damage its legitimacy in the field of human
rights.
That Amnesty, a pre-eminent human rights organization,
would support buying and selling people for sexual use and keeping them in
houses for this purpose, defies not only Amnesty's own mission to uphold the
human rights of all individuals, but also violates the principles of the
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially
Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), the 1949 Convention for the Suppression
of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of
Others; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW)*, among other international covenants and
instruments.
Collectively, as women's rights activists, individuals
and organizations that work to protect principles of equality and justice, we
urge Amnesty to support a framework where the rights of women to live a life
free of violence and discrimination, including in the sex trade, prevail over
the rights of exploiters, including traffickers, pimps, procurers and buyers of
sex. Amnesty must stand on the right side of history.
We remain available for any questions or discussions
Amnesty may have relating to these issues; we wish you well in your quest to
protect and promote the human rights of all.
*Article
5(a) of CEDAW requires States parties to "take all appropriate measures:
to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women,
with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all
other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the
superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men
and women." Prostitution is a customary practice based on
stereotypical roles for men and women that has harmful effects on the
individual women in prostitution and women in general. Also, Article 6 requires
that "States parties . . . take all appropriate measures, including
legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of
prostitution of women."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
DECRIMINALIZATION OF PROSTITUTION?
- AMNESTY POSITION - PROSTITUTION AS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION - DIVISIVE
DEBATE
By Julie
Bindel - January 24, 2014
Since its foundation more than 50 years ago, Amnesty International has
gained a formidable reputation as a global campaigner against oppression.
To people living under authoritarian rule, the organisation has rightly come to be seen as a symbol of hope and a force for freedom.
As a left-leaning feminist, I have strongly supported Amnesty’s efforts to promote the human rights of women around the world.
But it is precisely because of this admiration that I am so dismayed by this new initiative, which runs counter to its entire ethos as a bulwark for people suffering abuse, exploitation and maltreatment.
The call for the decriminalisation of prostitution or what it describes, with offensive understatement, as the ‘sex work’ industry is dressed up in soothing, politically correct rhetoric about women’s rights. But the reality is that legalisation would represent official state approval of those who keep this vile trade going.
The astonishing proposal shows absolutely no understanding of the dark, misogynistic world of prostitution, where coercion is rife and brutality endemic.
Amnesty tries to pretend that women selling their bodies is similar to other forms of labour – with one passage in the document explicitly drawing a parallel between women who ‘choose to become sex workers’ and ‘miners and domestic foreign workers’.
Having researched prostitution, one woman who I interviewed described her life of seeing at least ten male customers a day as ‘a form of torture’.
That is just the sort of injustice that Amnesty is meant to be fighting. Yet Amnesty, in an abject inversion of its ethical values, has somehow persuaded itself that surrender to money-driven, masculine sexual aggression represents progress towards liberty.
Far from representing any form of advancement for women, the decriminalisation of prostitution would lead to more abuse, more violence, more subjugation.
This was made clear in
‘Imperfect’ is one way of describing a trade built on physical abuse, rape, child sex abuse, sadism and greed. It is highly offensive of Amnesty to pretend that this is similar to other industries.
In what other job do the occupational hazards include beatings, theft of
earnings, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, forcible removal
of children, constant threats and even death? In fact, there can be few more
dangerous activities for women. It is telling that many of
In the same self-deceiving vein, Amnesty claims it will not support decriminalisation of prostitution where violence or coercion are involved. But that is just more confused thinking. Intimidation is at the very core of this world.
Very few women end up selling sex through their own free choice. Trafficking, menaces, drug addiction and financial pressures all play their part.
Recent research has shown that 67 per cent of prostitutes have suffered violence in childhood, 61 per cent had experienced violence from ‘clients’ and 74 per cent had endured mental and physical health problems as a result of their involvement with this trade.
Absurdly, Amnesty seems even to have accepted the notion that paying for sexual services is a basic human right for men.
By definition, men who are willing to pay for sex already have a contemptuous attitude towards women – they are not interested in an equal relationship, or a meaningful exchange with a partner.
Instead of proposing legalisation, Amnesty International should concentrate on freeing women from the clutches of these men.
The end of prostitution might be a distant ideal, but it is still far
better than Amnesty’s grubby collusion with misogyny.
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