WUNRN
If wishing to Sign On the Letter to Amnesty International
below, send to Taina Bien Aime at the Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women-CATW - tbien-aime@catwinternational.org
by Tuesday, July 21, 5:00 pm NYC time.
Dear Friends:
At its International Council Meeting to be held in Dublin,
from 7-11 August 2015, Amnesty International will review an internal circular
entitled "Draft Policy on Sex Work" and
plans to vote on whether to call on governments to decriminalize pimping,
brothel owning and prostitutors ("buyers of sex").
Below and available by click is an open letter to Amnesty exhorting
them not to adopt, under any circumstance, a policy that endorses and calls for
the full decriminalization of the sex trade.
Should you wish to sign this letter to Amnesty Interational,
please send us your name and the name of your organization or affiliation, if
applicable, by close of business (New York time) Tuesday,
July 21. Although I am not so naïve to think
this letter is not at risk of being leaked prior to it being sent to
Amnesty (although I hope it won't), please send it to your respective listservs
as discreetly as possible for their signatures.
Please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any
questions or comments.
Taina Bien-Aimé
Executive Director
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
tbien-aime@catwinternational.org
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
July 17, 2015
Salil Shetty
Secretary General
Amnesty International
Steven W. Hawkins
Executive Director
Amnesty International USA
Amnesty International Board of Directors
Dear Mr. Shetty, Mr. Hawkins and the Amnesty International
Board of Directors:
We write to you in light of Amnesty International’s “Draft
Policy on Sex Work” to be reportedly submitted for consideration at its
International Council Meeting in Dublin, from 7-11 August 2015, and which
endorses the full decriminalization of the sex industry.1
The
signatories below represent a wide breadth of national and international human
rights advocates, women's rights organizations, faith-based and secular
organizations and concerned individuals, deeply troubled by Amnesty’s proposal
to adopt a policy that calls for the decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners
and buyers of sex — the pillars of a $99 billion global sex industry.2 Most importantly, the signers include courageous survivors of
the sex trade whose authority of experience informs us about the inescapable
harms the sex trade inflicted on them and guides us toward finding meaningful
solutions toward ending these human rights violations.
Amnesty
International was the first and most prominent organization to bring the
concept of human rights to the global community. Although Amnesty was late in
understanding that women’s rights are human rights and
incorporating this concept in its mission, it was nevertheless seen as a beacon
in mobilizing the public to ensure governments’ implementation of the
principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The “Draft Policy on
Sex Work3” flies in the face of this historical reputation.
We firmly believe and agree with Amnesty that human beings
bought and sold in the sex trade, who are mostly women, must not be criminalized
in any jurisdiction and that their human rights must be
respected and protected to the fullest extent. We also agree that, with the
exception of a few countries, governments and law enforcement grievously
violate prostituted individuals’ human rights. However, what your “Draft Policy
on Sex Work” is incomprehensibly proposing is the wholesale decriminalization
of the sex industry, which in effect legalizes pimping, brothel owning and sex
buying.
Growing evidence shows the catastrophic effects of
decriminalization of the sex trade. The German government, for example, which
deregulated the industry of prostitution in 2002, has found that the sex
industry was not made safer for women after the enactment of its law.4 Instead,
the explosive growth of legal brothels in Germany has triggered an increase in
sex trafficking.5 2
1 Amnesty International, 32nd International
Council Meeting, Circular No. 18, 2015 ICM Circular: Draft Policy on Sex Work;
AI Index: ORG 50/1940/2015
2
International
Labour Organization, Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour (Geneva:
ILO, 2014), http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_243391.pdf
3 Amnesty uses the term “sex work,” a
term invented by the sex industry and its supporters to mainstream and
normalize the inherent violence, degradation and dehumanization that defines
prostitution. It is not a term that complies with the principles of human
rights or with international law.
4
German
Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Report
by the Federal Government on the Impact of the Act Regulating the Legal
Situation of Prostitutes (Prostitution Act), (Berlin: 2007),
https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking/sites/antitrafficking/files/federal_government_report_of_the_impact_of_the_act_regulating_the_legal_situation_of_prostitutes_2007_en_1.pdf
5
Seo-Young
Cho, Axel Dreher and Eric Neumayer, “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human
Trafficking?,” World Development 41 (2013): 75-76, http://www.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/whosWho/profiles/neumayer/pdf/Article-for-World-Development-_prostitution_-anonymous-REVISED.pdf
Decriminalization of the
sex trade renders brothel owners “businessmen” who with impunity facilitate the
trafficking of very young women predominantly from the poorest countries of
Eastern Europe and the Global South to meet the increased demand for
prostitution. For instance, the 2002 German deregulation law spawned countrywide
brothel chains that offer “Friday-night specials”6 for
men who have license to purchase women for sexual acts that include acts of
torture.7 This prompted mainstream news outlets to tag Germany the
“Bordello of Europe.” 8 Last year, leading trauma experts in Germany petitioned their
government to repeal the 2002 law, underlining the extensive psychological harm
that serial, unwanted sexual invasion and violence, which are among the
hallmarks of prostitution, inflicts on women. Harm reduction is not enough,
they explain; governments and civil society must invest in harm elimination.9
Additionally,
reports indicate that the Netherlands has also seen an exponential increase in
sex trafficking that is directly linked to that government’s decriminalization of
the sex industry in 2000.10
The Dutch government
confirms such links.11 Up to 90%12 of the women in Amsterdam’s brothels are Eastern European,
African and Asian women who are being patronized by predominantly Caucasian
men. Without a vibrant sex industry, there would be no sex trafficking.
Amnesty
appears to shape its opinion about the sex industry primarily from the
perspective of the HIV/AIDS sector, including UNAIDS.13 As worthy as their global work is, it is evident that these
groups have very little understanding, if any, of violence against women and
the intersectionality of race, gender and inequality. Defending the health and
human rights of women is significantly more complex than the single aim of
protecting individuals from HIV/AIDS, however critical. The primary goals of
UNAIDS and other agencies that support limited harm reduction policies in the
sex industry seem far more concerned with the health of sex buyers than the
lives of prostituted and sex trafficked women. On the other hand, medical
professionals, including gynecologists and mental health providers, confirm
that regardless of how a woman ends up in the sex trade, the abuse, sexual
violence and pervasive injuries these women endure at the hands of their pimps
and “clients,” lead to life-long physical and psychological harm — and, too
often, death.14
Moreover, international laws and covenants15
recognize the abuse of power over acutely vulnerable
populations — the poor, the incested, the transgendered, the homeless — as a
tool for the purpose of exploitation. Disenfranchised women of color, including
Aboriginal, Native, First Nations, African-American and “Scheduled Castes”
women, are overwhelmingly represented among the prostituted and the sex
trafficked.16 Every day, we combat male access to women’s bodies through
power and control, from female genital mutilation to forced marriage; from
domestic violence to reproductive rights. The exchange of money for such access
does not eliminate the violence women face in the sex trade. It is unfathomable
that a human rights organization of Amnesty’s stature is failing to recognize
prostitution as a cause and consequence of gender inequality.
6
Nisha
Lilia Diu,“Welcome to Paradise: Inside the World of Legalised Prostitution,” The
Telegraph, January 8, 2015, http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/
7
For a
list of ‘sexual services’ the German brothel chain Pascha offers in
Cologne, Munich, Salzburg, Linz and Graz, go to http://www.pascha.de/en/
8
Cordula
Meyer, Conny Neumann, Fidelius Schmid, Petra Truckendanner and Steffen Winter,
“Unprotected: How Legalizing Prostitution Has Failed,” Der Spiegel, May
30, 2013,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533-3.html
Jim
Reed, “Mega-brothels: Has Germany become the ‘bordello of Europe’?,” BBC,
February 21, 2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26261221
9
“TraumatherapeutInnen
gegen Prostitution!” EMMA, September 25, 2014,
http://www.emma.de/artikel/traumatherapeutinnen-gegen-prostitution-317787
10
Daalder,
A. L. (2007). Prostitution in The Netherlands since the lifting of the
brothel ban [English version]. The Hague: WODC / Boom Juridische Uitgevers,
https://english.wodc.nl/onderzoeksdatabase/1204e-engelse-vertaling-rapport-evaluatie-opheffing-bordeelverbod.aspx
11
Wim
Huisman and Edward R. Kleemans, “The challenges of fighting sex trafficking in
the legalized prostitution market of the Netherlands,” Crime, Law and Social
Change 61.2 (2014): 215-228.
Naftali
Bendavid, “Amsterdam Debates Sex Trade,” The Wall Street Journal, June
30, 2013, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324049504578543370643627376
12 KLPD (Korps
Landelijke Politiediensten) – Dienst Nationale Recherche (juli 2008). Schone
schijn, de signalering van mensenhandel in de vergunde prostitutiesector.
Driebergen.
13
Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex
Work (Geneva: United Nations, 2012)
http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/sub_landing/files/JC2306_UNAIDS-guidance-note-HIV-sex-work_en.pdf
14
See
two interviews, respectively conducted by Taina Bien-Aimé, with German trauma
expert Dr. Ingeborg Kraus in “Germany Wins the Title of ‘Bordello of Europe’:
Why Doesn’t Angela Merkel Care?” The Huffington Post, May 27, 2015,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taina-bienaime/germany-wins-the-title-of_b_7446636.html;
and Dr. Julia Geynisman, founder of the Survivor Clinic in “’If You Build It,
They Will Come’: The Survivor Clinic Tackles Sex Trafficking in New York City,”
The Huffington Post, July 14, 2015,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taina-bienaime/if-you-build-itthey-will-_b_7785724.html
15
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially
Women and Children, supplementing the
United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime, Palermo, 15 November 2000, United
Nations Treaty Series, vol. 2237, p. 319; Doc. A/55/383
A primary way of protecting the human rights of commercially
sexually exploited individuals is to provide comprehensive services and exit
strategies, should they opt to leave the sex trade, and to hold their
exploiters accountable. A number of governments have already passed legislation
that reflects this gender and human rights framework.17
In a 2014 resolution, the European Parliament also recognized
prostitution as a form of violence against women and an affront to human
dignity, urging its members to pass laws that decriminalize solely those
who sell sex and criminalize solely those who purchase it.18
Consequently, should Amnesty vote to support the
decriminalization of pimping, brothel owning and sex buying, it will in effect
support a system of gender apartheid, in which one category of
women may gain protection from sexual violence and sexual harassment, and
offered economic and educational opportunities; while another category of
women, whose lives are shaped by absence of choice, are instead set apart for
consumption by men and for the profit of their pimps, traffickers and brothel
owners. Neither the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor international
law excepts any human being from enjoying a life free of violence and of
dignity.
Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty, once said: “The
candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from
prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were
kidnapped, who ‘disappeared.’ That is what the candle is for.”
Amnesty's reputation in upholding human rights for every
individual would be severely and irreparably tarnished if it adopts a policy
that sides with buyers of sex, pimps and other exploiters rather than with the
exploited. By so voting, Amnesty would blow out its own candle.
We implore Amnesty to stand on the side of justice and
equality for all.
Sincerely
yours,
Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), New
York, 18 December 1979, United Nations Treaty Series, vol.1249, in which
Article 6 urges member States to “take all appropriate measures, including
legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of
prostitution of women.”
The UN General Assembly Convention
for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the
Prostitution of Others, 2 December 1949, A/RES/317 states that
“prostitution is incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person
and endangers the welfare of the individual, the family and the community.”
16 Cherry
Smiley, “Real change for aboriginal women begins with the end of prostitution,”
The Globe and Mail, January 14, 2015,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/real-change-for-aboriginal-women-begins-with-the-end-of-prostitution/article22442349/
17 These
set of laws, currently known as the “Nordic Model,” were passed by Sweden
(1999), South Korea (2004, with modifications), Iceland (2008), Norway (2009),
Canada (2014, with modifications), Northern Ireland (2015). Other jurisdictions
debating the enactment of the “Nordic Model” in their legislatures include
France, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania and certain jurisdictions in the United
States.
18 Report on sexual exploitation and prostitution and its impact on gender equality, European Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, 4 February 2014 available from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A7-2014-0071+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN#title1