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Mercy Global Concern - 2004
The upcoming Commission on the Status of Women has as one of
its themes - The Role of Men and Boys in Gender Equality.
Mercy Global Concern: Briefing paper number 2- February
2004
In preparation for this event the following statement has been
circulated to governments and delegations.
Statement submitted by:
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Equality NOW
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd
Sisters of Mercy
NGOs in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN
We, NGOs working at a grassroots level for gender equality and
engaged in systemic and policy advocacy to promote the dignity
and empowerment of all women, affirm the message in The Beijing
Declaration, adopted by the 4th World Conference on Women in
1995 that "all governments [should] encourage men to participate
fully in all actions towards gender equality" (paragraph
25).
Sadly, we must recognize that eight years after the Beijing
Platform for Action men continue to hold dominant positions in
institutional and social structures that perpetuate massive discrimination
against women and girls and that systematically violate their
human rights. This discrimination takes a variety of forms, from
denial of education to girls and women and the exclusion of women
from political participation to the subjection of women and girls
to rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and other practices
of male violence against women.
One of the most severe, devastating, and escalating practices
of gender-based violence is the commercial sexual exploitation
of women and girls, including prostitution, sex trafficking,
the Internet bride industry, pornography, and sex tourism. While
the international community has addressed the role that organized
crime, government corruption, and economic policies have played
in the global sex industry, until recently there has been little
focus on the crucial role of the demand for prostitution by men
and boys in fueling this human rights catastrophe.
Demand by men and boys for prostitution in the wealthy, so-called "receiving
countries" and the billions of dollars it generates constitute
the primary impetus for the trafficking of women and girls from
poor, so-called "sending countries." Demand for prostitution
by men in military service has fostered sex industry complexes
outside military bases that exploit local women and girls and reward
criminal enterprises that traffic in foreign-born women. The demand
of men in wealthy countries for sexual and domestic servants has
created the Internet bride and sex tourism industries and propelled
growing numbers of women and girls from poor countries into situations
of violence and degradation. The demand for prostitution by United
Nations peacekeeping troops and humanitarian aid workers has led
to the sexual exploitation of women and girls in dire situations
of armed conflict and humanitarian crisis. The feminization of
poverty has meant that even in impoverished communities women and
girls are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation by local
men and boys.
Until those men and boys who perpetrate sexual exploitation
as buyers of prostitution are held accountable and non-offending
men and boys hold accountable their peers who engage in sexual
exploitation, the sex industry will continue to flourish and
women and girls, individually and as group, will continue to
suffer irreparable harm. To date, the vast majority of activists
and individuals working to stop the sexual exploitation of women
and girls are female—a reality that must change if sexual
exploitation is to be eradicated.
We are heartened by the fact that some men and boys have taken
important leadership roles to stop the sexual exploitation of
women and girls. In declaring that "sexual exploitation
and sexual abuse violate universally recognized international
legal norms and standards" and by issuing "special
measures" to prohibit sexual exploitation and sexual abuse
by United Nations staff, United Nations Secretary General Kofi
Annan has set an example of male leadership in this arena. In
addition, there are men and boys in each world region who deserve
recognition for their important contributions to this movement,
among them Luis Enrique Costa Ramirez, Director of the Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women Venezuela, who has pioneered a peer
education program to raise the consciousness of youth in Caracas
about the harm of human trafficking; the research of Swedish
social work professor Sven Axel-Mansson into the demand of Swedish
men for prostitution; the advocacy of Prerana Co-Director Pravin
Patkar on behalf of prostituted women in Mumbai; and the activism
of Equality Now's Ken Franzblau against sex tourism by
American men in the Philippines. We applaud their efforts and
hope that these individual men will serve as role models for
other men and boys.
There are many programmatic and institutional ways of promoting
gender equality and curtailing the demand for prostitution. We
appeal to each government to evaluate its own national plan of
action to ensure that it includes practical and on-the-ground
activities that ensure the equality of men and women and boys
and girls. We urge policy and action in the following areas:
- Educational curricula in the early grades that raise awareness
about the harm of gender stereotypes and sexual objectification
of women and girls and that promote gender equality in relationships;
- Educational programs that expose the harm
of all forms of pornography and prostitution;
- Training of all
institutional players at all levels, including
police, prosecutors, judges, and military personnel, to recognize
prostituted girls and women as crime victims, not as immoral
or criminal;
- Strong and effective prosecution of perpetrators
of violence against women, including buyers and sellers of
women and girls
in prostitution and related practices of sexual exploitation;
- Fund and disseminate positive and creative
public service messages against male violence against women,
with the inclusion
of popular male figures as spokespersons;
- Acknowledge that the
legalization or legitimization of prostitution or any reliance
prostitution as a source of national revenue
fosters demand for prostitution and increases human trafficking;
The demand for prostitution is the weak link
in the global sex industry chain and can be broken. The Swedish
government has reduced prostitution and trafficking by criminalizing
prostitution buyers and promoting public education campaigns
that hold ordinary Swedish men accountable for purchasing sex.
In doing so, Sweden has set an important example for government
action worldwide. The Trafficking Protocol to the Transnational
Convention Against Organized Crime, which has recently come into
force, sets a critically needed international standard by requiring
states parties to "adopt or strengthen legislative or other
measures, to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of
exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that
leads to trafficking." Sexual exploitation is not inevitable.
If men and women acting in equal partnerships join forces to
stop the global sex trade in women and girls, we can achieve
a world without sexual exploitation—a world in which no
man or boy feels entitled to objectify or purchase the body and
human dignity of any woman or girl.
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