Mercy Global Concern - 2005

Mercy Global Concern: Briefing Paper Number 3, March 2005

Trafficking: Trafficking and Prostitution

Prostitutes- Legalized Entrepreneurs or Victims of Sexual Exploitation, Clients- Legal consumers of services offered or Criminals Violating Women’s Human Rights.

I followed the Trafficking of women and children (mostly girls) caucus. Presently the “UN Protocol to Prevent , Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime Trafficking “ defines trafficking in persons to mean

A) “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons"

i) by means of threat, or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person , for the purpose of exploitation.

ii) Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of other or other forms of sexual exploitation , forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

B) the consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended shall be irrelevant where any means in Paragraph i above has been used.

C) the recruitment , transportation, transfer , harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in Paragraph i,; meaning even if there is no force, threat….

D) Child shall mean any person under 18years of age.

Questions and debates about this definition are serious matters among not only member states (official government representation) but also among NGO membership (civil society). Now some of us in the Mercy World are used to “word-smithing”, however, here at the UN, the changing of a word or group of words means life or death to sometimes thousands, millions of women and children.

Take for example making sense of the debate on the definition of trafficking with regard to prostitution. You will notice that only the prostitute who is trafficked, taken by force, coercion or threat from one country to another is viewed by the global criminal justice system as a victim of abuse- sexual exploitation. A prostitute prostituting in her own country is not able to access the services offered to a trafficked victim who is also prostituting, such services are inclusive of rescue from brothels and the control of pimps; appropriate housing; life counseling ; and information, medical, psychological, and material assistance; employment , educational and training opportunities ( Art 6 .3). According to this protocol prostitution in and of itself is not considered sexual exploitation.

The Australian Government and economy is happy with this conclusion. They have legalized prostitution and the Australian economy has rapidly increased: the sex tourism/industry corporations are thriving according to their national stock exchange. Are the legal prostitutes thriving as well? Perhaps we can judge by the occupational safety rules governing the sex industry which are geared at :

• safeguarding the equipment used: demanding proper care of the branding iron when used upon the woman or girl; variance in fees charged for protected and unprotected sex; use of male body parts penetrating various orifices of the woman or child – care must be taken when using fists which are larger than penises and therefore can cause greater tears in the woman or child’s body would call for an increased fee; use of male bodily fluids upon the woman /child such as semen, feces, urine. Legally the fee a prostitute charges increases as the harm or pain to the woman / child prostitute’s life and well –being increases;
  
  
• protecting the male clients’ health to the demise of the woman or girl/boy child’s health: the woman /girl/boy is inspected for HIV/AIDS while the male client is not. According to Australian public safety laws 40% of men have prostituted sex without condoms; the law states that when a man is penetrating the prostitute, the prostitute is supposed to reach behind to check that the condom is still on without inciting the male client’s anger! One might ask for what reason this is law, since by the time of penetration the use or non use of a condom is a mute point. Never the less, in the case of client rage, the prostitute is to ring the panic button, where upon the brothel bouncer is to bang down the door (doors are locked from the outside) and rescue the prostitute. Hopefully before the client takes out his rage upon the prostitute?
  
  
• protecting the organized crime sex industry. This year a law stating that a legal or illegal brothel could not be within 200 meters of schools or churches was repealed citing discrimination and economic sanctions.
  According to the Austrians legalizing prostitution is favorable to the prostitutes who are better protected and are apparently work in a healthier environment.
  

Some NGO’s are pushing for legalizing prostitution, trafficked or not, world wide using self determination and autonomy as their basis of thought. Part B of the trafficking definition with regard to consent being irrelevant is at the root of this position. They believe that taking away a woman’s right to choose a livelihood for herself and her family is not only illegal, and immoral, but a step backwards in achieving woman’s rights globally. To over step the woman’s choice to be trafficked for prostitution among limited options and to over step a woman’s choice of work –choosing to be a sex worker offering sexual services to clients as a means of livelihood in one’s own country- is not only inherently eliminating the woman’s right to pursue economic autonomy but also de legitimizing a woman’s right to think and act on her own behalf, thus making her subservient to the whims and will of society which is usually dominated by male patriarchy.

Some other NGO’s are stating that legalized prostitution is simply states (governments) becoming involved in the regulation and sanction of sexual exploitation and violence against women –is nothing more than legalized comodification of the woman’s body. They state that trafficking is globalized prostitution with the distinction between trafficking and prostitution being of a degree, not of a kind. This position maintains that prostitution in and of itself, domestic or trafficked, is intrinsically sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, a gross violation of human rights.

Therefore, when:

• prostitution’ is replaced by ‘forced prostitution’ suggestion that human rights abuses only occur when the prostitute is coerced;
  
• when ‘prostitution’ is replaced by ‘sex-work’- legitimizing and normalizing the selling women’s bodies for pleasure and profit and convincing prostitutes to join labor unions to fight for “industry rights and privileges” wherein pimps and organized crime are third party business negotiators; and
  
• when ‘sex trafficking’ is replaced by’ ‘facilitated migration’ or ‘human trafficking’,
  when these words replace the reality, the consequence is a deliberate political strategy that legitimizing gender based domination which serves to protect the sex industry’s growth and profitability. The human rights of woman are dismissed. All of humanity suffers.

Article 9.5 of the Trafficking Protocol calls for discouraging the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, which leads to trafficking. A positive of the conference was Sweden’s report criminalizing the demand for sexually exploiting women and children punishable by 25 years in prison, resulting in a 50% decrease of trafficking and prostitution. Their example was followed by Narobi, who also has criminalized demand of all forms of sexual exploitation of women and children, with similar results. Sweden called on all member states (governments) serious about women’s rights to officially criminalize demand and implement and enforce such a law immediately.

The Mercy Global Concerns signed on to an oral intervention ( a speech allowed at the general assembly of government officials who will create the official document from the 49th session of the Commission on the Status of Women) asking member states (countries) to:

• reaffirm the Beijing Platform for Action in its entirety, and the Trafficking Convention especially Art 9.5 and to demand their full implementation with all urgency.
  
• reject the legalization or normalization of all forms of sexual violence including prostitution and calls for the enforcement of laws that attempt to hold perpetrators accountable;
  
• an evaluation of the legal status of the prostitution of women, including efforts to prosecute procurers and customers
  
• and to decriminalize women in prostitution and penalize the demand (including the client).

The intervention also included issues related to immigration, media, and pornography and internet sexual exploitation.

It is our hope the oral intervention moves the hearts and minds and spirits of those creating the next international agreement to uphold the elimination of all forms of violence against women and children including all forms of sexual violence and exploitation, which are horrific abuses of women’s human rights.

by Tina Geiger, rsm