UNITED NATIONS, Oct 03 (IPS) – Reem Alsalem, the UN Particular Rapporteur on Violence Towards Ladies and Ladies, calls prostitution a “system of violence” that doesn’t profit society in any respect, particularly the ladies and ladies compelled into this method.
Alsalem spoke on the Roosevelt Public Coverage Home in New York on Wednesday, October 2, to debate her particular report through which she posits that prostitution is a type of violence towards girls and ladies. The report was first made public in June 2024, the place it was offered to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Over 60 member states endorsed the report and its findings, together with however not restricted to Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Norway, Sweden, Colombia, France, Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria.
Alsalem obtained over 300 submissions for the report from a number of stakeholders, together with civil society teams, academia, specialists, policymakers, and, importantly, girls from world wide with lived expertise.
Internationally, the exploitation of ladies and ladies by way of prostitution and intercourse trafficking is a pervasive concern that threatens their security and rights. Alsalem remarked that many programs of prostitution are constructed on patriarchal norms that place the abuse of energy by the hands of largely males, who’re largely the ‘patrons’ or the profiteers within the intercourse commerce. Deeper financial inequalities and the complexities of emergency humanitarian conditions have solely additional displaced girls and ladies from programs that may have protected and empowered them.
Alsalem remarked that efforts to normalize or acknowledge prostitution as a type of labor, resembling referring to it as “intercourse work,” do extra hurt by gaslighting the ladies who’ve skilled it, and it fails to contemplate the intense human rights violations that may happen inside the system, such because the bodily and psychological hurt they expertise underneath this umbrella of “labor.”
Pornography must also be labeled as a type of prostitution and violence towards girls at giant, in response to Alsalem. She famous that its proliferation has solely normalized acts of violence and dangerous attitudes in the direction of girls and ladies. Alsalem informed IPS that the net platforms that host pornographic materials solely additional incentivize and promote these acts and different types of coercive and nonconsensual sexual acts.
Whatever the platform, how it’s branded or how one enters the commerce, the system of prostitution is predicated on the commodification of the physique to endure bodily exercise and underneath that there can’t be consent, Alsalem argues.
“Attempting to fake that there’s one way or the other consent in prostitution, that girls wish to do that, is definitely meaningless in context like prostitution as a result of the idea of consent is definitely not related when there are programs of exploitation and violence,” she mentioned. “And when the time period of consent is being weaponized whereas we absolutely know that no matter notions of settlement that girls could have—or not less than a few of them—is extorted by way of bodily coercion, manipulation, and violence.”
In the case of the authorized frameworks round prostitution, this additionally reveals the contradictions inside nations on the letter of the legislation versus its regulation in observe. The report signifies that underneath sure approaches, little is definitely carried out to de-incentivize “patrons” or “organizers” in partaking in prostitution programs.
Criminalizing prostitution is extra prone to punish the prostituted individuals by way of persecution and incarceration, social ostracization, and even additional abuse by the hands of legislation enforcement. In truth, underneath this strategy, it’s uncommon that the ‘patrons’ are punished or that the third events are held accountable. Underneath the regulation strategy, authorized prostitution ensures management to the state by way of business institutions and federal or nationwide legal guidelines, together with tax legal guidelines that they revenue from, typically on the expense of the intercourse employees. Decriminalizing prostitution permits for all events to function with out the concern of persecution; nevertheless, this has additionally resulted in an elevated demand, and it doesn’t cease exploitative events from profiting off susceptible girls and ladies and main them into the intercourse commerce.
The report speaks in favor of the abolition strategy, in any other case often known as the “Equality mannequin” or the “Nordic mannequin.” Underneath this mannequin, third events (the ‘organizers’) and the patrons are criminalized for partaking within the shopping for and promotion of intercourse, whereas the intercourse employees don’t face felony persecution. As an alternative, extra investments are made in exit pathways for intercourse employees to make sure different work, financial stability, housing, and assist to handle trauma and even substance abuse the place wanted. Within the report, Alsalem notes that the Nordic mannequin maintains the worldwide customary on sexual exploitation and trafficking in individuals by criminalizing third events, and that it acknowledges nearly all of prostitutes are girls and ladies.
This strategy might have its limitations, nevertheless, as one report from the London College of Economics (LSE) notes that intercourse commerce laws nonetheless varies throughout the totally different nations that implement this mannequin, the security of intercourse employees stays unsure they usually nonetheless face the danger of policing. For migrant intercourse employees, their standing prevents them from accessing social protections, and underneath immigration legal guidelines, prostitution could be grounds for deportation.
The problems current within the present authorized fashions for prostitution replicate a number of the institutional constructions that preserve the established order the place intercourse employees are exploited and left unprotected. On the identical time, additionally they replicate a wider cultural concern on how prostitution, and extra broadly, intercourse, is mentioned and perceived.
“Along with being a human rights violation that wants authorized options, what’s talked about very clearly within the report is that we’re coping with a cultural concern,” mentioned Taina Bien-Aimé, Government Director of Coalition Towards Trafficking in Ladies. She added that different acts of violence towards girls, resembling intimate associate violence, sexual violence, and harassment, at the moment are acknowledged as types of abuse.
“However for some cause, as a result of cash is exchanged in prostitution, one way or the other it’s seen exterior of the context of male violence and discrimination, significantly towards girls and ladies.”
In her report, Alsalem presents suggestions to governments on how they will reshape their laws and insurance policies on prostitution in the direction of a route that’s extra conscionable of human rights and that facilities the experiences of the ladies and ladies who’re compelled to take part. Governments additionally must take measures to handle the foundation causes behind prostitution and the elements that go away girls and ladies at a better threat of it.
“The significance of this report is in its suggestions as properly, the place the Particular Rapporteur is asking jurisdictions and member states world wide to seek out legislative and coverage options to this egregious human rights violation,” mentioned Bien-Aimé.
When requested to elaborate on the steps that have to be taken by worldwide actors just like the United Nations, Alsalem referred to the advice that UN companies must also undertake a rights-based strategy to prostitution. Alsalem commented that she had reached out to a number of UN companies. Particularly, she is having “steady conversations” with the World Well being Group (WHO) and the Worldwide Labour Group (ILO), on her advice for these companies to conduct research into the broader impacts of prostitution on survivors inside their focus of well being and labor.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such because the Frontline Ladies’s Fund, and native civil society teams play an vital function in spotlighting the difficulty. Alsalem informed IPS that they should come collectively to hearken to the survivors of prostitution, in addition to interact with all actors engaged on the matter.
“We see that in decision-making locations, together with governments, parliaments, at any time when the difficulty is mentioned, the legislation is being ready or the coverage is being revised, some have privileged entry to those decision-making locations, and that may be these which can be advocating for full legalization of all facets. Whereas these which can be advocating for the abolition mannequin… can not get the identical entry, and that features survivors.”
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