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Prostitution abolition

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Abolition of Prostitution

Introduction[edit]

Prostitution abolition is a global movement of individuals and organisations working to end of all aspects of the sex industry, including all forms of prostitution. This movement sees the women and few men who are prostituted as harmed by prostitution. This movement views prostitution as a form of male violence against women and girls and seeks to end the prostitution demands of the johns, pimps, procurers and traffickers who fuel and profit from the industry.

There are organizations internationally that are all actively pressuring their governments and educating the public regarding prostitution abolition strategies. Many organizations also provide exit services to women escaping prostitution and are feminist led.

Abolitionist perspectives reject arguments that prostitution is work, free choice, positive sexual expression/alternative sexual identity or can be de-stigmatized or otherwise made safe through legalization or full decriminalization measures. Abolitionists instead believe that women enter prostitution as a result of the demand for prostitution created by johns. This demand is able to coerce women into prostitution through exploiting various vulnerabilities, including prior experiences of sexual assault and incest, poverty, colonization and racism. Abolitionists believe the legalization of prostitution is an unacceptable tolerance of unequal gender relations, including poverty, racism, lack of free sexual choice, and other forms of male violence women face globally.

Many prostitution abolitionists argue if community and government took all the actions and allocated all the resources required to establish the substantive equality of women and safety of children, we could end prostitution [1]

Prostitution abolitionists often look to the Swedish/Nordic approach to prostitution as an effective model and an example of measures that should be implemented in other countries.

Why ‘Abolition’ of Prostitution?[edit]

Abolitionism was a political movement of the 18th and 19th century that sought to make slavery illegal. Today, child and adult slavery are illegal in most countries. Slavery is also a violation of international human rights law. However, slavery still exists, with an estimated 27 million people enslaved worldwide. An estimated 4 million women and girls are bought and sold every year for the purposes of sexual exploitation. As a result, a new international abolitionist movement has recently emerged. Abolition of prostitution is part of this struggle.[1]

The abolitionists who sought to outlaw slavery did not call for criminalization of slaves. Similarly, prostitution abolitionists call for the decriminalization of those who are prostituted. Prostitution abolitionists view the inequality inherent in prostitution to be the fundamental problem. On the other side of the debate, there are those who want to tolerate prostitution or sexual slavery by decriminalizing the entire sex industry, not just those prostituted. Like equality seeking abolitionists of earlier times, prostitution abolitionists seek the full gender, race and class equality of women and view any practice of prostitution as an impediment to such equality.[1]

The Swedish Model/Nordic Model Approach to Prostitution[edit]

The Swedish approach has three main components arising from the basic perspective that prostitution is a form of violence against women [2]

1) It takes a new legal position vis-a-vis prostitution by decriminalizing the selling of sex while continuing to criminalize the buying of sex. In this situation, prostituted people (mostly women) are not criminalized for prostitution or related activities, but male customers (also called johns, punters, kerb crawlers, and tricks) are criminalized for their prostitution behaviour (Ekberg 2004:1191). Additionally, the law views trafficking for prostitution as inseparable from domestic prostitution as it is the demand for prostitution domestically that fuels the trafficking of women and children. Therefore, trafficking for sexual purposes is outlawed [2]

2) It recognizes that women require another secure source of income in order to leave prostitution and that many women are coerced to enter prostitution because of poverty. It also recognizes that women require specialized exit services in order to build a life outside of prostitution. Therefore the Swedish state continues to offer strong welfare provisions in general and specialized services to women exiting prostitution in particular [2]

3) It recognizes public education as key to changing men's behaviour related to prostitution. While legal measures can provide a deterrent and an important statement of society's goals, society as a whole must refuse to tolerate the purchase of sex before social norms will fully change [2]

The approach is now called the Nordic model because it has been adopted by Norway, Iceland and Finland [3]

Prostitution As/And Violence Against Women[edit]

Most prostituted women experience a very high level of violence both in childhood before they become prostituted and while they are being prostituted. Studies of violence experienced by women in prostitution prior to entering prostitution show 60% to 70% were sexually abused as children [4] that 65% had been raped, most before the age of 15,[5] and that many young women and girls enter prostitution directly from state care in at least England, Norway, Australia and Canada.[6] A multi-country study for the International Organisation for Migration found that 75% of men who buy sex prefer women under 25 years old, and over 20% prefer girls under 18 years old.[7] 4000 children are in prostitution in Australia, with the majority age 16-17, but a sizeable number younger than that, including some younger than 10. The number of children in prostitution is highest in Victoria where prostitution is legalized.[8] Since prostitution has been legalized in the Netherlands, child prostitution has increased, especially of girls trafficked from Nigeria.[9] Gorkoff and Runner (2003:15) argue that it is likely counter-productive to separate adult and youth prostitution because the circumstances that bring both adults and youth to prostitution and keep them there are more similar than different and their experiences of prostitution are very similar.[10]

Studies of women in prostitution show an extremely high level of violence is perpetrated against prostituted women. Figures vary across studies. One representative study showed 82% of respondents had been physically assaulted since entering prostitution, 55% of those by johns. Additionally, 80% had been physically threatened while in prostitution, 83% of those with a weapon. 8% reported physical attacks by pimps and johns of a nature that resulted in serious injury, for example gunshot wounds and knife wounds. 68% reported having been raped since entering prostitution, 48% more than five times and 46% reporting rapes committed by johns. Finally, 49% reported pornography was made of them while they were in prostitution and 32% had been upset by an attempt to make them do what johns had seen in pornography.[11] Women in indoor and outdoor prostitution both report high levels of violence and constant need for vigilance and fear. Many brothels have installed panic buttons because of the ongoing threat of violence indoors.

Beyond the individual instances of violence or the history of violence suffered by most women in prostitution, prostitution abolitionists see prostitution itself as a form of male violence against women and children.[1][2][12][8][11][13] This understanding is the major theoretical root of calls to decriminalize prostituted people (mostly women), but continue to criminalize those who prostitute them, including johns, pimps, procurers and traffickers.[2] Similarly, in other forms of violence against women, anti-violence feminists expect women who are battered, raped, incested, harassed and threatened will not be punished for the crimes committed against them, while the male perpetrators, mostly known to the victims, will suffer criminalization in accordance with the law.

Prostitution is like other forms of violence against women in several important ways. Farley, Lynne and Cotton (2005) argue the prostitution is most like battery because it similarly involves a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour (by pimps, procurers and traffickers as well as johns) that results in the control of the prostituted woman.[14] Research conducted by Giobbe (1993) found similarities in the behaviour of pimps and batterers, in particular, through their use of enforced social isolation, threats, intimidation, verbal and sexual abuse, attitudes of ownership, and extreme physical violence.[15] Many ex-prostituted women argue prostitution has similarities to rape because it is a form of sexuality that is entirely controlled by the john, as rape is a form of sexuality in which the rapist controls the interaction, disregarding the desires, physical well-being or emotional pain of the victim.[16]

Prostitution fits into an overall pattern of violence against women. Abolitionists believe tolerance of prostitution is tolerance of inegalitarian sexuality in which male sexual demands can override women's sexual autonomy and overall well-being. The privilege accorded men in relation to prostitution is similar to the privilege men exercise in rape, battery, incest and sexual harassment and therefore tolerance of prostitution is likely to increase other discriminatory and violent treatment of women.[8][17]

Abolitionists argue prostitution is an example of society's general tolerance of some men's degradation of some women that also affects how all women are viewed and treated in the society. The 'push' factors that coerce women into prostitution affect a very large number of women. Incest, poverty, racialisation, colonisation, other forms of male violence are all factors that are relatively common across the experience of prostituted women and of women generally.[18]

A central abolitionist argument is that male demand for access to women's bodies for prostitution fuels the prostitution industry. Put another way, if men as johns did not demand use of women in prostitution, no woman's poverty, racialization, and/or previous experience of sexual or physical abuse could coerce her into accepting her use in prostitution.[19]

Because of sex equality issues and other fundamental race and class equality issues (explored further in the next section), abolitionists reject the idea that prostitution can ever be viewed as safe, as consensual, as work, as alternative sexual expression, as choice or as a human right. The right of prostituted people, and of all women, from the perspective of abolitionists, is to have a range of genuine choices in regards to sexuality, employment, education, and all forms of self-expression. Finally, abolitionists believe no person can be said to truly consent to their own oppression and no people should have the right to consent to the oppression of others. In the words of Kathleen Barry, consent is not a “good divining rod as to the existence of oppression, and consent to violation is a fact of oppression. Oppression cannot effectively be gauged according to the degree of “consent,” since even in slavery there was some consent, if consent is defined as inability to see, or feel any alternative.” [20]

The Raced and Classed Nature of Prostitution[edit]

“The act of prostitution by definition joins together two forms of social power (sex and money) in one interaction. In both realms (sexuality and economics) men hold substantial and systematic power over women. In prostitution, these power disparities merge in an act which both assigns and reaffirms the dominant social status of men over the subordinated social status of women.” [21]

“The demand for commercial sex is often further grounded in social power disparities of race, nationality, caste and colour.” [21]

Women, on the whole, have less money and less access to economic resources than men. Globalisation and neoliberalism have exacerbated already unequal economic relations, including by cutting back social spending in Northern and formerly socialist countries, and increasing the demand for cheap labour, including in prostitution, in both Southern and Northern countries. Combined with sex discrimination in wages and job type, sexual harassment in the workplace, and an undue burden of caring for children, the elderly and the ill, women are at a significant economic disadvantage in the current economic structure. Poverty is the single greatest “push” factor making women vulnerable to accepting prostitution as a means of subsistence.[8][13][22]

In addition, racism shapes women's entry into prostitution, both because it makes women more vulnerable to prostitution and because johns demand racialized women in prostitution. Racism in education, economic and political systems affect the choices of women of colour. Additionally, racist sexualisation, through pornography in particular, of Black and Asian women as over-sexed and submissive or otherwise available for prostitution contributes to the demand for specifically racialized women [23] Massage parlours, strip clubs and other prostitution businesses are often located in poor and racialized neighbourhoods, encouraging johns to troll those neighbourhoods for women, making all women in those neighbourhoods vulnerable to prostitution-related harassment and more women in those neighbourhoods more likely to accept their use in prostitution as normal.[23]

Indigenous women the world over are particularly targeted for prostitution. In Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and Taiwan, studies have shown that indigenous women are at the bottom of the race and class hierarchy of prostitution, often subjected to the worst conditions, most violent demands and sold at the lowest price.[14] It is common for indigenous women to be over-represented in prostitution when compared with their total population. This is as a result of the combined forces of misogyny, globalization/neoliberalism, social and cultural disruption, race discrimination and extremely high levels of violence perpetrated against them.[14] The Aboriginal Women's Action Network, an abolitionist organization in Canada, has specifically noted that because the prostitution of Aboriginal women results from and reinforces such extreme hatred of Aboriginal women, no regime of legalisation (which will expand the industry and entrap more women) can be safer for Aboriginal women. Prostitution can only further harm Aboriginal women.[12]

Overall, abolitionists believe that prostitution is not a natural outcome of women’s poverty, of colonisation or of racism. It is an outcome only when the prostitution behaviour of johns and pimps is tolerated.

Trafficking and Prostitution[edit]

Abolitionists do not draw a distinction between local prostitution and prostitution due to trafficking.[22] Along with the Palermo Protocol, the UN protocol outlining the international position on the traffic in human beings, abolitionists believe prostitution as locally practiced almost always meets the definition of trafficking. Determining the existence of trafficking in any situation of prostitution requires only a determination of abuse of power or vulnerability, something that can be found in almost all prostitution.[21] The protocol does not require that a person be transported over international borders for trafficking to have occurred.[21] Researchers have specifically noted that many Aboriginal women and girls are trafficked off rural reservations and through urban prostitution circuits in Canada and the US.[24]

The majority of trafficked people in the world are women and girls.[25] It is the demand for prostitution locally (by johns) and globally (by organized groups of johns, pimps, procurers and traffickers) that creates the global trade in women and children.[13][21][22]

Trafficking answers local prostitution demand in several important ways. First, it supplies johns and pimps with a never ending supply of women for prostitution. Especially in situations where prostitution has been legalized or fully decriminalized, demand for prostitution tends to outstrip local supply quite quickly.[8][13] Secondly, johns desire the 'exotic,' usually racialized, woman and trafficking supplies many women of colour and indigenous women to prostitution.[21][23][26] Johns and pimps often claim that women and girls of specific race and ethnic groups are not as harmed in prostitution or are more naturally/culturally prostitute as a way of justifying this racist misogyny.[21]

Unlike in other forms of trafficking in human beings, such as for labour, trafficking in women and girls for prostitution puts the buyer of the ‘product’ (the john) within the chain of trafficking because he is actually receiving the trafficked person.[21]

Making Money in Prostitution[edit]

Some of the key arguments for legalizing or fully decriminalizing prostitution revolve around legitimating prostitution, oftentimes as work, with the implication prostituted women can both improve their 'work' conditions and benefit financially from prostitution. Abolitionists have noted that while prostitution does generate a lot of money, this money by and large does not go to the women who are prostituted.

In a study of money making in the legalized prostitution industry in the Australian state of Victoria, Sullivan (2005) noted prostitution businesses made revenues of $1,780 million Australian in 2004/5 and the sex industry is growing at a rate of 4.6% annually (a rate higher than GDP).[8] In the state of Victoria, there are 3.1 million instances of buying sex per year as compared with a total male population of 1.3 million men.[8]

In the state, women make up 90% of the labour force and earn, on average, $400–$500 per week, do not receive holiday or sick pay, and work on average four 10-hour shifts per week. In addition, with the overall growth in the industry since legalisation in the mid-1980s and increased competition between prostitution businesses, earnings have decreased.[8] 20 years ago there were 3000 to 4000 women in prostitution as a whole, now there are 4500 women in the legal trade alone, with more in the illegal trade, estimated to be 4 to 5 times larger than the legal trade.[8]

The sex industry is run by six large companies, which tend to control a wide array of prostitution operations, making self-employment very difficult.[8] Brothels take 50% to 60% of the money paid by johns and fine prostituted women for refusing johns.[8]

Between 1995 and 1998, the Prostitution Control Board, a state government body, collected $991,000 Australian in prostitution licensing fees.[8] In addition, hoteliers, casinos, taxi drivers, clothing manufacturers and retailers, newspapers, and advertising agencies, to mention a few, profit from prostitution in the state.[8] There is one prostitution business in Australia that is publicly traded on the Australian stock exchange.[8]

Finally, gangs and other criminal elements make money in prostitution and often use their legal businesses to launder money from the illegal trade. The illegal trade is the focus of much trafficking and underage prostitution.[8]

In comparison with Australia, the prostitution industry in the Netherlands comprises 5% of GDP.[27] In Korea, it is 4.4% of GDP, more than forestry, fishing and agriculture combined.[28] Many individuals and businesses, in every kind of prostitution regime, profit from the prostitution industry including hoteliers, casinos, local papers, advertisers, and taxi drivers.[27] In England, the average annual wage for women working in brothels is 15,000 pounds.[27] In Hong Kong and New York City it is common for women to make less in prostitution than they need to survive.[28]

In a study of young mostly Aboriginal women prostituted in Manitoba, Canada, DeRiviere (2006) noted an average annual income from both indoor and outdoor prostitution of $27, 071. Of these earnings approximately 1/3 went to pimps and dependent partners, 1/3 went to drugs and alcohol and 10% went to fines and other outcomes from arrest. On average, these young women saw 15 to 18 johns per week and made $30 to $35 per transaction working generally 12 hour days with much time waiting for johns to appear. Prior to entering prostitution, 2/3 used drugs and alcohol only casually if at all, while once in prostitution, the majority used habitually.[29] In addition to the expenses above, about $740 per year went to purchase the clothing and makeup needed for prostitution. All the women suffered a lifelong loss to personal earnings [29] from a combination of long term addictions, long term health consequences including HIV and Hepatitis infections, loss of education and training opportunities, and loss of years in the legitimate work force.[29]

Jeffreys argues in her 2008 book,The Industrial Vagina that prostitution must now be seen as a globalized industry that is most developed in countries in which militaries (especially those of the US and Japan) set up large scale prostitution systems.[28] Now, as companies continue to open up new areas of the world for resource extraction, they create prostitution markets in new areas of the globe. These new prostitution markets profoundly affect local cultures and shape relationships between men and women.

Some Organisations for Abolition of Prostitution[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lakeman, Lee, 2008, A Feminist Definition of Abolition
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Ekberg, Gunilla, "The Swedish Law That Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services: Best Practices for Prevention of Prostitution and Trafficking in Human Beings" in "Violence Against Women" Vol 10(10) 2004:1189
  3. ↑ Raymond, Janice, Trafficking, Prostitution, and the Sex Industry: The Nordic Legal Model July 2010
  4. ↑ Silbert, M and A M Pines, "Entrance in to Prostitution," in "Youth and Society" Vol. 13(4) 1982: 471-500
  5. ↑ Silbert, M H "Sexual assault of prostitutes: Phase one" National Institute of Mental Health, Washington, DC 1980
  6. ↑ Coy, Maddy, "Young Women, Local Authority Care and Selling Sex: Findings from Research" in "British Journal of Social Work" Vol. 38 2008:1408–1424
  7. ↑ Anderson, B and O'Connell Davidson, J "Is Trafficking in Human Beings Demand Driven? A Multi-Country Pilot Study" International Organization for Migration: Migration Research Series, 2003:19
  8. ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14 Sullivan, Mary "What Happens When Prostitution Becomes Work? An Update on Legalisation of Prostitution in Australia" Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Australia 2005
  9. ↑ Raymond, Janice "Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution And a Legal Response to the Demand for Prostitution" in "Journal of Trauma Practice", Vol. 2, 2003:315-332
  10. ↑ Gorkoff, K and Runner, J,eds., "Being Heard: The Experiences of Young Women in Prostitution" Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing and Winnipeg: RESOLVE (Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse) 2003
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Farley, M and Barkan, H "Prostitution, Violence, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" in "Women & Health", vol. 27(3) 1998:37-49
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Aboriginal Women's Action Network "Aboriginal Women's Action Network Statement on Prostitution 2007
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Raymond, J "Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution And a Legal Response to the Demand for Prostitution" in "Journal of Trauma Practice", vol. 2, 2003: 315-332
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Farley, M, Lynne, J, and Cotton, A "Prostitution in Vancouver: Violence and the Colonization of First Nations Women" in "Transcultural Psychiatry" vol. 42 2005
  15. ↑ Giobbe, E "A comparison of pimps and batterers" in "Michigan Journal of Gender and Law" vol. 1(1) 1993:33-5
  16. ↑ Whisnant, R and Stark, C, eds., "Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography" Australia: Spinifex 2004
  17. ↑ Pyett, P, Warr, D and Pope, J "It goes with the territory: Street sex work is risky business" Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society, Faculty of Health Sciences LaTrobe University, Melbourne 1999
  18. ↑ Baldwin, M "Strategies of Connection: Prostitution and Feminist Politics" in "Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography" Australia: Spinifex 2004:295-305
  19. ↑ Kler, D "Not Work, Not Crime: Who are the True Agents of Prostitution" in "Canadian Dimensions Magazine", Vol. 44(6) November 2010
  20. ↑ Barry, K "The Prostitution of Sexuality: The Global Exploitation of Women" New York: NYU Press 1995
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 21.7 Huda, S "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Sigma Huda" for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, February 2006
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 O'Connor, M and Healy, G "The Links Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking: A Briefing Handbook" Prepared for the Joint Project Coordinated by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) and the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) on Promoting Preventative Measures to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings for Sexual Exploitation: A Swedish and United States Governmental and Non-Governmental Organisation Partnership 2006
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Prostitution: Where Racism and Sexism Intersect
  24. ↑ Cohen, R and Sanchez-Garzoli, G "Internal Displacement in the Americas: Some Distinctive Features" Brookings-CUNY Project on Internally Displaced Persons 2001
  25. ↑ Globalization and the Sex Trade: Trafficking and the Commodification of Women and Children
  26. ↑ Bindel, J and Atkins, H "Big Brothel: A Survey of the Off-Street Sex Industry in London" for the POPPY Project, Eaves Housing for Women, August 2008
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Bindel, J "Marriage is a form of prostitution" in The Guardian November 12, 2008
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Jeffreys, S "The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade" Routledge 2008
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 <DeRiviere, L "A Human Capital Methodology for Estimating the Lifelong Personal Costs of Young Women Leaving the Sex Trade" in "Feminist Economics" vol. 12(3) July 2006:367-402

External links[edit]

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