The Link Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: January 15, 2006
Political Rights
Slavery
Child
Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington,
DC
November 24, 2004
The U.S. Government adopted a strong position against legalized prostitution
in a December 2002 National Security Presidential Directive
based on evidence that prostitution is inherently harmful and dehumanizing, and
fuels trafficking in persons, a form of modern-day slavery.
Prostitution and related activities—including pimping and patronizing or
maintaining brothels—fuel the growth of modern-day slavery by providing a façade
behind which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate.
Where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, there is a greater demand for
human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women
and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery.
Of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international
borders annually, 80 percent of victims are female, and up to 50 percent are
minors. Hundreds of thousands of these women and children are used in
prostitution each year.
Women and children want to escape
prostitution
The vast majority of women in prostitution don’t want
to be there. Few seek it out or choose it, and most are desperate to leave it. A
2003 study first published in the scientific Journal of Trauma Practice
found that 89 percent of women in prostitution want to escape.[1] And children
are also trapped in prostitution—despite the fact that international covenants
and protocols impose upon state parties an obligation to criminalize the
commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Prostitution is inherently harmful
Few
activities are as brutal and damaging to people as prostitution. Field research
in nine countries concluded that 60-75 percent of women in prostitution were
raped, 70-95 percent were physically assaulted, and 68 percent met the criteria
for post traumatic stress disorder in the same range as treatment-seeking combat
veterans[2] and
victims of state-organized torture.[3] Beyond this
shocking abuse, the public health implications of prostitution are devastating
and include a myriad of serious and fatal diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
A path-breaking, five-country academic study concluded that
research on prostitution has overlooked “[t]he burden of physical injuries and
illnesses that women in the sex industry sustain from the violence inflicted on
them, or from their significantly higher rates of hepatitis B, higher risks of
cervical cancer, fertility complications, and psychological trauma.”[4]
State attempts to regulate prostitution by introducing medical check-ups or
licenses don’t address the core problem: the routine abuse and violence
that form the prostitution experience and brutally victimize those
caught in its netherworld. Prostitution leaves women and children physically,
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually devastated. Recovery takes years, even
decades—often, the damage can never be undone.
Prostitution creates a safe haven for
criminals
Legalization of prostitution expands the market for
commercial sex, opening markets for criminal enterprises and creating a safe
haven for criminals who traffic people into prostitution. Organized crime
networks do not register with the government, do not pay taxes, and do not
protect prostitutes. Legalization simply makes it easier for them to blend in
with a purportedly regulated sex sector and makes it more difficult for
prosecutors to identify and punish those who are trafficking people.
The Swedish Government has found that much of the vast
profit generated by the global prostitution industry goes into the pockets of
human traffickers. The Swedish Government said, “International trafficking in
human beings could not flourish but for the existence of local prostitution
markets where men are willing and able to buy and sell women and children for
sexual exploitation.”[5]
To fight human trafficking and promote equality for women,
Sweden has aggressively prosecuted customers, pimps, and brothel owners since
1999. As a result, two years after the new policy, there was a 50 percent
decrease in women prostituting and a 75 percent decrease in men buying sex.
Trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation decreased as well.[6] In contrast,
where prostitution has been legalized or tolerated, there is an increase
in the demand for sex slaves[7] and the
number of victimized foreign women—many likely victims of human
trafficking.[8]
Grant-making implications of the U.S. government
policy
As a result of the prostitution-trafficking link, the U.S.
government concluded that no U.S. grant funds should be awarded to foreign
non-governmental organizations that support legal state-regulated prostitution.
Prostitution is not the oldest profession, but the oldest form of
oppression.
For more information, please log on to the website of the State Department’s
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at www.state.gov/g/tip.
_____________________________
[1] Farley, Melissa et al.
2003. “Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries: An Update on Violence and
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.” Journal of Trauma Practice, Vol. 2, No.
3/4: 33-74; and Farley, Melissa. ed. 2003. Prostitution, Trafficking, and
Traumatic Stress. Haworth Press, New York. [back
to paragraph]
[2] Farley, et al. [back
to paragraph]
[3] Ramsay, R. et. al. 1993. “Psychiatric morbidity in
survivors of organized state violence including torture.” British Journal of
Psychiatry. 162:55-59. [back
to paragraph]
[4] Raymond, J. et al. 2002. A Comparative Study of Women
Trafficked in the Migration Process. Ford Foundation, New York. [back
to paragraph]
[5] Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment, and
Communications. 2004. Fact Sheet: Prostitution and Trafficking in
Women. http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/01/87/74/6bc6c972.pdf
[back to paragraph]
[6] Ekberg, G.S. 2001. “Prostitution and Trafficking: The
Legal Situation in Sweden”. Paper presented at Journées de formation sur la
mondialisation de la prostitution et du traffic sexuel. Association québécoise
des organismes de coopération internationale. Montréal, Quebec, Canada. [back
to paragraph]
[7] Malarek, Victor. The Natashas: Inside the New Global
Sex Trade. Arcade Publishing, New York, 2004. [back
to paragraph]
[8] Hughes, Donna M. 2002. Foreign Government Complicity
in Human Trafficking: A Review of the State Department’s 2002 Trafficking in
Persons Report. Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on International
Relations. Washington, DC, June 19, 2002. [back
to paragraph]
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