Download Ending the Demand for Sex Trafficking

Ending the Demand
for Sex Trafficking
Dorchen A. Leidholdt
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women(CATW)
and adapted by Catherine Ferguson,
UNANIMA International
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is an
international NGO, with consultative status to the
UN’s ECOSOC.
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is an
international NGO, with consultative status to the
UN’s ECOSOC.
UNANIMA International (UI) is a
coalition of 16 congregations of women
religious. It has special consultative
status with the United Nations.
Trafficking Overview
Annually
4 million people are trafficked;
2 million girls between age 5 and
15 brought into the sex industry
(UN).
The vast majority of trafficking
victims, as many as 80%, are
women and girls.
Anti-trafficking poster from Eastern Europe.
It reads, “They are not toys.”
Sex Tourism and Internet
Often, the demand travels to poor
countries for sex tourism. Sex
tourism is the reverse of sex
trafficking.
Trafficking is facilitated by the Internet.
What is Trafficking?
The Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, Especially Women
and Children, supplementing the
United Nations Convention
Against Transnational Organized
Crime, contains the first
internationally agreed upon
definition of human trafficking.
“Trafficking in persons”
is the recruitment,
transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the
threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion,
of abduction, of fraud, of
deception,
Trafficking
…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…
TYPES OF EXPLOITATION:
Prostitution of others or other forms
of sexual exploitation,
Forced labour,
Slavery,
Removal of organs;
Consent?
The consent of a
victim of trafficking
to the intended
exploitation ... shall
be irrelevant where
any of the means
set forth [above]
have been used.
Trafficking of Children?
Recruitment,
Transportation,
Transfer,
Harbouring or receipt
of a child;
For exploitation;
No requirement of
fraud or deception
The “Palermo Protocol”
The Trafficking Protocol to the UN Convention
Against Transnational Organized Crime
Prioritizes trafficking in women and children.
Criminalizes trafficking.
Provides assistance & protection to victims.
Seeks to prevent trafficking through international
cooperation and information sharing.
“Trafficking is just as much trafficking when it occurs in
the victim’s own home village, town, or city ... Domestic
trafficking is as serious a human rights violation as
international trafficking”.
The Palermo Protocol does not require movement
across international borders
Sex Trafficking and Demand
There is growing consensus
that addressing “demand” is
key to the prevention of
trafficking.
Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons
Sigma Huda, Special
Rapporteur, called for action
against the buyers of sexual
services “since it is the
demand for sexual exploitation
that promotes trafficking.”
Sigma Huda analyzes trafficking and
demand.
“For the most part, prostitution . . .
usually does satisfy the elements of
[the Protocol’s definition of] trafficking.
It is rare that one finds a case in which
the path to prostitution . . . [does] not
involve, at the very least, an abuse of
power and or an abuse of
vulnerability.”
Link between Prostitution and Demand
“The prostitute user
(prostitutor) is both the
demand creator and . . . part
of the trafficking chain.”
(This exploiter) is . . .
inflicting substantial harm on
the trafficking victim,
tantamount to rape.”
Sex Trafficking,
Racism and Demand
“Some prostitute-users actively seek prostituted
women and children of different [races and ethnicities]
for the purpose of exploiting these power disparities,
engaging in a ‘highly sexualised form of racism.’
. . . Women and girls oppressed on the basis of race,
nationality, caste and/or colour are especially
vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
Prostitute users often abuse this vulnerability and so
abuse their own position of relative social power over
trafficked persons.”
Demand is global
It is global in the sense that it drives
international sex trafficking and violates
fundamental human rights.
Demand is local
It is local in the sense that it is happening
everywhere – in our own villages, towns, cities –
mostly carried out by men who are part of the core
fabric of our local communities.”
Two Different Approaches
to Demand
The Netherlands
criminalizes forced trafficking
while legalizing prostitution.
Sweden
a multi-pronged
approach to curtailing demand
Prosecutes buyers and
traffickers
The “Dutch Approach”
Directs criminal sanctions against traffickers using
force and coercion.
Legalizes prostitution and regulates it as work.
Considers that legalization will curtail trafficking,
child prostitution, and organized crime.
Dutch “Anti-Trafficking Campaign”
Launched in January
2006 by the Dutch
Crimestoppers
Organization.
Encourages buyers to be
aware of signs of
trafficking and to report
potential victims.
“Have you seen the
signals? Fear, bruises,
no ‘pleasure’ in the job.”
How likely is it that prostitutors
will become protectors?
Buyers are major perpetrators of violence
against prostituted women and girls.
How likely is it that prostitutors
will become protectors?
Buyers are major perpetrators of violence
against prostituted women and girls.
In one study, 85% of prostituted women
surveyed reported having been raped in
prostitution.
Demand and legalization: the Dutch reality
In 1960, 95% of prostituted people in Holland were
Dutch; currently 80% are immigrants, most from poor
countries.
At least 70% of prostituted people in the Netherlands
are undocumented.
ChildRight reports that between 1996 and 2001, the
number of prostituted children in Holland has increased
from 4,000 to 15,000. One third are immigrants.
Over the last decade, the Dutch sex industry has grown
by 25%.
Sweden’s Approach
Supply only a part of the problem
Sweden realized supply was only
part of the problem.
Of equal importance was
demand--created by Swedish
men whose buying of women’s
and children’s bodies made
trafficking into Sweden profitable.
Sweden concluded that along
with the traffickers, buyers should
be held accountable and
punished.
Sweden’s Approach
In 1999 Sweden enacted new laws to
combat trafficking.
The laws eliminated criminal penalties
against prostituted people
funded services
directed strong penalties against pimps,
brothel owners, and traffickers
required arrest and prosecution of
buyers.
At the same time, Sweden initiated an
intensive public education campaign
against demand for trafficking.
Deputy Prime Minister
Margareta Winberg:
“Sweden recognizes that full gender equality
. . . cannot be brought about as long as a
subclass of women and children are victims
of prostitution and trafficking.
Margareta Winberg
Otherwise we allow for the exclusion of a
separate class of women, especially those
who are economically and racially
marginalized, from the universal protection
of human dignity enshrined in international
human rights instruments.”
Sweden’s Reality
The result was a decline in sex trafficking
into Sweden.
The danger of prosecution coupled with
diminished demand made Sweden
unfriendly territory for traffickers.
The Swedish model has influenced other
jurisdictions.
The Philippines
The Philippines passed the Anti-Trafficking
in Persons Act of 2003 (Republic Act 9208)
According to the law:
trafficked persons are victims and not penalized for
crimes related to trafficking or for obeying the orders of
traffickers
penalizes “any person who buys or engages the services
of trafficked persons for prostitution” with community
service and a fine.
Projects to curb the Demand for
Prostitution
•educate
youth
•train
law enforcement officials to recognize
trafficking victims
•support
laws that enforce sanctions
against buyers
Video Project
Video ‘First Time’
Critiques the “coming of age” rite in
which teenage boys
are encouraged to have
their first sexual
experience with a
prostituted girl or
young woman
Who among these boys is
proud to have become a
man last night?
Develops an educational
manual that challenges
concepts of masculinity
centered around sexual
violence and exploitation.
Young Men’s Camps in the Philippines
CATW-AP holds young
men’s camps in the
Philippines to educate
boys on gender, sexuality
and prostitution
Young Men’s Camps in the Philippines
“First is for me to
internalize the lessons I
have learned and share
them with my friends and
then with different people
in our school and in our
community”
Survivors
Speak Out
Against the
Demand
India
Project to Curb Male
Demand for Prostitution
Trains for the implementation of
policies and programs that
penalize demand.
Focuses on protection of victims
and decreasing the demand
through closure of brothels and
arrest of buyers
.
Many months passed by in that way until she couldn’t cry anymore.
“Everything hurt, my breasts, my legs, my entire body. They made me have
sex every 15 days, then every week, then every day.”
NGOs Promoting Preventative Measures to
Combat Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation
Joint project by the European Women’s Lobby
(EWL) and the Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women (CATW) to support NGOs in Bulgaria,
Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Kosovo, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,
Russia, Serbia and Montenegro.
For more information
about these and other
projects consult
www.catwinternational.org
and
www.unanima-international.org