By M. St-Jean. Translation by Lainie Basman.
Prostitution abolitionists, such as Donna Hughes in the United States, Indrani Sinha in India, Micheline Carrier and Elaine Audet in Quebec, along with groups from the conservative, religious right, all denounce the funding of organizations working for the rights of sex workers. This funding for the most part comes from budgets allocated to the fight against HIV/AIDS. According to these abolitionists, sex workers’ organizations promote prostitution and therefore they indignantly accuse the funding agencies of themselves being complicit in promoting prostitution. Exactly the same phenomenon took place in the 80s, only then it involved HIV/AIDS-associated funding granted to groups supporting and defending the rights of homosexuals. People then screaming from the rooftops that their governments were promoting homosexuality.
While the anti-prostitution tactics of Micheline Carrier and Elaine Audet are well-known in Quebec (see the Sisyphe website), less so are those of Donna Hughes in the U.S. and of Indrani Sinha in India. The methods of Hughes and Sinha and those of their allies demonstrate a remarkable similarity to those of abolitionists here and elsewhere. Here are a few examples.
Donna Hughes’ campaign in the USA
Donna Hughes teaches in the Women’s Studies department at the University of Rhode Island and it would be hard to imagine a more ferocious prostitution abolitionist. She is a regular contributor to the National Review. With Phyllis Chesler, she co-authored an article in the Washington Post which argued that “sexual liberalism” represents an obstacle to the feminist response to trafficking in women.
Amongst Donna Hughes’ allies are the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention. These are front-line US groups in the struggles against trafficking in women and for the abolition of prostitution. They also vocally oppose birth control, abortion, same-sex marriages, extra-marital sex, etc.
The US House Committee on International Relations is the American body responsible for US mainland security and the fight against terrorism. It offers social and economic assistance to “vulnerable” nations. In June, 2002, Donna Hughes made a recommendation to this committee that it not finance any group or program that doesn’t adopt an abolitionist position on prostitution, for example Doctors Without Borders. Her campaign was a partial success: groups working in HIV/AIDS prevention that did not adopt an abolitionist position, and/or were in favour of decriminalizing sex work were refused funding from USAID (United States Agency for International Development) or had their funding withdrawn.
At the beginning of May, 2005, the Brazilian Minister of Health refused 40 million dollars from USAID, which now stipulates both that prevention programs should promote abstinence and marital fidelity and that prostitutes should be excluded from such programs. Pedro Chequer, coordinator of the Brazilian AIDS prevention program characterized these requirements as “Manichean, theological and fundamentalist” as well as useless in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Brazilian non-governmental organizations active in the struggle against HIV/AIDS agreed that there is no reason to change their current government program’s orientation which serves homosexuals, prostitutes, and drug-users without discrimination.
It is worth noting that Micheline Carrier and Elaine Audet recently drafted an “Appeal to the Government of Canada”. This petition, signed by “thirty personalities”, opposed the decriminalization of prostitution and demanded that the Government immediately cease funding organizations to any group that does not participate in the formal struggle against prostitution. (See also ''270.000$ granted to Stella for a four days event on sex work", by Micheline Carrier and Letter sent to the Québec health Minister: Helping the prostituted women or promoting prostitution?, by Élaine Audet).
The abolitionist campaign in India
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs. This was the slogan of the first International Sex Workers’ Millenium Mela, an important sex workers’ conference that took place in March 2001, in Kolkota (Calcutta), India. This event was organized by the Dubar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a 65.000-strong member group that supports and defends the rights of sex worker and does much work in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention. The mela hosted sex workers and allied groups from India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway and Australia.
Participants discussed strategies for promoting the rights of sex workers, combating abuse and sexual exploitation, enabling them and their families to live and work in security and guaranteeing their children access to education. They discussed the importance of struggling against the sex work stigma, as well as the possibility of viewing sex work as work, and not merely through the lens of violence, exploitation and harassment. The participants declared: We want bread, but we also want roses.” At the opening ceremony, they proclaimed March 3 International Sex Workers’ Day.
Feminist anti-prostitution activists tried to ban the event. Sanlaap’s Rammi Chhabra and Indrani Sinha, along with Mira Shiva from Voluntary Health met with Viren Shah, the governor of Kolkata, Chief Secretary Manish Gupta along with other politicians and journalists. They asked the authorities to condemn the event and lobbied for stricter legislation with the goal of abolishing prostitution and all forms of sex work. As a result, permission accorded to the DMSC to hold the conference was removed the day before the conference ended. Organizers mobilized, met with the authorities and contested their decision to end the conference prematurely. Their efforts paid off - the cancellation order was revoked, and the conference continued as planned.
It bears mentioning that the Voluntary Health Association, and Sanlaap are partners of Christian Aid, a religious organization that offers financial support to different social causes around the world. Ms. Indrani Sinha, who founded the Women’s Rights Centre, is the director of Sanlaap. Sanlaap mainly works with sex workers and children who are victims of sexual abuse. She argues the importance of maintaining strong links with police authorities. Ms. Sinha was amongst those who signed a letter against the legalization of prostitution addressed to Czech Republic president M. Klaus and written by Richard D. Land, Doctor of Philosophy and President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention also maintains a firm stand against abortion. This letter, also signed by Donna Hughes and several religious organizations, was published and distributed by the Institute on Religious and Public Policy, whose mandate is to harmonize religion, ethics and morals with government policies.
Interesting coincidence: Sanlaap’s director, Ms. Indrani Sinha happens to be coming to Montreal for a conference on sexual exploitation of women and girl children. This conference will take place on May 10, one week before the XXX Forum will take place, also here in Montreal. The XXX Forum will bring together 250 sex workers from around the world to look back on the last ten years of HIV/AIDS prevention, education and support strategies as well as lay out perspectives for future work in this area
The abolitionist strategy: more and more criminalization
Imprisonment and censorship are the main strategies offered up by the prostitution abolitionists. In the name of the struggle against trafficking in persons, adherents of this feminist perspective demand the abolition of prostitution in all its forms and regardless of the conditions in which it is practiced. They demand harsher laws against an already heavily criminalized trade. According to their view, the victims of prostitution should be saved and rehabilitated, while all clients as well as the owners of brothels, massage parlours, strip-clubs and escort agencies should be pursued by a Police State. If it were up to these abolitionists, the morality squad (whose current practices are ethically dubious) would grow five-fold.
The prostitution abolitionists in Canada, as elsewhere in the world, find their greatest support in groups on the religious right and in the Conservative Party, who would be happy to make prostitution an electoral issue. The municipal government of Montreal did just that in 2002, following the failure of Centre Sud neighbourhood pilot project on street prostitution.
The right to live, the right to exist
While all these folks indignantly condemn the “trafficking in women and girl children” far too few people are paying attention to the increasing phenomenon of women’s international migration. Furthermore, our borders, which are now wide open when it comes to goods, are increasingly restrictive to people and specifically to women. In fact, working in the sex industry is very often the best way to get across the border. Everyone seems to be condemning prostitution. Rather, we should be condemning the conditions in which women are made to work, the socio-economic and legal status of women, the incredible poverty and the borders characterized by sexism, racism, and an aversion to refugees and to people with less than $15,000 in their bank accounts.
Why do the majority of groups that employ sex workers, migrant or not, demand the decriminalization of prostitution as well as worker’s rights? It is because these groups understand that a Police State and its morality squad will be useless when it comes to improving their lives and protecting their health. These sex workers have understood, like tha Dubar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, that Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs. They demand that their basic human rights be protected because they want to live and work in safety and with dignity.
Our challenge today is growing as fast as the religious, conservative right and the neo-liberals whose main enemies include the unions and those concerned with improving work conditions and open borders to people. Self-determination, social justice, human rights and dignity are not a luxury, and certainly not reserved for exclusive groups of people: sex workers have rights too.
Indeed, while those who hold an abolitionist position are not all directly linked to groups on the religious and conservative right, they share the same convictions when it comes to prostitution. They have the same demands, advance the same solutions (repression and humanitarian rescue missions) and employ the same strategies to discredit sex workers’ groups who are trying to obtain workers’ rights. Certain abolitionists describe themselves as belonging to the “left” and attempt to distinguish themselves from the religious and conservative right. In the end, however, their signatures show up together on the same letter campaigns against the decriminalization of prostitution.
Abolitionist feminists may one day remember these fundamental feminist concepts: the right to personal, sexual and economic self-determination for women; the right to make decisions about our body, particularly with regards to contraception or abortion; the right to have sexual relations outside of marriage and to have consensual sexual relations either for free or for remuneration. The ought to reread the feminist slogans hollered so passionately during pro-choice demonstrations: these apply just as well to the issue sex work.
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Related links:
Vidéo : Taking the Pledge, 08.2006
Judge Rules in Favor of AOSI, Says USAID Pledge Rule Is Unconstitutional, 05.09.2006
US accuses NGO of 'trafficking', Rema Nagarajan, 09.29.2005
R&R: From Rest and Recreation to Rescue and Rehabilitation, Empower, winter 2005
Who Will Rescue Us from Those Who Wish to Rescue Us Against Our Will?, Norma Jean Almodovar, 01.26.2005
Of Human Bondage: A coalition against human trafficking worked well until a prostitution litmus test was imposed, Tara McKelvey, 02.11.2004
Sex Trafficking: Why the Faith Trade is Interested in the Sex Trade, Jennifer Block, Summer/Autumn 2004
The New Abolitionists, Nina Shapiro, 08.25.2004
Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Woman, Anti-Sex: U.S./UN Crusade Against "Sex Trafficking", Women and Revolution, spring 2004
Unholy Collaboration, Anna-Louise Crago, 05.15.2003
According to their view, the victims of prostitution should be saved and rehabilitated, while all clients as well as the owners of brothels, massage parlours, strip-clubs and escort agencies should be pursued by a Police State.http://www.imassagetherapist.org/directory/index.php?prov=Quebec
Rédigé par : Kajal | 15.12.2012 à 05:40