Anti-Porn Feminists

From a Wall Street Journal, India article ‘The Failure of Anti-Trafficking Efforts’, by Ruchira Gupta

On May 13, 2009, the Home Secretary of India said in a seminar organized by the Central Bureau of Investigation that there are 1.3 million prostituted children in India right now. Most of them are girls. The National Human Rights Commission of India has stated that the average age of entry into prostitution for young girls is now between nine and twelve.

The fact that the numbers of the trafficked are going up and the ages coming down displays the failure of those government and non-government strategies which only focus on HIV/AIDS management and half hearted rescue operations combined with shelters for victims. These ignore the root cause, which is the demand for women and girls for sexual exploitation. Even the Sept. 19 Ministry of Home Affairs advisory to state governments on combating human trafficking falls short of asking for higher arrests and convictions of buyers and traffickers, though it recognizes that “trafficking in human beings, especially of women and children, is the fastest growing organized crime and an area of concern.”

Demand for trafficked people – from end-users (buyers of prostituted sex) to traffickers who make a profit off the trade (the recruiters, transporters, pimps, brothel owners, money lenders, etc., who form the intricate chain in the organized criminal networks) — has become the most immediate cause for the expansion of the trafficking industry. But the existing outdated law, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956, (ITPA), does not address it adequately.

Apne Aap Women Worldwide has been campaigning to have ITPA amended. This survivor-led campaign is seeking to penalize buyers and traffickers. If the numbers of convictions against buyers and traffickers go up, the cost of human trafficking will become untenable. Increased convictions will also restore a sense of justice to the survivors of prostitution.

In running this campaign, Apne Aap Women Worldwide has come up against some entrenched interests. Ironically, this opposition has included many HIV/AIDS management projects that work in red-light areas and hire pimps and brothel managers as “peer educators” to gain easy access to the brothels for the purpose of condom distribution. They turn a blind eye to the little girls and adult women kept in a system of bondage and control, who cannot say no to unwanted sex let alone unprotected sex. In fact a representative of the National AIDS Control Organization once told me: “If the brothels didn’t exist, where will we distribute the condoms?”

The hiring of pimps and brothel managers not only legitimizes them at the cost of delegitimizing the rights of the little girl or woman locked up in the brothel but also silences her.

“Ruchira Gupta is founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-trafficking organization based in India. She recently won the Clinton Global Citizen Award for her leadership in civil society”

The Demand Change! campaign have a petition up at the Number 10 website, asking the government to decriminalise those who sell sex, while criminalising those who buy.

Studies indicate that the majority of women enter prostitution under the age of 18 and that childhood abuse, poverty, drug dependency and homelessness are key triggers into prostitution. Once in prostitution, sexual and physical assault is common and 9 out of 10 surveyed women say they would exit prostitution if they could.

It is essential that those selling sexual acts are decriminalised and that support services are provided to exit prostitution. Furthermore, legislation is needed to curb the demand for prostitution that expands the industry and fuels trafficking.

Proposals to criminalise the buying of sex from a person subjected to force are a welcome step towards shifting criminal liability to those who purchase sexual acts. However, it does not go far enough in terms of ending exploitation through prostitution and preventing future generations from being coerced into the sex industry.

We therefore urge the government to follow the ‘Nordic model’ which decriminalises those who sell sexual acts whilst criminalising those who purchase them. This approach has been adopted by Sweden, Norway and Iceland, as part of their end violence against women policies.

‘Loverboys’ child prostitution scandal back in Dutch spotlight

They got chatting in the playground and two weeks later the boy, Manou, persuaded her to skip class, drove her to his student flat, gave her a joint and slept with her. She didn’t want to, but was told all girls had to learn how to do it. “You’ll do well, you’re the right size, you’re well taken care of, they like that,” he said. She didn’t really know what he meant, laughed at the smiley faces on his boxer shorts, and then passed out from the dope.

[...]

Days later Manou drove her to another flat during morning class. It smelt of drugs and there were two men in the living room. “You’re going to have sex with them, sweetheart,” he said. “Are you mad? I don’t even know them,” she laughed. He took her into the kitchen, beat her “to make her listen”, then gave her a joint, and she went to the bedroom with the men. Afterwards, he dropped her back at school and she cycled home to her mum. She didn’t tell anyone. He promised her nice clothes and took her to McDonald’s for ice-cream. He gave her a mobile phone and called her every night in her bedroom at home, controlling everything, telling her when to go to the toilet, eat, go to bed. “I thought it was normal,” she said.

The public is asking why, in a nation where prostitution above the age of 18 is legal and regulated, a crooked sub-culture of loverboys and their child-prostitute “girlfriends” exists.

“Manou had regular customers. Some were fathers, family men, company directors, school directors,” she said.