Amnesty International isn’t just shitting on the world’s most vulnerable women and children

By antiplondon on

They are also shitting on the idea that they are a democratic, member led organisation.

In 2014 only 40% of Amnesty International sections submitted a response to the original draft policy position on decriminalising the sex industry, and only 4 of the sections that responded supported the policy. Members of Amnesty International Australia put forward a No Confidence vote, citing bias, lack of transparency, and only two days between the release of a memorandum on the policy and the Australian branch’s AGM.

At Amnesty International UK’s 2014 AGM, the vote to hold no position on ‘sex work’ was also carried, as well as the vote to support decriminalisation, so even then there was no consensus.

Amnesty’s International Council Meeting in Dublin this week is described by them as a ‘decision-making forum’ how representative this council is, or is required to be, of Amnesty’s membership, is not clear to me.

Amnesty’s decision isn’t actually much of a surprise, individuals at the top of Amnesty UK have been determined to push this through for a long time.

How much of Amnesty’s resources will now be spent on lobbying on behalf of pimps, rather than advocating on behalf of the victims of torture and unfair detention?

Posted in: (Commercial) sexual exploitation of children, Amnesty International, Comments/essays/analysis, Prostitution, Radical Feminism, Sex industry advocates, Thanks sex pozzers! (LibFem/3rd Wave/queer/postmodern/'sex positive' theory)

3 responses

  1. antiplondon

    “Amnesty International UK’s Stitch-up Job”

    Julie Bindel obtains a summary of an Amnesty International UK meeting held in 2013, revealing the intention to support the decriminalisation of prostitution prior to a sham consultation process. Judge for yourself

    https://www.byline.com/project/3/article/226

  2. antiplondon

    I Clare Thomas, commenting at Feminist Current:

    The announcement that the policy was being discussed at the AGM in the UK was given in the Spring addition of the general members newspaper. It was on the last page and the space given to it was about 2cm high. The announcement read that ‘amnesty felt there was a gap in their policies protecting sex workers rights and they were proposing full legalisation’ For one moment I actually thought it wasn’t an April Fool, it was so ludicrously in opposition to all the evidence, the huge amount of research done by the EU parliament and the cross party committee chaired by Gavin Shuker MP, which had just annoinced their unanimous support for the Nordic model in the UK. The 2cm square announcement invited you to send for the policy document. When I received them I realised with horror that there was no attempt at an objective discussion. It’s main stance was about the right to sex rather than protection from abuse. We had a vote at my local amnesty meeting and we voted against, but it was obvious that people were confused and not on board with current debate – most had to have it explained that prostituion wasn’t illegal in the UK, but running a brothel and street soliciting were. . I didn’t go to the AGM but my friend did and said when it came to the debate on the Sunday afternoon there was a sudden announcement that the time for debate was to be halved and speakers were cut off after 2 minutes. ‘Sex workers’ who were obviously pimps from Turkey and other places had joined just for the AGM vote. Most of the members were confused and did not understand the issue or even that ‘sex worker’ was an umbrella term including pimps ands brothel workers. My friend said there was a disturbing hostile and intimidating atmosphere which she had never experienced before at an Amnesty event. Everyone at the top table seemed for the vote, and after she spoke for the Nordic model, one of the staff came and asked for her name and and names of others in our group who opposed the policy. Given Amnest UKs every attempt to rail road this vote through it was a hugely significant and encouraging that they still did not get a clear vote for it. When I discovered the Douglas Fox input I was horrified but not completely shocked as the level of bias and duplicitous pro sex lobby prpogamda was so obvious. There has never been any genuine attempt to discuss this subjec objectively.. Looking back I now wonder if the previous director and deputy (both female) weren’t got rid of to make way for this. The huge payoffs were of course a scandal and no member ever worked out what had been so wrong with them that half a million pounds was needed to get rid of Khan. And there were further redundancies made to the women who ran the VAW project who stood up to Fox.

    I do absolutely agree with this article which says that this has been the moment which we should use as a real call to action. i have been thinking this for the last few days as well. I thought erode this tha t at least the west where women had increasing political power would all follow the Nordic route. I I now realise just how powerful the prosextrade trade lobby is – and just how misognist the world could become. Between Amnesty’s policy and iSIS I feel the world could be desperately bleak for women in the 21st century.

    I feel quite isolated as an individual but 100% passionate about fighting this. I wonder how much time we should spend on Amnesty and feel we should perhaps now turn to world wide lobbying of politicians, and yes the UN. In the UK no party will declare a policy on this – I wrote to all parties, last election but it was never taken up. The media particularly the TV channels have not been helpful – I’m still angry at Chaneel 4 giving Rupert Everert 3 programmes to promote the sex trade. hes an actor with no expertise. The Belle de Jour series which portrayed the happy hooker image left a generation of young girls thinking it was all ’empowering’ fun. How can we organise ourselves? How can I as one individual remote from London, campaign.? We need some coherence here in our campaigning, and have one or two clear lobbying groups to speak to the media. The End Demand campaign in the UK has been too quiet. They don’t seem together yet.

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