CATWLAC, CATWInt., CAP Int. and Iniciativa de Equidad para el Desarrollo

Sisterhood is Standing for the Right of Every Woman to Live a Life Free of Violence and Discrimination April 2017 In response to the letter published on the website of RedTraSex reacting to a change.org petition in which we are requesting a meeting before the InterAmerican Commission for Human Rights, we welcome the invitation to work together to end the untold violence and discrimination women face in prostitution. We are survivors of the sex trade and many of us are still surviving prostitution. We have been bought and sold on the streets and in hotels, in strip clubs and in brothels, from escort services to massage parlors, all for male sexual pleasure and almost unanimously for the profit of third party exploiters. Many of us signed below are also women’s rights advocates, front-line services providers and feminists working for the abolition of violence and discrimination against women. We have never claimed to speak on anyone’s behalf but our own and we do so within the context of the law, women’s rights and human rights principles. While every social justice movement is created by those who directly suffer from human rights violations, justice can only occur when society and national institutions realize that such rights are inalienable, indivisible and universal. We, the undersigned survivors and those of us surviving prostitution, understand suffering caused by sexual violence, degradation and dehumanization at the hands of sex buyers, the police and exploiters. We know that no law will end the stigma in prostitution; prostitution is inherently stigmatizing, inherently violent and is a harmful institution that destroys communities and lives. We realize that we have very different views on how to address the sex trade, but we all agree that ending the criminalization of people bought and sold in prostitution should be our top priority. Therefore, we too ask you to join us in our quest to decriminalize people in prostitution without emboldening and legitimizing the sex trade. This legitimization would occur if we sanction laws that create impunity for those who ruthlessly exploit human beings for profit and pleasure — pimps, brothel and escort agency owners and managers, and sex buyers. We know from the documented horrors we are witnessing in Germany and New Zealand, for example, that legalization or decriminalization of prostitution gives unhinged power and control to pimps, brothel owners, traffickers, sex buyers and misogynists. We agree that law enforcement must not detain assault or deprive anyone of her liberty for being bought in the sex trade, which is why we call for partial decriminalization and services for prostituted persons with meaningful exit strategies to help them rebuild their lives. The blows that we throw are not against anyone who identifies as a person in prostitution or a “sex worker,” but against a global sex trade that immensely profits from the cruel exploitation of marginalized populations who have landed in prostitution because of their absence of choices to survive. These blows are against the police brutality you so rightly raise and aim to stop. These blows are against those who foster the demand for prostitution and purchase women’s bodies in violation of human rights principles. These blows are against any government or elected official who values the sex trade more than women’s lives. We, the undersigned survivors and those surviving, overwhelmingly were trafficked as children, so we too wish to end the trafficking in children. When we reached adulthood, physically and psychologically traumatized, our governments and societies continued to turn their backs on us and brushed off our ordeals and exploitation as “consensual work.” Yes, prostitution is a source of income (although others usually profit from our exploitation), but also a dangerous activity we undertake to feed our children and to survive in a world where no other choices are present. We depart from you in categorizing prostitution as “sex work.” Prostitution is neither “sex” nor “work,” each a fundamental right that human beings seek to exercise with dignity and respect. Prostitution, which is the manifestation of one of the worst forms of patriarchy and gender-based violence and discrimination, is antithetical to these rights. We base our work on international law and human rights principles. We ask you to link forces with us to hold governments accountable to the laws they have ratified to attain the full economic, social, cultural and political rights of women, including: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Art. 1); Right to life, liberty and security (Art. 3) No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. (Art. 4); No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Art. 5); Right to equality and non-discrimination (Art. 1, 2 and7), Right to work and the right to dignity; (article 23) American Convention of Human Rights or Pact of San José of Costa Rica – Every person has the right to personal liberty and security (Art. 7.1); No one can be subjected to arbitrary detention or imprisonment. (Art. 7.3) The 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and Paraguay have ratified: Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community (Preamble); The Parties agree to punish any person who, to gratify the passions of another (1) Procures, entices or leads away, for purposes of prostitution, another person, even with the consent of that person; (2) Exploits the prostitution of another person, even with the consent of that person. (Art. 1) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: …the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world (Preamble); the right to work and to just and favorable working conditions (art. 6 and 7) The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW): States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women.(Art. 6) The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime: Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation (Art.3); States Parties shall take or strengthen measures, including through bilateral or multilateral cooperation, to alleviate the factors that make persons, especially women and children, vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity (Art. 9.4); States Parties shall adopt or strengthen legislative or other measures, such as educational, social or cultural measures, including through bilateral and multilateral cooperation, to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that leads to trafficking (Art. 9.5) Injustice and inequality as common enemy We agree that the common enemy is injustice. Injustice that makes the police abuse women, that guides the pimp to exploit women, and that gives license to the trafficker to abuse children. It is also such injustice that leads society to accept the purchase of women for sex as culturally acceptable; and that celebrates patriarchal structures that define women as second-class citizens. No man has the right to purchase power, control and sexual access to any woman, just as no man has the right to batter, sexually harass, or rape. The exchange of money or goods for such violence is not consent under human rights principles. In fact, the human right to directly or indirectly sexually exploit others does not exist. We too invite you to create a space of respect, in which all women can exercise their right to work in an environment that is free from sexual harassment, sexual violence, or humiliation and where surviving the acts of men’s abject sexual fantasies on your body is not the only qualification required. Our synergies must focus on the legal and political accountability of governments for the protection of women’s rights, not synergies between governments and the sex trade. If governments want success in the fight against sex trafficking, they must target sex buyers and address the demand for prostitution, the engine that upholds the sex trade. The financial and personal investment that you put into calling on governments, human rights treaties bodies and United Nations agencies to legitimize the sex trade should instead be poured into advocating for prevention of prostitution, education and economic empowerment of women and girls. Finally, we urge the members of RedTraSex to question the objectives of your leadership. You are like us: descendants of myriad forms of inhumane colonization, whose bodies continue to be occupied for profit. Challenge your leadership, which is financed by international agencies that care little about women’s equality and by powerful men of the global north, who historically have deeply benefitted, and continue to benefit, from the domination of women and girls across Latin America and the Caribbean, of women and girls of African descent, Indigenous, and of millions of other women and girls around the world. Your rights as women in prostitution are indistinguishable from the rights of women who are not in prostitution, which includes living a life free from violence and discrimination. Please join your voices to ours to ensure that the sex trade will never become part of our governments’ vision for the future of our planet.