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Amnesty International votes 'Yes' to support sex work decriminalization

Gale, an unemployed former restaurant worker, works as a prostitute on Las Vegas Boulevard. (Getty)
Gale, an unemployed former restaurant worker, works as a prostitute on Las Vegas Boulevard. (Getty)

Amnesty International has reached a verdict today on the controversial draft supporting the global decriminalization of sex work. The five-day council meeting held in Dublin, Ireland comes to a close today, but with a “Yes” vote on this important draft, it seems the work is just getting started.

According to the press release on amnesty.org, “The resolution recommends that Amnesty International develop a policy that supports the full decriminalisation of all aspects of consensual sex work. The policy will also call on states to ensure that sex workers enjoy full and equal legal protection from exploitation, trafficking and violence.”

This policy is yet to be written. The vote today has solidified Amnesty’s stance on the subject of sex work, adopting a preliminary policy, requesting that the International Board “adopt a policy that seeks attainment of the highest possible protection of the human rights of sex workers, through measures that include the decriminalisation of sex work.”

Assuming the debate surrounding the draft was anywhere as heated inside the council meeting as it has been in the media leading up to today’s vote, it couldn’t have been an easy decision for the organization to make. Opinions are strong on all sides of the issue and while many will be cheering at the news, many others are shaking their heads in disappointment.

If you’ve heard about the controversial draft, it’s probably thanks to celebrities like Lena Dunham, who jumped into the argument aligned with the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW). Coverage of their Change.org petition and the responses from sex workers rights activists sparked a hot debate across social media.

But celebrities and white, radical, often Evangelical Christian feminist groups who are part of the aptly named “rescue industry” aren’t the only organizations taking a hit with today’s decision. Cherry Smiley, artist and co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry (IWASI), is no fan of exploitative sex industry saviours either. But she is still deeply saddened by today’s decision.

Cindy Rosillo marches through downtown during Slutwalk on September 7, 2013 in Chicago. (Getty)
Cindy Rosillo marches through downtown during Slutwalk on September 7, 2013 in Chicago. (Getty)

"We were absolutely devastated to read the draft,” Smiley said in an interview on Monday. The IWASI approaches the buying and selling of sex as a problem of colonialism, and feels that the policy has “white-washed or ignored the realities of Indigenous women and ignored the reality of prostitution as not only a form of male violence against women but as well as colonial male violence against Indigenous women and girls.”

It is renewing the respect for women and girls in traditional Indigenous culture which is at the heart of IWASI’s goals. "Indigenous women and girls in Canada and in many other countries are over represented in prostitution,” Cherry says. “What our organization wants to do is restore traditional Indigenous worldviews around the value of women and girls. Prostitution is not and has not been a traditional activity for Indigenous women and girls here in Canada. I have yet to come across a nation that has a word for prostitution in their lexicon. And that's because, as far as I've encountered, prostitution didn't exist in Canada pre-contact."

Smiley fears that full decriminalisation will normalise prostitution even further. “Making the buying of sex normal,” she says, “creates a climate, creates a culture where it's totally okay for men to exploit the inequality of women and girls. The focus often gets shifted away from the johns and the pimps and what they're doing, and it's put on to the women and girls.”

Turning attention to the buyers of sexual services is the basis of the Nordic model, which many abolitionists support, including the IWASI. These systems decriminalise the act of selling sexual services, but not the act of buying them.

“I think across the board, everybody is saying yes. We need to decriminalise prostituted persons. But it is social services that will help prevent women from going [into prostitution] in the first place and helping them exit. And a public education campaign. We need all of those three aspects of the Nordic model in order for it to be successful.”

In other words, arresting the clients of sex workers isn’t enough. To truly help those who are being exploited in sex work, social support is absolutely necessary. "If we give women money, we give them housing, we give them detox and support services, child-care," Smiley says, "once they have established that safety, they can begin to imagine something better, something different for themselves."

But is the Nordic model necessary to offer these protections to sex workers?

Many feminists, especially current and former sex workers, are hoping that today’s decision will lead to the same support for those in the industry that abolitionist groups desire: safety, security, and access to support services without stigma.

Khazak prostitutes walk the streets August 10, 2006 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Getty)
Khazak prostitutes walk the streets August 10, 2006 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Getty)

Jean McDonald, co-ordinator for Maggie’s: The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, confirms not only their support for the policy, but that it is about time policy-makers started taking sex workers rights seriously. "We definitely support the draft proposal,” she said in an interview Friday. “We think that it's long overdue and we welcome support from Amnesty International. I think it coincides with a lot of what sex worker activists across the globe have been saying for decades. And that is that we need, decriminalisation. We need respect for our rights and our ability to work."

Decriminalisation as a path to protection for sex workers and trafficking victims is not a new idea. Amnesty has been studying the possibilities for two years, talking to sex workers and human rights groups, studying the effects of different criminal models. While the Nordic model is favoured by many abolitionist groups, like the IWASI, New Zealand tends to be the favourite choice for supporters of full decriminalisation. McDonald, like many supporters of decriminalisation, says she believes that, “If you want to combat trafficking, a criminalized atmosphere is probably one of the worst ways that you can go about that.”

McDonald explains that the dangers inherent in criminalization make it a dangerous place for everyone in the sex industry, whether consensually or by force. “The whole industry actually pushes things further underground,” she said. Not only do sex workers find it more difficult to screen clients and work in safe spaces, exploited or trafficked people in the industry suffer. “It's less likely that people in those positions would be able to come forward and reach out, especially in cases of migrant sex workers,” who, McDonald explains, are often “saved” by anti-trafficking groups or law enforcement, then deported.

Not only that, but McDonald points out that under the Nordic model, where the buying of sexual services is criminalized, clients are much less likely to report potential victims, fearing for their own freedom.

That there are so few examples of different ways to try and prevent forced sexual labour speaks to why this policy change is so important. McDonald explained that it is “excellent to have Amnesty on board with this” but pointed out how many other organizations already support this ideology, including the World Health Organization, the UN AIDS group as well as several other UN committees. McDonald hopes that this latest development “adds fuel to the fire, to push for decriminalisation around the world and hopefully challenge some of the stigma and stereotypes that people have around sex work and sex workers."