CHASTE calls for the Abolition of sexual enslavement in 2007
25 March 2007 marks 200 years to the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies. However although Slavery from Africa finally came to an end in the Americas in 1888, the United Nations still estimates that there are tens of millions of people still in forms of servitude today.
One of these forms of enslavement is in the suffering and bondage experienced by those Trafficked for Sexual Exploitation today. This exploitation of sexual labour was present in the original enslavement of African women and children three hundred years ago, where women and the girl child were captured, branded, transported and sold for leisure sex for land owners and their agents, and for reproduction of the enslaved classes across the Caribbean and the Southern states of America.
Today the provenance is no longer exclusively Bantu or Nilotic. Every ethnicity is embroiled in a globalisation of contemporary sexual enslavement. It is predominantly represented by women and the girl child, although there is some evidence of young men caught up in being trafficked for sexual exploitaion in Europe and Africa.
CHASTE is calling for Abolition of sexual enslavement in 2007 to mark this bicentennial year. Not for Sale Sunday May 20th 2007 (link) will be bringing to the attention of the churches and to policy makers the key elements which are needed for this movement for Abolition to get underway. We take heart from the example of Sweden which in 1999 introduced a law which crimalised the buying of sexual services whilst those who offer sex for sale are offered multiple routes for exiting prostitution and are not prosecuted. The law was part of an overall package to address violence against women, secure women’s rights and diminish the risk of young girls from entering into prostitution. The ‘signal’ effect of this law has been strong.
It is widely considered that trafficking for sexual exploitation has been reduced in Sweden and that there has been a considerable change in attitude amongst the potential male consumers. A survey on general attitudes in 2001 stated that more than 80 % of the population are found to be in favour of the law. About 100 cases of violation of the law are reported each year which are met with fines as well as imprisonment.
Whilst there are voices who claim that on street prostitution has become more marginalised and dangerous for those who are engaged with it from research undertaken in Malmo, it is clear that the age of those entering into Prostitution is rising year on year, and that attitudes amongst Swedish males are clearly changing to deeper respect for women as Not for Sale. See research paper (link to pdf Kelly and Regan in research /papers pages)
We know from research by leading academics and International agencies, that the Sex Industry in Europe has been inextricably linked with the re-emergence of trafficking in women. In many countries the proportion of foreign national women in the Sex Industry has escalated, a feature across not only Europe but in many parts of the world. It has been estimated by recent raids by Police on brothels and massage parlours that in the city brothels of the UK over 65% of women are foreign nationals. Amongst these there is a high risk of many having been trafficked, or coerced into Prostitution in their country of origin.
Foreign national women offer greater profitability for Brothel and Massage parlour owners and the pimps who run them. The most profitable are those who are trafficked. Trafficked women are not normally visible on our streets being kept in brothels and secured houses in off street prostitution. This is why trafficking for sexual exploitation has developed rapidly as a number one low risk – high reward area of activity for those in organised crime groups.
It is time for us to Abolish Sexual Enslavement in the same spirit as those who protested against the enslavement of African women, men and children two centuries ago. Time to look seriously at the pioneering stance of Sweden in criminalising the client and not the one who sells, and time to break some of the myths which surround Prostitution and the clients who purchase pay-as-you-go sex as part of their modern consumer rights.