OUR POSITION ON PROSTITUTION

Dear all,

Društvo Ključ — Centre for the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings is the only specialist non-governmental organisation in Slovenia working in the field of anti-trafficking, covering both preventive work and direct assistance to all actual and potential victims of trafficking (men and women alike, whatever the form of exploitation). This statement was produced jointly by professionals at Društvo Ključ and the other undersigned organisations, together with women enrolled in Ključ's programmes who have experience both of human trafficking and of prostitution not classified as trafficking.

Because we also help “potential”, high-risk people whom we assess as possible trafficking victims, we very often encounter people working in prostitution who want to leave a system they experience as exploitative. Those of the undersigned organisations whose direct work brings them into contact with people driven into prostitution by their circumstances report the same. These are people said to have decided for themselves to sell sexual services — but we regard that supposed “autonomous free choice” as highly questionable.

Why? Our many years of work with victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and with victims of prostitution point to the following:

All of them were deceived about the working conditions and threatened if they did not hand pimps or traffickers a set sum of money (the amount varies). They have little or no say over which clients, how many clients, what sexual practices, or whether sex is with or without protection (many buyers will pay more for sex without). Debt bondage and fictitious costs appear (the debt keeps growing, or never shrinks, and breaking the rules brings financial penalties). The threats hinge above all on what is effectively the only choice available: accept the employer's terms, or go home, where they have no way of supporting themselves and often their children and family. Threats of physical and sexual violence are common too, directed either at the victims themselves or at the people close to them. People are also forced into this in subtler ways, chiefly through various forms of manipulation.

Every woman our organisations have worked with — organisations that provide direct support and assistance to women with experience of violence and/or trafficking — had one or more of the following characteristics. They had very limited money or means of earning a living (poor, long-term unemployed, often from countries where even a university degree did not get them suitable work). They were victims of family violence, either in their family of origin or in a relationship (it is also common for a partner to force a woman into prostitution, adding a further layer of violence). They were victims of sexual abuse in childhood (some studies suggest up to 30% of people abused as children are involved in prostitution at some point in their lives). They were dependent on drugs and/or alcohol (organisations working on addiction prevention and support estimate that the great majority of women with addictions, and some men, are involved in prostitution to fund drugs; this is especially common among under-age users. It is also common for dealers to force users into prostitution to pay off debts, and for a woman to have to sell sex to fund drugs for herself and her partner.)

In Slovenia, as in most other European countries, most women in prostitution are foreign nationals from non-EU countries (eastern Europe, South America, Africa, the Balkans) or from poorer EU countries (Romania, Bulgaria and others). Being foreign makes them additionally vulnerable, and traffickers and pimps exploit that. Their lack of options puts them in a position where they must accept prostitution to secure a living for themselves and/or for their children and other family members. Nor should we overlook trans people who, because stigma keeps them out of employment, are forced into prostitution as their only means of survival.

The undersigned organisations maintain that talk of someone choosing “prostitute” as an occupation is meaningless and inappropriate when the choice is between a decent and an indecent life — indeed between surviving and not surviving.

The consequences of prostitution are the most serious issue of all, and must not be overlooked, ignored or underestimated — because they are the same for trafficking victims as for those who “chose” prostitution themselves. They blame themselves for everything that happened to them. They have very poor self-image and confidence; they live with post-traumatic stress disorder. Prolonged dissociation, caused by forced sex or by sex they consented to without any actual desire for that person, leaves people in prostitution frequently depressed and anxious, turning to alcohol and drugs, often self-harming, and often ending up in relationships that damage them. People in prostitution are frequently suicidal.

Advocates of prostitution as a form of work often tell us that all the consequences listed above are in fact the result of stigma. That is not so. They are the result of trauma — the trauma of surrendering your sexual autonomy to someone you do not want to have sex with. That is what does the long-term damage.

The non-governmental organisations working in these fields find that it takes a great deal of time and energy to help victims reach the point of accepting that they are not responsible for prostitution having “happened” to them — that it was unforeseeable circumstances that pushed them into the decision they made in order to survive.

We do not want to cast people in prostitution as victims or to strip them of their autonomy. Quite the opposite: our work aims to give them back their power. We try to enable them to pursue their own wishes and goals, to live the life they would actually choose, free of violence. We firmly believe that selling their own body cannot lead them there. And since those of us working directly with victims are not short of people seeking our services, it seems fair to conclude that most do not feel our position harms them or takes away their autonomy.

We do not believe that legalising prostitution can protect the women (and men) in it or genuinely help them build a decent life. It did not in Germany, nor Austria, nor the Netherlands. In those countries the number of victims of prostitution and trafficking actually rose after legalisation and, according to non-governmental organisations, so did the number of children in prostitution. Legalisation markedly increased demand, which in turn led to ever more women and girls being brought in from poorer countries; as noted, most women in prostitution are foreign nationals.

Making legal something that harms people so profoundly only sustains and increases that suffering, and prolongs the exploitation of everyone already in prostitution and everyone still entering it. By contrast, non-governmental organisations in countries that adopted the so-called Nordic model, criminalising the purchase of sexual services, report improvement.

Rather than trying to convince women in prostitution that their decision was voluntary — and re-victimising them in the process — this is what we should be talking about: more effective prosecution of the abuse of prostitution and of profiting from it (pimping, so-called organisers of prostitution); a ban on advertising prostitution, effectively enforced, because nobody should profit from another's suffering; programmes aimed at reducing demand, that is, at the buyers (whether the people in prostitution are women or men, the buyers are overwhelmingly men); and, not least, programmes that give people in prostitution a way out of exploitation, through psychosocial and therapeutic support and through employment, training and similar schemes.

Društvo Ključ — Centre for the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings

SOS Helpline for Women and Children Victims of Violence

Društvo za nenasilno komunikacijo

Ženska svetovalnica (Women's Counselling Service)

Stigma — Association for Drug Harm Reduction

European Network for Gender Equality

Women's Lobby of Slovenia