Forced prostitution
Forced prostitution, also known as involuntary prostitution or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" appear in international and humanitarian conventions, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but have been inconsistently applied. "Forced prostitution" refers to conditions of control over a person who is coerced by another to engage in sexual activity.
Legal situation
Forced prostitution is illegal under customary law in all countries. This is different from voluntary prostitution which may have a different legal status in different countries, which range from being fully illegal and punishable by death to being legal and regulated as an occupation.While the legality of adult prostitution varies between jurisdictions, the prostitution of children is illegal nearly everywhere in the world.
In 1949, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. This Convention supersedes a number of earlier conventions that covered some aspects of forced prostitution, and also deals with other aspects of prostitution. It penalizes the procurement and enticement to prostitution as well as the maintenance of brothels. As at December 2013, the convention has only been ratified by 82 countries. One of the main reasons it has not been ratified by many countries is because the legal term 'voluntary' is broadly defined in countries with a legal sex industry. For example, in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Greece and Turkey some forms of prostitution and pimping are legal and regulated as professional occupations.
The Thirteen Amendment abolished slavery in the United States of America. "We see forced prostitution and slavery intertwining because they are similar. When slavery was illegal, they were forced into hard labor, and we see women being forced to perform sexual activities for their 'masters' or 'pimps.'"
If a procurer forces anyone to engage in prostitution across state lines, they may be charged under both the Mann Act and the Travel Act.
Child prostitution
Child prostitution is considered inherently non-consensual and exploitative, as children, because of their age, are not legally able to consent. In most countries child prostitution is illegal irrespective of the child reaching a lower statutory age of consent.State parties to the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography are required to prohibit child prostitution. The Protocol defines a child as any human being under the age of 18, "unless an earlier age of majority is recognized by a country's law". The Protocol entered into force on 18 January 2002, and as of December 2013, 166 states are party to the Protocol and another 10 states have signed but not yet ratified it.
The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 of the International Labour Organization provides that the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution is one of the worst forms of child labor. This convention, adopted in 1999, provides that countries that had ratified it must eliminate the practice urgently. It enjoys the fastest pace of ratifications in the ILO's history since 1919.
In the United States, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 classifies any "commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age" to be a "Severe Form of Trafficking in Persons".
In poorer nations, child prostitution remains a serious issue; tourists from the Western world travel to these countries to engage in child sex tourism. Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil and Mexico have been identified as leading hotspots of child sexual exploitation.
Human trafficking
Trafficking of women and children for prostitution is a violation of human rights, but labor trafficking is probably more widespread.Evidence can be found in field studies of trafficking victims across the world and in the simple fact that the worldwide market for labor is far greater than that for sex. Statistics on the "end use" of trafficked people are often unreliable because they tend to overrepresent the sex trade.
Human trafficking, especially of girls and women, often leads to forced prostitution and sexual slavery. In some cases, a pimp may exploit a person who suffers from a mental illness to engage in prostitution. According to a 2007 report by the UNODC, internationally, the most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United States. The major sources of trafficked persons are Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. Victims of cybersex trafficking are transported and then coerced to perform sexual acts and or raped in front of a webcam on live streams that are often commercialized.
A 2010 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report estimates that globally, 79% of identified victims of human trafficking were trafficked for sexual exploitation, 18% for forced labor, and 3% for other forms of exploitation. In 2011, preliminary European Commission in September 2011 similarly estimated that among human-trafficking victims, 75% were trafficked for sexual exploitation and the rest for forced labor or other forms of exploitation.
Due to the illegal nature of prostitution and the different methodologies used in separating forced prostitution from voluntary prostitution, the extent of this phenomenon is difficult to estimate accurately. According to a 2008 report by the U.S. Department of State: "Annually, according to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80% of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50% are minors, and the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation." A 2014 European Commission report found that from 2010 to 2013, a total of 30,146 people were registered as victims of human trafficking in the 28 member states of the European Union; of these, 69% were victims of sexual exploitation.
In 2004, The Economist claimed that only a small proportion of prostitutes were explicitly trafficked against their will.
Elizabeth Pisani protested against the perceived hysteria around human trafficking preceding sport events such as the Super Bowl or FIFA World Cup.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children is a protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and defines human trafficking as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation." For this reason, threat, coercion, or use of force is not necessary to constitute trafficking, the exploitation of an existing vulnerabilitysuch as economic vulnerability or sexual vulnerabilityis sufficient. Sigma Huda, UN special reporter on trafficking in persons, observed that "For the most part, prostitution as actually practiced in the world usually does satisfy the elements of trafficking." However Save the Children see explicit trafficking and prostitution as different issues: "The issue however, gets mired in controversy and confusion when prostitution too is considered as a violation of the basic human rights of both adult women and minors, and equal to sexual exploitation per se. From this standpoint then, trafficking and prostitution become conflated with each other".
Attitudes towards whether prostitution can ever be voluntary
With regard to prostitution, three worldviews exist: abolitionism, regulation and prohibitionism. Each these views are represented in some Western country.For the proponents of the abolitionist view, prostitution is always a coercive practice, and the prostitute is seen as a victim. They argue that most prostitutes are forced into the practice, either directly, by pimps and traffickers, indirectly through poverty, drug addiction and other personal problems, or, as it has been argued in recent decades by radical feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, Melissa Farley and Catharine MacKinnon, merely by patriarchal social structures and power relations between men and women.
William D. Angel finds that "most" prostitutes have been forced into the occupation through poverty, lack of education and lack of employment possibilities. Kathleen Barry argues that, "there should be no distinction between "free" and "coerced", "voluntary" and "involuntary" prostitution, since any form of prostitution is a human rights violation, an affront to womanhood that cannot be considered dignified labour".
France's Green Party argues: "The concept of 'free choice' of the prostitute is indeed relative, in a society where gender inequality is institutionalized." The proponents of the abolitionist view hold that prostitution is a practice which ultimately leads to the mental, emotional and physical destruction of the women who engage in it, and, as such, it should be abolished. As a result of such views on prostitution, Sweden, Norway and Iceland have enacted laws which criminalize the clients of the prostitutes, but not the prostitutes themselves.
In contrast to the abolitionist view, those who favour legalization do not consider the women who practice prostitution as victims, but as independent adult women who have made a choice which should be respected. Mariska Majoor, former prostitute and founder of the Prostitution Information Center, from Amsterdam, holds that: "In our eyes it's a profession, a way of making money; it's important that we are realistic about this... Prostitution is not bad; it's only bad if done against one's will. Most women make this decision themselves." According to proponents of regulation, prostitution should be considered a legitimate activity, which must be recognized and regulated, in order to protect the workers' rights and to prevent abuse. The prostitutes are treated as sex workers who enjoy benefits similar to other occupations. The World Charter for Prostitutes Rights, drafted by the International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights, calls for the decriminalisation of "all aspects of adult prostitution resulting from individual decision". Since the mid-1970s, sex workers across the world have organised, demanding the decriminalisation of prostitution, equal protection under the law, improved working conditions, the right to pay taxes, travel and receive social benefits such as pensions. As a result of such views on prostitution, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand have fully legalized prostitution. Prostitution is considered a job like any other.
In its understanding of the distinction between sex work and forced prostitution, the Open Society Foundations organization states: "sex work is done by consenting adults, where the act of selling or buying sexual services is not a violation of human rights".