Equality Now Press Release

UN General Assembly Debate On Human Trafficking Must Move Beyond Words
Equality Now Calls on India to Criminalize Demand for Prostitution as an Effective Way to End Sex Trafficking

June 2, 2008 –As the UN General Assembly (GA) prepares for yet another UN forum on trafficking, a thematic debate on June 3, 2008, international human rights organization Equality Now will launch a global campaign calling on the Government of India to tighten its anti-trafficking law by criminalizing buyers of prostitution.

In light of the UN GA debate, Equality Now warns that too much has been said about trafficking and much-needed money spent in talking about it while little else has been done to end the scourge. Extensive rhetoric has been generated by UN conferences like the Vienna Forum (earlier this year) and standards have already been set in international treaties like the UN Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, adopted in 2000. Despite these agreements political will has been weak to stop human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry that can end only if states make specific commitments: pass strong laws, allocate adequate resources and support grassroots anti-trafficking groups.

Equality Now focuses on sex trafficking, which disproportionately affects women and girls. 80% of trafficking victims are women and children, a majority of whom are trafficked into the commercial sex trade. Sex trafficking and prostitution go hand-in-hand. The demand for prostitution is the driving force for the illegal trafficking of women and girls for sexual purposes. Prostitution preys on the most vulnerable – women and children who are poor, of color, from “lower” castes, and/or immigrant. Sex trafficking cannot be stopped if demand for prostitution continues to flourish. Yet governments have resisted criminalizing buyers of prostitution.

The Government of India has taken the positive step of tabling amendments to the 1956 Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), which recognize the sexual exploitation inherent in prostitution. The amendments will, among other things, decriminalize women in prostitution, while criminalizing the real and often invisible perpetrators - the buyers of prostitution, pimps and brothel owners. However the ITPA Bill 2006 has languished in New Delhi for two years with no end in sight. Much resistance to the amendment comes from the HIV/AIDS lobby, which believes that targeting demand would curtail the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The grim reality, however, is that women in prostitution are often unable to negotiate condom use and are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. As one Indian woman named Beenu, who is in prostitution says, “Few people agree to use a condom. And if they don’t, I cannot force them.” The most effective way to protect women like Beenu would be by curtailing the commercial sex industry.

Taina Bien-Aimé Executive Director of Equality Now elucidates, “Instead of controlling prostitution, legalization has led to a disastrous outbreak of increased exploitation of women in the sex trade, sex trafficking and other related crimes. In fact the German government and the Mayor of Amsterdam (where prostitution is legal) on separate occasions noted that their prostitution laws have not been effective in boosting transparency in brothels. Amsterdam is now working to shut down a third of its brothels. If India is truly committed to ending sex trafficking the government must pass the ITPA Bill 2006, which criminalizes demand, an effective tool to end sex trafficking.”

Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to protect and promote the civil, political, and economic rights of girls and women. Equality Now’s Women’s Action Network comprises over 35,000 groups and individual members in over 160 countries. For more information please visit www.equalitynow.org .

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