We are writing on behalf of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), one of the oldest international non-governmental organizations working to end the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls worldwide. Our network includes national and grassroots organizations, including sex trade survivor-led organizations and frontline service providers, which all work to promote and protect the fundamental rights of women and girls globally.

We thank the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls for this unique opportunity to continuing to guide Member States in realizing equality for women and girls,
through appropriate measures, including legislative, cultural, and educational measures, within the universal framework of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person.
We are submitting responses to the following requested questions.

1. Describe the linkages, if any, between prostitution and the violation of the human rights of women and girls.

The United Nations Secretary-General stated, “every woman and every girl has the right to a life free of violence. Yet this rupture of human rights occurs in a variety of ways in every
community. It particularly affects those who are most marginalized and most vulnerable.” No rupture of human rights is more salient than in the context of the prostitution of women and girls.

An understanding of the direct nexus between prostitution and violence against women and girls requires express recognition of the links between sex-based discrimination and harmful cultural practices, which lead to the dehumanization of women and girls, and which in turn leads to gender-based violence. International law and human rights principles are clear in establishing that prostitution is violative of the dignity of the person.

Sex-based discrimination, as articulated in Article 1 of CEDAW, encompasses gender-based violence or violence that is directed against a woman or girl because she was born female, or that affects women and girls disproportionately. The CEDAW Committee has clarified for Member States that culture and tradition can restrict women’s enjoyment of their fundamental rights.

Violence and discrimination against women and girls as a class is rooted in structures initiated, developed and implemented by millennial-long patriarchal systems for the purpose of subjugating and maintaining women and girls in a lower status in society than that of men, impairing or nullifying the right to equality and to enjoy fundamental freedoms.

The links between widespread harmful cultural practices and human rights violations against women and girls are well-documented. Girl marriages and forced marriages, female genital mutilation (FGM), domestic violence, breast ironing, dowry, sexual harassment, to mention a few prejudices and practices that justify gender-based violence as a form of control of women, from cradle to grave, help us understand the system of prostitution as a harmful cultural practice. Like other forms of human rights violations against women and girls, across centuries to this day, the phenomenon of prostitution was created and is maintained as an institution or a system founded for specific religious, social, or cultural purposes.

Like other forms of harmful cultural practices, prostitution violates the rights to health, security and physical integrity of the person, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and it solidifies society’s control over women and girls. Survivors of prostitution denounce the violence they experienced in brothels, on the streets and elsewhere and reiterate their desire to exit and to prevent other women from being exploited.

It is rare that the perpetrators in the sex trade are held accountable, in part because culturally and politically, the exchange of money, goods or services for sexual acts impedes the recognition of prostitution as sexual violence and discrimination. That exchange does not lead to consent and even if purported consent is deemed offered, it is irrelevant when human rights are violated. There is also not enough public awareness or understanding that patronizing (sex buying) is a patriarchal manifestation of male sexual entitlement, domination, and abuse of power that causes great harm to women. The sex trade, its promoters and users, with the help of the media and other forms of mass communications, aggressively promotes, normalizes and glamorizes male violence and discrimination against women and girls.

Like other harmful cultural practices, the system of prostitution exerts control and abuse of power over women, which Member States must not deny or ignore, irrespective of their national laws and whether the sex trade falls under legal or illegal commercially profitable enterprises. The effect of the myriad forms of violence inherent to prostitution “deprives women of the equal enjoyment, exercise and knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” While the sex trade, its supporters and consumers have successfully marketed prostitution as inevitable, it was in fact invented, and therefore can be undone.

2. How effective have legislative frameworks and policies been in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in prostitution?

Member States have ratified conventions, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations resolutions, and other UN instruments that offer strong blueprints for the realization of the human rights of women and girls. To address prostitution and sex trafficking, such international agreements include the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The United Nations and its agencies are also mandated to assist Member States in upholding and implementing these covenants.

International law recognizes that the demand for prostitution is the driver of the exponential growth of the sex trade. The sex trade includes, but is not limited to street prostitution, pornography, commercial sex establishments or other establishments in which prostitution occurs (brothels, “massage parlors,” casinos, strip clubs, bars, hotels, private homes), escort agencies, so-called “sex tourism,” phone sex, and through advancement in technological innovations, including the Internet, the marriage brokerage business (“mail order brides”), “sugar dating” sites, pornography sites such as OnlyFans, social media platforms, mobile technology, webcams, and many other forms through which exploiters use tools of deception, recruitment, coercion to sell women and girls to sex buyers.

Survivors of prostitution consistently call for sex buyers to be held accountable for the harm they cause, because the prostitution transaction is neither harmless nor equal. However, a number civil society organizations, and even UN agencies, claim that prostitution is a form of labour and purport that any criminalization of the perpetrators, whether patronizers or third party-exploiters and profiteers, would violate a woman’s right to agency, bodily autonomy and economic empowerment.

This analysis fails to understand that the human rights of prostituted women are as inherent, universal and inalienable to them as to any person by virtue of their birth. Women and girls have a fundamental right not to be prostituted. States Parties therefore have an obligation to secure a woman’s right to sexual health, sexual autonomy, and to a life free from violence, discrimination and exploitation, which cannot happen with the legalization or decriminalization of the sex trade.

Prostitution is not, and can never be labour, but is a manifestation of sex inequality with men who purchase the right to exercise violence and discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault against vulnerable and marginalized women. Personal growth, empowerment and decent work for disenfranchised women thus cannot be borne of the system of prostitution. The sex trade is incompatible with the rights of women to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. It is also incompatible with established legal understanding of workers’ rights and decent work.

Member States that have legalized and decriminalized the sex trade expressed the stated goals of (1) protecting women in prostitution from violence; (2) curbing human trafficking and organized crime; and (3) protecting children from sex trafficking. Their failure to reach any of those goals is well documented. National laws that legalize and decriminalize the system of prostitution condemn millions of women and girls to systematic violence, inequality and degradation inherent to prostitution.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Member States that have recognized the links between (1) prostitution as a form of male violence and discrimination against women; (2) male demand for prostitution as a leading factor contributing to the growth of the sex trade, and its engine sex trafficking; and (3) prostitution as a barrier to equality, have enacted legislation that is proving to be effective in protecting those bought and sold in prostitution, while holding perpetrators of such violence accountable.

While criminalization of the demand for paid sexual acts has provoked hypothetical concerns regarding the welfare of prostituted women by those who want to legalize and decriminalize the sex trade, no valid research supports this fear. To the contrary, Member States that have opted for decriminalizing and legalizing the sex trade are witnessing an exponential increase in sex trafficking, including of children, and other illegal, dangerous, and damaging consequences of prostitution. In a decriminalization/legalization framework, it is not the prostituted who are protected but instead the sex buyers, traffickers, pimps, procurers and other exploiters.

In accordance with CEDAW and the Palermo Protocol, inter alia, Member States have an obligation to adopt legal frameworks and policies that address and prosecute the demand that fosters the system of prostitution, while protecting women and girls from human rights violations.

The acceptance of prostitution as inevitable, or the indifference to it as a human rights violation, remains irreconcilable with, and a deep betrayal of, stated commitments to attain equality for women and girls. It also damages the legitimacy of UN agencies and civil society organizations that promote prostitution as viable employment for women and girls.

3. What measures are in place to collect and analyse data at the national level with a view to better understanding the impact that prostitution has on the rights of women and girls and Recommendations to establish such measures?

Violence and discrimination against women and girls remains a global epidemic of staggering proportions. At the heart of the experience of prostitution is violence, physical and psychological harm, and dehumanization, yet the system of prostitution is one of the most under-documented human rights violations against women. There are dismally few measures in place to collect data on the system of prostitution and its effects on women, girls, their families and on society.

The lack of data also deprives women’s access to justice and the ability to intersect forms of violence and discrimination that affect women’s lives with an aggravating negative impact. Like in cases of domestic violence, pimps and traffickers often intentionally keep their victims isolated and control their access to medical care. As with FGM and other forms of severe gender-based violence, prostitution survivors speak of lifelong physical and psychological pain.

Member States’ national research, health, and medical institutes, and UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization, have an obligation to collect data and develop studies on the impact of unwanted, monetized sexual invasion and psychological coercion on women’s health, including physical and psychological health. The most significant barrier in pursuing this course of action is a lack of political will.

It is important to note that many prostituted women also experience violence at the hands of sex buyers. American prostitution survivor leader Autumn Burris said: “There isn’t always a trafficker but there is always a sex buyer.” One study of adult women found that only 7% reported being raped by a sex buyer to law enforcement, while 54.8% of the women surveyed experienced assault at the hands of a patronizer.

The health consequences of prostitution cannot be limited to the prevention and protection from HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. Reports show that girls and women sexually exploited in the sex trade, including pornography and prostitution, suffer from domestic violence, physical assault, sexual harassment, rape, and the psychological sequelae of these traumatic stressors: posttraumatic stress and dissociative disorders, depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts and completed suicides, and substance abuse. The consequences of being repeatedly bought and sold to strangers for sexual acts include an array of medical issues, including malnourishment, pregnancy-related issues, burns, broken bones, stab wounds, dental trauma, traumatic brain injury, anogenital injuries (rectal prolapse/vaginal tears), untreated chronic medical conditions. Likewise, histories of childhood abuse, family abuse and neglect, are high risk factors early abuse in prostitution and to sex trafficking and; and a higher death rate and/or murder are linked to sexual exploitation.

Like other forms of male violence against women, such as domestic violence, rape, sexual violence or sexual harassment, collecting evidence of harm throughout the centuries has proven difficult because of cultural, religious, or traditional factors that put the burden of proof on the women suffering such violations under the concepts of “consent” and “agency.” Without the collection of such data, it is impossible for States Parties to uphold their obligations under international law, especially CEDAW, and report measures that have been or must be taken to overcome such violence against women and girls in the sex trade perpetuated by exploiters and sex buyers.

It is therefore imperative for Member States, and UN agencies, in particular the WHO, to invest in developing research and compiling data and statistical analyses on the pervasive violence, discrimination, dehumanization, physical and psychological harms women and girls suffer in and because of the system of prostitution.