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Sex trafficking survivor Melanie Thompson and Cook County, Ill. Sheriff Thomas Dart discuss their opposition to the full decriminalization of sex work on Meet the Press Reports.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced the arrests of three men charged with operating an interstate prostitution ring patronized by high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, professors, lawyers, scientists, accountants, elected officials, military officers, and government contractors with security clearances.
There’s an effort underway to fully decriminalize the sex trade in the U.S. It's horrifying many who know that life first hand. "This idea that it's her body, her choice and she has power and autonomy in the sex trade is a fallacy," says Melanie Thompson with the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
"There's a huge misconception around choice," sex trafficking survivor Melanie Thompson said. "Around the idea that these women are choosing to do this because they woke up one day and decided they wanted to. Cops now view the women as victims of sex traffickers caught in the switches between abusive pimps and the need to meet quotas, and the so-called "sex buyers."
The term “sex work” whitewashes the economic constraints, family ruptures and often sordid circumstances that drive many women to sell themselves. It flips the nature of the transaction in question: It enables sex buyers to justify their role, allowing the purchase of women’s bodies for their own sexual pleasure and violent urges to feel as lightly transactional as the purchase of packaged meat from the supermarket.
Arrests for prostitution-related offenses have dropped dramatically in New York City in recent years as the movement to decriminalize the sex trade has gained a foothold in local politics. But a coalition of women’s rights and anti-trafficking groups said on Tuesday that the shift away from criminalization had gone too far.
These leaders say they've seen a dramatic rise in sex trafficking over the last couple of years, and that it affects every demographic group, and carries with it life and death risks.
Buying sex will remain illegal in the state, as communities nationally reconsider how best to legislate prostitution.
“We have made strides in empowering affluent, educated women and girls,” writes Nicholas Kristof of the The New York Times. “But some of the most vulnerable girls in America, those in foster care, have benefited much less.” Read about survivor leader and CATW's Outreach & Advocacy Coordinator Melanie Thompson's journey and advocacy for survivors of trafficking and prostitution.
Nearly 2,000 sex trade survivors, women’s and human rights advocates, anti-trafficking organizations, frontline service providers, and concerned individuals from over 60 countries signed an open letter urging the South African government to reject a Bill that repeals all criminal offences related to prostitution, effectively decriminalizing the sex trade (the “Jeffery Bill”).
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) highlights sex buyers’ own published accounts to demonstrate the sexism, racism, sexual violence, among other offenses, that patronizing prostitution entails.
Belgium amends its Penal Code to further decriminalize pimping and brothel owning, following the model of Germany's disastrous 2002-2017 prostitution law.