Prostitution and Violence against Women and Girls is a groundbreaking report written by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem.
The report tells the truth about prostitution with astonishing clarity, examining it as a system of exploitation that perpetuates male violence against women and girls. Among many important topics, it discusses weaponized “consent,” the commodification of women, the links between pornography and prostitution, the role of demand (male sex buying behavior), and the effects they have on women’s and girls’ mental health.
Alsalem discusses the systemic problems of prostitution and she brings its devastating consequences on women and girls to light. She calls on countries to avoid tolerating and facilitating the violence against, and exploitation of, women that is inseparable from prostitution and pornography.
We are calling for the UN Human Rights Commission to immediately adopt this astonishingly honest report. Join us by taking action below:
Read the full report from Reem Alsalem here and see some key highlights below.
Recognition of the Role of Demand
Importantly, the report acknowledges the role of males who engage in sex buying. Their behavior is the lynchpin on which all sexual exploitation spins. No buyers, no business!
“Sexual act buyers are the main perpetrators of violence, including femicide. Not only are they individually responsible for acts of violence; collectively, they create a demand for an inherently violent system built on the sexual subordination of women and girls. Perpetrators come from all walks of life, from various socioeconomic and racial backgrounds.”
Prostitution is Violence Against Women
The report powerfully states:
“Prostitution is a system of exploitation and an aggregated form of male violence against women and girls that intersects with other forms of structural discrimination.”
Exploitation is inherent within prostitution. Reem Alsalem rightly argues that this exploitation is a form of violence and it perpetuates discrimination against women and girls. The sexually exploitative and dehumanizing nature of prostitution has devastating effects on prostituted people’s physical and mental wellbeing (see here, here, and here).
The infliction of violence against prostituted women is imagined to be justified through financial transaction, and it is perpetuated by the normalization of violence in pornography (i.e., filmed prostitution).
As the report states:
“The perceived right of men to purchase a sex act normalizes the systematic violence inflicted on women through prostitution, including in pornography, as it erases the boundaries between what counts as sex and what counts as sexual violence.”
See Also: Why Prostitution is Not Sex Work
Pornography is Filmed Prostitution and Normalizes Violence Against Women
The report rightly recognizes pornography as filmed prostitution and points to the research demonstrating that pornography fuels violence against women.
It states:
“The violence enacted against women in pornography … is often re-enacted against girls and women by those who consume pornography in the physical world.”
It also explains that women in prostitution are often have pornographic videos of them filmed without their consent—a form of image-based sexual abuse. Further, the report highlights the exploitation in AI-generated pornography, pointing out that “more than 96 per cent of pornography generated by artificial intelligence was produced without the consent of the individual featured.”
Prostitution Weaponizes “Consent”
The report highlights the problematic notion of “consent” existing in prostitution, stating:
“[T]he very concept of “consent” is weaponized against women in prostitution, as it is extorted through physical or economic coercion, manipulation and violence.”
Consent cannot be expressed freely in the prostitution system, as the very nature of prostitution is that women are pressured into having unwanted sex by economic need and/or by a pimp/sex trafficker. If the sex was wanted, then it would not be necessary to pay the woman to have it!
See Also: The Blind Spot: What Our #MeToo Society is Overlooking About Consent
Legalizing/Decriminalizing Prostitution Turns the State into a Pimp
The report speaks strongly and unequivocally against the legalization/decriminalization of sex buying, pimping, and brothel keeping, saying:
“States must avoid becoming ‘pimp States’ by abolishing laws that allow, tolerate or condone the violence and exploitation in the prostitution system and pornography. Moreover, States have a responsibility to protect, assist and protect victims of prostitution in a gender-sensitive manner, and to provide reparations.”
The report calls on states to take action to promote human dignity. The exploitation and commodification of women through prostitution, and the perpetuation of violence through pornography are issues that affect millions of women, girls, and society as a whole. To address these issues means acknowledging the systemic problems with prostitution and demanding that states do not allow this type of exploitation to continue.
Complicity is no longer an option if we want to protect the dignity of women and girls. Countries cannot ignore the sexual exploitation of women and girls any longer. Rather than condoning or tolerating sex buying, pimping, and brothel keeping in their laws, nations must “address the underlying causes of violence against women, such as those perpetuated by the prostitution system, including by eliminating demand for prostitution by addressing socioeconomic inequalities, discrimination and marginalization.”
