Action Alert: You Can Send a Message to Amnesty International
What is a Thunderclap?
Thunderclap is a tool that enables us to create a “virtual flashmob” in order to raise awareness about an issue. When you sign up you are scheduling the social media message “Prostitution is Sexploitation; Decriminalizing Helps Pimps and Sex Buyers! #NoAmnesty4Pimps #AmnestyInternational” to be posted on your Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr. These messages will all be posted on the same day, at the same time, in order to create a massive effect! This simple action can help raise awareness and change the conversation. Be sure to click “Join this Thunderclap” above to participate! You can also go to our Thunderclap page here.
What is the Cause?
Amnesty International has developed a policy document supporting full decriminalization of prostitution, and is expected to conduct a final vote on the policy next month. Full decriminalization of prostitution is one of the world’s most disastrous approaches to the sex trade because: 1) it is a gift to pimps and sex buyers allowing them to carry out their activities as mere “sex business operators” and “customers,” and 2) it normalizes the sexual violence and exploitation inherent to prostitution as a form of “work.” Amnesty’s support of decriminalized prostitution will undermine the human rights of persons in the sex trade (the majority of whom are females), and give impunity to perpetrators of sexploitation.
If prostitution is fully decriminalized—meaning there are no laws banning or regulating pimping, sex buying or selling (for those 18 years old and above, Amnesty is quick to clarify)—then no prostitution laws are there to be broken, no crimes are committed, and all those concerned can go merrily about the business of buying and selling human beings for sex.
But we believe sexual exploitation is nobody’s “job.” We believe that prostitution is a system of sexual exploitation that requires abolition, not social sanction. We believe prostitution is a system whereby individuals are supplied as public, sexual commodities, which preys upon vulnerable members of society, and is rife with violence against those sold for sex.
Prostitution, sex for money or something of value, is not only itself a form of sexual coercion and exploitation, but it also begets even more forms of sexual exploitation, like sex trafficking. A 2012 study published in World Development found that countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. This should not surprise us. Once the law sanctions an activity, demand for that activity increases, and men, women, and children are trafficked in order to meet that demand.
Join us in fighting for the abolition of sexual exploitation!