Analysis: UN rights experts side with pimps against prostituted women
The United Nations Human Rights Office is aggressively moving forward with the complete decriminalization of prostitution, including bypassing UN protocols and procedures, the laws of the vast majority of countries, and the United Nations General Assembly. It is traffickers and pimps, not sexually exploited women, who can benefit.
As previously reported in the 'Friday Fax', the UN Human Rights Office reacted swiftly to undermine a groundbreaking European Parliament resolution last summer. The resolution calls on all EU countries to criminalise sex buyers and pimps. This was a major blow to those who want prostitution to be fully decriminalized worldwide.
In a jerky reaction, the UN Human Rights Office issued a lengthy press release taking a position diametrically opposed to the EU resolution. The UN Human Rights Office has proposed "the complete decriminalization of voluntary adult sex work from a human rights perspective," including procuring, solicitation and advertising of prostitution. All legal restrictions on prostitution lead to human rights violations according to UN experts, this includes the laws of almost every country in the world.
While the EU resolution described prostitution as inherently degrading, UN experts have called "sex work" a form of "legitimate work" and part of the human right to full sexual and bodily autonomy.
The EU resolution recognises that prostituted women want to do something else with their lives and usually end up in prostitution because of crime, economic pressure or other forms of coercion. For this reason, the EU report called on countries to develop "exit policies" to help women escape prostitution and train in other professions. The UN report also acknowledges that prostituted women are most often coerced, but rather than calling for exit strategies, UN rights experts call on prostituted women to be able to form trade union organizations.
The EU resolution calls on countries to aggressively prosecute human trafficking and pimping, precisely because prostituted women have to give their profits to pimps and are usually left in subsistence conditions. Instead, the UN experts are urging countries not to be "too aggressive" in monitoring sex trafficking in order to protect the ability of prostituted women and pimps to make money.
The EU report further highlights the dangers to children of prostitution, violent pornography and other forms of online grooming that fuel the prostitution market. The UN report mentions children only once, when it talks about the need to protect the ability of prostituted women to earn money for their children.
The UN Human Rights Office has done everything possible to defend these extreme views in response to the EU resolution. The UN report was first published as an emergency communiqué for immediate release after the adoption of the EU resolution in September 2023. It was not issued as an official UN document, as would normally be the case. It was then released as an official United Nations document in December with an apology note to explain that it had been hastily prepared after the standard publication deadline due to circumstances beyond the author's control.
What is not clear is why the UN Human Rights Office is doing everything it can to promote such extreme views in favour of prostitution. These views conflict with treaty law in most countries. Only New Zealand and Belgium have adopted the full decriminalization model in recent years. Moreover, anti-trafficking experts and advocates overwhelmingly oppose such an approach, as evidence shows that sex trafficking is increasing wherever prostitution is legal. So who will benefit from the UN's promotion of prostitution?
