Amnesty Intl. Supports Legal Prostitution. Cue the Outrage.

PLANET EARTH—Earlier today, 500 delegates to Amnesty International's International Council Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, voted to support the decriminalization of prostitution and sex work in general, as well as for allowing adults who want to pay for sex to do so legally. The vote came after a two-year "consultation" which included, according to a report in the Irish Times, "sex worker groups, groups representing survivors of prostitution, abolitionist organizations, feminist and other women's rights representatives," the result of which was the conclusion that legalizing the sale and purchase of sex was "the best way to defend sex workers' human rights. ... The policy will also call on states to ensure that sex workers enjoy full and equal legal protection from exploitation, trafficking and violence." Of course, it didn't take long for certain parts of the internet to go nuts attacking the vote. In a statement titled, "Amnesty International Votes to Decriminalize Exploitation"—because after all, it's not as if anyone would choose to rent their body for anywhere between a hundred and a thousand bucks an hour—Morality in Media National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) CEO Dawn Hawkins deemed the move to be "irresponsible advocacy in favor of a system that does immense and indelible harm to women, children, and men around the world." "[D]ecriminalization of brothel-keeping and soliciting is a gift to pimps, sex traffickers, and sex buyers that enshrines in law a right to buy and sell other human beings," Hawkins declared, apparently failing to notice that Amnesty's declaration specifically condemned trafficking in general and specifically those who would force trafficked individuals into prostitution. Hawkins went on to quote statistics from a "study" created by long-time anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley and others that "64% of adults in prostitution experienced threats with a weapon and 71% were physically assaulted." Apparently, the idea that if prostitution were legal, prostitutes would be able to better provide for their own personal safety, and be able to call police if they were attacked, isn't a possibility in NCOSE's world. However, as former call girl Maggie McNeill explained, "Imagine a study of the alcohol industry which interviewed not a single brewer, wine expert, liquor store owner or drinker, but instead relied solely on the statements of ATF agents, dry-county politicians and members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. ... You’d probably surmise that this sort of research would be biased and one-sided to the point of unreliable. And you’d be correct. But change the topic to sex work, and such methods are not only the norm, they’re accepted uncritically by the media and the majority of those who the resulting studies. "In fact, many of those who represent themselves as sex work researchers don’t even try to get good data," she continued. "They simply present their opinions as fact, occasionally bolstered by pseudo-studies designed to produce pre-determined results. Well-known and easily-contacted sex workers are rarely consulted. There’s no peer review. And when sex workers are consulted at all, they’re recruited from jails and substance abuse programs, resulting in a sample skewed heavily toward the desperate, the disadvantaged and the marginalized." McNeill's experiences and analysis go a long way toward explaining the contents of a petition now making the rounds on Change.org titled, "Listen to Survivors: Reject the Proposal to Decriminalize All Aspects of Prostitution," which purports to have been created by "Your Sister, Vancouver, BC." "This leaked Amnesty International proposal advocating for the full decriminalization of all aspects of prostitution violates the basic human rights and dignities of prostituted individuals," the petition begins. "Not only does Amnesty International deny the inextricable link between prostitution and exploitation, violence, and trafficking, they seek to legalize men's right to purchase sex with impunity—a goal diametrically in opposition to protecting 'sex workers' from the gendered exploitation and violence endemic in prostitution." Leaving aside the fact that "Your Sister"s claims don't even make logical, let alone factual, sense, the petition goes on to claim essentially that keeping prostitution illegal is a feminist issue because most prostitutes are female. "To deny that this is a gendered issue (requiring an analysis of inequality along the axis of gender) is to deny that women’s rights are human rights," the petition goes on to claim—but what's being denied isn't "women's rights" but the specific right of women (or even male adults) to choose prostitution as a profession, and for those in that profession to be afforded the same rights as any other human—rights that the petitioner wants to deny them. One clue as to a person's or organization's view of prostitution is the words used to describe how the act is accomplished. Anti-prostitution groups invariably claim that in engaging in prostitution, women "sell" their bodies (or even "themselves") or that they are "purchased," when in fact, for women who choose to be prostitutes, the act is, at base, a rental of a body, nothing more—and that ignores the possibility that at least some prostitutes may actually get sexual pleasure while engaging in their craft. The fact that anti-prostitution activists lie about both the profession and statistics related to the profession is well-known. In an article posted on Huffington Post UK on Sunday, Rachel Moran from the organization SPACE (Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment), one of the sponsors of the above-noted petition, claimed that "countries like New Zealand, where prostitution has been decriminalized, have seen more reports of violence against women since doing so"—but Niki Adaams of the English Prostitutes Collective, which actually tracks such incidents, told HuffPo UK that "when New Zealand decriminalized prostitution in 2003, a government review found that attacks against prostitutes reduced and their health improved." It should come as no surprise to members of the adult entertainment industry that outsiders who attempt to comment on what occurs within the industry often do so with their heads up their asses. Sadly, those who've never practiced legal prostitution often comment on the profession from the same vantage point.