10 March 2005

The NGO-CSW Caucus on Violence Against and the Sexual Exploitation of Women is comprised of the International Council of Women, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Equality Now, MAPP, CLEF, European Women's Lobby, the World Federation for Mental Health, and other NGOs including the UN-NGO Committee on Mental Health who view the problems of trafficking in women and HIV/AIDS as that of male demand rooted in gender inequality. The demand for prostituted sex is the engine which drives the worldwide crisis of trafficking in women and girls.

There is an increasing urgency to tackle the conditions that facilitate the sexual exploitation of women and girls including the increasing harms of economic globalisation, patriarchy; the broadening reach of Internet pornography and its commodification of women and girls; systematic rape and sexual exploitation during military conflicts.

The caucus is in consensus that prostitution is itself a form of violence against women. Prostituted women and girls experience prostitution as trauma to their minds and bodies which often leads to depression, substance abuse, and disassociation; women and girls in prostitution face the daily threat of serious bodily harm and disease including the threat of HIV/AIDS.

Prostitution should not be recognised as a form of labour. Rather, it is a form of violence whose root cause is male demand for prostituted and other forms of commercialised sex and is rooted in gender inequality.

Poverty is an enabling factor in producing victims for prostitution and trafficking as recognized in the Palermo Protocol in its attention to the "abuse of a situation of vulnerability" and its definition of exploitation.

In its work towards achieving the Millenium Development Goals of gender equality, eradicating extreme poverty and combating HIV/AIDS, the caucus strongly urges Member States, the UN and civil society, to recognize prostitution as a form of violence against women and a form of exploitation to which consent of the victim is irrelevant.

We urge the delegates to the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women to reaffirm the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in person and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others as well as the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol on trafficking and to demand its full implementation with all urgency.

To include in States-parties mandated reports to the CEDAW, relative to article 6 of this convention, an evaluation of the legal status of the prostitution of women, including efforts to penalize the demand, prosecute procurers and customers and to decriminalize women in prostitution.

We call on all States-parties to reject the legalization or normalization of all forms of male sexual violence including systems of prostitution and call for the enforcement of laws that attempt to hold perpetrators accountable.

We call on all States-parties to adopt immigration remedies, including asylum and lawful residence, and to extend legal, health, psychosocial and mental health interventions, and job training for victims of trafficking and all forms of sexual violence and exploitation.

We call on all States-parties to create economic programs for women at risk of being trafficked and/or sexually exploited and to raise awareness about the dangers of trafficking and prostitution; and to introduce educational programs targeting men and boys.

We call on States Parties to address the early sexualization of girls, even babies, propagated through fashion, and the media including pornography and the Internet, as an emerging issue.

We call upon the United Nations agencies dealing with HIV/AIDS such as UNAIDS & UNIFEM, as well as States Parties, and NGOs to target and challenge male sexual behavior in relation to the demand for prostituted sex and unequal sexual relations with women.

In closing, we welcome the initiatives of the UN in preventing the demand by UN peacekeepers and advisers for prostituted sex and we urge all governments to implement similiar policies for their armed forces.