NLGRev 68-2[1].indd - National Lawyers Guild

66 national lawyers guild review
Eckberg suggests, “Legalization of prostitution means that the state imposes
regulations with which they can control one class of women as prostituted.” 5
Prostitution is not only individual discrimination, exploitation or abuse by
an individual man, but also a structure reflecting and maintaining inequality
between men and women. It requires “a devalued class of women” to become
colonized for economic exploitation. 6 Legalization gives approval to that
violence, that control, that devaluation, and that colonization. When violence
is directed at half the world’s population—women—it undermines the entire
structure of human rights.
An excerpt from an anonymous poster on the Indymedia-Québec website
sums this point up most eloquently, writing on the issue of decriminalizing
prostitution in Canada:
Decriminalization of prostitution means that all laws regarding prostitution
would be removed. In other words, buying a woman would be socially and
legally equivalent to buying cigarettes. Prostitution in all its forms—street,
brothel, escort, massage—would be legally welcomed. Pimps the world over
would become our communities’ new businessmen…
In legal prostitution, the state is the pimp, collecting taxes. In decriminalized
prostitution, the pimps remain in control, whether they are bar pimps, strip club
pimps, taxi driver pimps, or street pimps. In both legalized and decriminalized
prostitution, the john is welcomed as legitimate consumer. Decriminalization
of the pimping of women and the buying of women is in effect the promotion
of and profiting from childhood sexual abuse, rape and sex trafficking.
There is no way of making prostitution ‘a little bit better’ any more than it is
possible to make slavery ‘a little bit better.’ Prostitution is a profoundly harmful
institution. Who does it harm the most? The woman or child who is prostituting
is hurt the worst. She is hurt psychologically as well as physically. There
is much evidence for this. 7
This article explicates these concerns, and argues that the legalization
of prostitution violates international law, particularly the Convention on
the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 8
which prohibits its legalization by state parties. In Part I, we will look at the
facts about prostitution and its connection to crime and trafficking. Then, in
Part II, we will turn to applicable international jurisprudence on the issue.
In Part III, we will see how legalization specifically violates Article 5 and 6
of CEDAW. Last, in Part IV, we will look at real solutions for eliminating
violence against prostituted women.
Part I: Prostitution, crime and human trafficking
Prostitution is violence against women
Violence against prostituted women is equivalent to, and in many cases
worse than, the violence experienced by victims of torture—persons who