CORRUPTION

Interview with Ms. Taina Bien-Aimé
International Affairs Forum
was the only identifier of someone who had
allegedly committed a crime. The Code doesn’t
say “robber”, “thief”, or “murderer” to describe
the alleged perpetrator of the crime, and yet
“prostitute” described the person whom the state
charges with a crime. The terminology has now
changed to “person for prostitution“, not ideal, but
an incremental change in the right direction.
The term “sex work” was coined by the
sex industry to mainstream and normalize
prostitution, which they have done brilliantly.
The language that has been coopted by the
sex industry is very evocative because terms
like “empowerment”, “agency”, and “freedom”
all resonate very deeply with our democratic
principles. It is now very hard to find an
American publication that does not use the term
“sex work”. There are few exceptions, like the
Associated Press, which has stated that they
do not use that term. But generally speaking,
terms like “sex work” and “sex worker” persist,
and we have to try and move past the terms
and focus on the issues. More accurate and
representative terms—“prostituted women”,
“women in prostitution”, and “commercially
exploited women”—are generally perceived as
mouthfuls. We are not language gurus, but we
do need to find terms that adequately show that
the reality is not accurately represented by a
term like “sex work” as it gives a false impression
of active engagement and consent at all times,
when the experiences of prostituted women are
the opposite of these myths.
The distinction seems to be a question of
agency.
Yes. We have to be very careful with the concept
of consent because it is a very slippery slope
which has been historically used to excuse
crimes like domestic violence—“she consented
to stay with him, so she consented to the
beatings”—and give an out to the justice system
and society in general when it has failed to
protect victims.
Touching on the role of consent and its
intersection with law enforcement and the
justice system, let’s discuss an important
difference between CATW and some other
human rights organizations. The American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) agrees with
CATW that current criminal statutes related
to the sex trade are misdirecting law
enforcement resources and punishing the
women who engage in sex work. But your
two organizations have come to very different
interpretations of what it means to frame
prostitution or work within prostitution. The
ACLU advocates the decriminalization of
sex work as a solution to this problem, while
CATW advocates for the penalization only of
sex buyers or demand-focused legislation.
How and why have these two organizations
come to such different conclusions about
the best approach to tackling the problem of
commercial sexual exploitation?
I am not trying to be glib, but I do think that this
analysis stems from the fact that the ACLU is
a male-dominated organization, and that they
have framed prostitution as an exception to
violence against women. They simply do not
view prostitution as gender-based violence and
discrimination, which is unfortunate, because
we are increasingly getting reports on the links
between “sex worker” representatives and unions
and their financial or other interests—whether
direct or indirect—with the sex trade. You cannot
cherry pick women’s rights, and that is what
organizations like Amnesty International, the
ACLU, and the Open Society Foundation have
done in terms of their policies on “sex work”.
If you look at the ILO’s decision to call for the
decriminalization of prostitution, you can trace
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