This article was published in The Broken Rifle, November 2013, No. 98
Embrace Dignity –
Article for The Broken Rifle
Embrace Dignity is a
South African human rights organization advocating for legal and
social reform. We campaign for
reforms recognising prostitution as violence and aim to reduce demand for commercial
sex. Recognising the harms of prostitution, we offer support to women seeking exit
through a self-led system. We look forward to welcoming and collaborating with
international and local nonviolent activists embodying the
conference’s
theme: “small actions
can contribute to building big movements for change”.
In our country, it is
more likely that a girl will be raped than go to secondary school. If
girls do manage to attend
school, it is unlikely they will find a job. Violence against women
stops them getting an
education, limits economic activity, and undermines their ability to
choose the timing and number
of children they have. It is also damaging to their physical, social, emotional and
psychological wellbeing – for many, it is a direct cause of death
or disability. It also has huge
economic costs, including costs to health and policing. Every year, thousands of rural
South African women migrate to urban centres in the hope of economic opportunity, often
joining the ranks of the unemployed. Domestic and gender based violence worsen the
situation, and under these conditions, prostitution flourishes.
Prostitution is a
deeply rooted form of sexual exploitation that feeds off poverty,
inequality and entrenched social
constructs. The sex industry is unequivocally dangerous. Different degrees of abuse,
coercion and violence are experienced but all prostituted people are physically and
psychologically harmed in the process. Prostituted women’s level of
post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) has been proven to be equivalent to that of combat veterans. Once in the
sex industry, women often resort to alcohol and drug abuse to endure daily mental distress,
resulting in dissociation from oneself and the rest of the world.
Prostitution also has
negative impacts on the rest of society. If some women can be bought and sold it gives the
message that all women are potentially for sale, a concept which permeates social
sensibilities. South Africa is a deeply patriarchal society, in which masculinity often
entails conquering or controlling women. The perception that
masculinity and violence are
intimately entwined is still dominant. Young boys fear that
demonstrating
sensitivity or
gentleness will emasculate them and make them appear weak.
War feeds into the
image of masculinity as unemotional, dominant and hyper-violent. In fact, the
militarisation of societies and war play an enormous role in fuelling
prostitution. A breakdown of social
structures, economic crisis, and an influx of occupying soldiers (and even peacekeeping
forces) result in a drastic increase in demand for prostitution – a
burden
often carried by women
from poorer nations. Some argue that the act of war creates individual feelings of
powerlessness, which must be regained through the domination of vulnerable women.
This is not new
information. During World War II the Japanese Empire forced thousands
of “comfort women”
from Japanese-occupied territories into a prostitution corps to serve soldiers. The United
States armed forces have a particularly damning history of misuse of the women of occupied
countries, as well as the practise of “R & R” (rest and
recuperation). Prostitution sites
around military were encouraged by military leadership, with condoms
and security escorts
often being provided.
In the past, arguments
have been made to explain the blind eyes and enabling hands of governments and
military leadership – rampant sexual activity would occur anyway so
it might as well result in
some financial “reward” for the bought individual rather than manifesting as rape.
This creates a fallacious distinction between rape and prostitution, when in fact the two
are intimately linked and complementary. Both acts conform to the
concept of a right to
pleasure, encouraged by military leadership and hegemonic masculinity.
Government-sanctioned prostitution has also been rationalised as
useful for creating a necessary
sense of brotherhood and camaraderie between soldiers – what about the women’s rights to
equality, happiness, and human dignity? This is also an injustice to men, portrayed as
incapable of controlling their rampant sexual urges.
One of the results of
organised military prostitution for soldiers’ “rest and
recuperation” is the creation of a
“prostitution economy”. Even after the military moves away, sex
trade entrepreneurs maintain
the industry through sex tourism. This has an economic and generational legacy in
which it becomes a dominant option for employment for impoverished women.
Children (destined to be fatherless) are also born, bearing the
stigma
of illegitimacy and
often entering the trade later in life. The recurring occupation of
parts of South East Asia by
United States forces is perhaps where this is most evident.
While South Africa has
a considerable influx of international trafficking victims, Embrace Dignity has also
realised the significance of “domestic” trafficking. According to
the Palermo Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, an internationally ratified UN declaration, trafficking is defined as
“the
recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means
of the threat or use of force
or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of
the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments
or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of
exploitation”. If a rural woman travels to a big city with the
promise of work as a cleaner but arrives to
find that she is expected to earn money through prostitution (even if she is not physically
forced to do so), she can be identified as a trafficking victim. She
has been transferred by
fraud or deception, most likely because of the abuse of her position
of vulnerability.
South Africa is not at
war but one in three men has raped a woman and violence is considered one of four
primary factors detracting from health. Enforcing the patriarchy, industries like mining,
trucking and the military occupy a significant portion of the
country’s male workforce. Our
historical and continued migrant labour system leaves many women responsible for
families while their partners are away. Family pressure, poverty,
violence
and a lack of other
options often result in vulnerability to trafficking.
Embrace Dignity
advocates for a legal model known as partial decriminalisation. This decriminalises the
bought person in order to allow access to vital services, decrease
stigma, and increase the chance
of pursuing an alternate form of income. This necessitates a social welfare dimension, with
government support provided for exit. On the other hand, the buyer, third party
trader (pimps and traffickers) and the sex industry remain
criminalised. This approach
recognises that the supply of prostituted people only exists because
there is a demand for commercial
sex. It also acknowledges the inherent harms and gender inequalities in
prostitution and seeks to attribute punishment appropriately onto the exploiter.
WRI can be a part of a
nonviolent campaign toward the dismantling of patriarchal relations
and the transformation of gender relations, so that men and women are
truly equal and can enter into mutually fulfilling relationships,
free of exploitation. This would enrich peace-keeping efforts too,
bringing usually absent women's voices into the discussion and
contributing to a decrease in sexual violence.
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