Throughout this year, Amnesty could hardly bring itself to utter the word "pimp" or "prostitution user." It was as if by avoiding these terms, Amnesty could transform these perpetrators overnight into legitimate managers, cordial clients and agents of all good things for women in prostitution.
When one of the world's most respected human rights groups maintains that punishing prostitution users "may amount to a violation of the right to privacy and undermine the rights to free expression and health," something is seriously wrong with their view of human rights. Siding with the view that penalizing the buyers drives prostitution underground, Amnesty claimed that women would be made to take bigger risks. What is underground? Indoor prostitution, the Internet? There is no evidence for this claim.
It's the prostitution industry, not any law penalizing the buyers, which forces women to take bigger risks. Buyers are a major part of that risk. Women in prostitution everywhere have to make choices, even endangering their lives when buyers are violent, controlling, and insist on no condoms or risky sexual practices.
A protection policy and a vote based on secrecy and closed doors. Amnesty allegedly promotes an open society based on transparency. From the get-go, however, outsiders were not privy to the actual policy or its various incarnations. Few outside the inner circle even knew what the final document contained and what specifically the delegates were voting for or against. And only Amnesty representatives know the contours of the internal debate, what country delegations voted yes or no, and the actual vote count. Amnesty has conducted itself as a closed society and with a secret ballot.
Amnesty ignored the diversity of opponents to its proposed policy of decriminalizing the sex industry. For example, when the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) launched their petition on Change.org, social media was filled with attacks on the "privileged celebrities" signing who "know nothing about prostitution." The attacks disregarded the multiple signers representing international NGOs, anti-trafficking organizations, politicians, journalists, lawyers, service providers, women's crisis centers, policy makers, women's rights activists and survivors. Amnesty discounted the petition of hundreds of academics and researchers who have worked for years on policies and projects related to prostitution and trafficking in women. The organization also snubbed former President Jimmy Carter's own petition on Change.org, and his name was seldom mentioned on social media as an opponent of Amnesty's policy. And the survivors petition was made invisible.
Amnesty has given a gift to pimps and prostitution users and in doing so, it has become a major donor to some of the most violent scum of the earth. In its callous and flagrant disregard for survivors, Amnesty has corrupted its core mission -- to defend the rights of the most vulnerable. Amnesty has awarded a dignity to pimps and prostitution users they could get no place else. Amnesty has done this in the name of protecting women. Tell them "Not in our name!"
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