TEN MYTHS ABOUT PROSTITUTION

Prostitution is the worlds oldest profession

Prostitution is a womans free choice

There is a difference between forced and voluntary prostitution

Prostitution prevents rape

Disabled men also have a right to sex

Brothels protect women against exploitation and physical assault

Mens sexuality must be satisfied or else

Banning prostitution will increase violence in the prostitution environment

Prostitution will become more covert and violent if we criminalise prostitution clients

We cant regulate our way out of prostitution anyway

PEOPLE FOR SALE

The Danish NGO KFUKs Sociale Arbejde (YWCAs Social Work) in Denmark has a long tradition of working with women in vulnerable situations, and for more than 20 years its work has been targeted at Danish and foreign women in prostitution. In the three Danish cities where street prostitution occurs, YWCAs Social Work has established the outreach programme called Reden (the Nest) a drop-in centre providing counselling and shelter with a trained staff of social workers. We have seen the damaging effects of a life in prostitution at close quarters. Based on our long experience from working with women in prostitution, YWCAs Social Work is calling for the Danish Parliament to pass an amendment to ban the purchase of prostitution services in Denmark. YWCAs Social Work regards prostitution as a cultural and structural social phenomenon. Women from a background of poverty, drug abuse, trafficking in human beings and no real options are available to meet the ever-increas-

ing demand for prostitution services. YWCAs Social Work therefore does not regard prostitution as an act that may be equated with a profession and we are consequently against the use of the term sex worker. For the past 35 years, women with drug dependencies have lived a life of prostitution in sexual enslavement, and they are now joined by poverty-stricken women from many different countries, primarily in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. These women share the feeling of not having any real options or future prospects. For them, prostitution becomes a survival strategy. YWCAs Social Work is convinced that a ban against purchasing prostitution services may contribute to reducing the number of both Danish and foreign women who become prostitutes. We are aware that problems stemming from social causes are not solved by legislation alone, and that the same goes for the

social problems characterising the countries from which the foreign women are recruited. The objective of YWCAs Social Work is to focus on the social inequalities affecting women not least women with dependents and we will identify areas in which improved action will provide women with alternatives to prostitution. When it comes to prostitution, the legislation should also signal that we do not accept the fact that half the population is regarded as a commodity to be purchased and that we do not accept the damaging effects of this view of women. Future generations should be allowed to grow up in the knowledge that we are serious when we claim to support gender equality. This is completely incompatible with acceptance of prostitution.

Consequently, YWCAs Social Work is of the opinion that it should be established by law that prostitution constitutes an act of violence against another individual. An act that should have consequences for the perpetrator: the client who purchases prostitution services. YWCAs Social Work, April 2005

MYTH

Prostitution is the worlds oldest profession

o! It would be more correct to say that this claim is the worlds oldest excuse. Prostitution is not a profession. Prostitution is an age-old consequence of an unequal power structure. But if a long time frame is considered an argument for acceptance, that also makes abuse of children and juveniles an acceptable phenomenon.

lowed to post job offers in public employment centres and that long-term unemployed women might be required to accept a placement or work-experience in brothels.

T I

here is a demonstrable connection between prostitution and childhood exposure to incest or other kinds of abuse. Therefore, a life in prostitution is often just the tragic continuation of a childhood characterised by betrayal and not an expression of the womans free choice of profession.

hat, after all, is how the general labour market works in Denmark. It would then also be possible to offer job experience programmes for primary school pupils in brothels, where they might be set to answer the telephone, say. f these consequences are unacceptable, basically this means that prostitution is not accepted as an ordinary profession.

W I

hat are the consequences from a social perspective if the law defines prostitution as an ordinary, accepted profession? f carried to its logical conclusion, this would mean that brothels would be al-

he clich that prostitution is the worlds oldest profession legitimates prostitution as an original not to say unchangeable part of a labour market reserved for the poorest women and the women with the least resources all over the world.

MYTH

Prostitution is a womans free choice

o! Prostitution is not a free choice. Most people know the story about the law student who prostitutes herself to be able to afford Gucci bags, travel and nice clothes. We dont know her. The story surfaces in the media from time to time. It helps to cement the myth about prostitution being a womans free choice or an easy way to make a bit of extra pocket money.

f prostitution is a womans free choice, then why is it only women with little or no education, women who have been marginalised from a young age and single mothers on welfare who choose a life in prostitution? Neither social workers, economists, doctors nor journalists seem to be tempted by the easy money. The so-called free choice only applies to those who can see no other options.

n June 2004, Pro-Tema, under the Danish Centre for Research on Social Vulnerability, published a large-scale survey based on interviews with Danish women in prostitution in massage parlours. The survey drew a general picture showing that their financial situation is a major reason why women prostitute themselves. The reasons mentioned by the women included having debts to repay or wanting their children to have more material benefits. The majority of the women typically have one or two children.

MYTH

There is a difference between forced and voluntary prostitution

o! Clients who purchase prostitution do not make this distinction. They buy what is offered. Children, juveniles, women who are kept in prostitution by indebtedness or by threats of violence, women who are mentally ill or disabled and women who are trying to escape from themselves and a cold and loveless childhood. As long as there is a demand, pimps and procurers, trafficking in women and children, abuse and rape will be linked with the phenomenon of prostitution.

n the other hand, prostitution clients are responsible for creating a demand that makes trafficking in women a lucrative business for traffickers. As a society we need to shift the focus of the debate from women in prostitution to the clients. We need to focus on the clients to understand and thereby remedy the harmful effects of prostitution. Prostitution is a buyers market.

MYTH

Prostitution prevents rape

N R

o! Prostitution does not prevent rape. It is difficult to see how prostitution could reduce the number of rapes when we know that no other women are subject to rape as often as women in prostitution in fact the risk is 5 times higher for them than for other women. ape is a criminal offence whether committed against women in prostitution or other women. There is nothing to support the claim that prostitution probably takes the edge off mens sexual assaults, unless rape against women in prostitution is considered more acceptable than rape against women not in prostitution.

ccording to a report from the Danish National Institute of Social Research from 1990, the estimated number of women in prostitution was 1,700. The most recent figures from the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs estimate that in 2005 there are minimum 3,750 women in prostitution in Denmark. The figure is an estimate and covers only visible prostitution.

o there is nothing in these figures to support the claim that an increasing number of women in prostitution reduces the number of reported rapes.

ccording to figures from Statistics Denmark, the number of rapes reported from 1990-2003 was about 600 per year.

ordic surveys show that men who purchase prostitution are typically between the ages of 25 and 58, have jobs and live in a relationship with a woman. Approx. 14% of Nordic men are prostitution clients.

MYTH

Disabled men also have a right to sex

N I

o! Free access to sex is not a human right. Regrettably, consideration of disabled men is used to justify an act committed by far greater numbers of non-disabled men. n 2001, after a parliamentary debate, the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs issued guidelines describing how health-care professionals and social workers can requisition women in prostitution for disabled men, the argument being that disabled men should have the same opportunities as non-disabled men.

T F

he guidelines say nothing about the responsibility of health-care professionals to ensure that the woman has not been subject to trafficking, that she is not under age, and that she herself is not mentally ill or disabled due to sexual and other kinds of abuse during her childhood and adolescence. rom an equality point of view one may ask what happened to societys concern when it comes to the need for prostitution services for disabled women?

MYTH

Brothels protect women against exploitation and violence

o! No woman in prostitution can feel safe against violence, rape and financial exploitation. Experience from the Netherlands, where prostitution has been legal since 2000, shows that even in government-controlled brothels no woman in prostitution can feel safe from sexual assault.

omen who prostitute themselves indoors are day labourers. Every single day they have to pay a prearranged amount, and if they dont, the amount is owed the next day and the number of men they have to service goes up. At Reden, the staff know of women who have had to provide sexual services to 25-30 men a day a previously unheard of number for street prostitutes, which may now be the reality for young pimp-controlled foreign women.

questionnaire study conducted by the Danish Centre for Research on Social Vulnerability among 123 women in indoor prostitution in the Danish cities of Aarhus, Vejle and Copenhagen indicates that 43% of the women in Copenhagen experience clients committing breaches of agreement by removing their condoms, attempting to kiss the woman, sticking their fingers into the womans vagina or anus or subjecting her to violence. According to a Canadian report from 1992, women in prostitution and pornography are subject to murder 40 times more often and to rape 5 times more often than women not in prostitution.

rothels are no guarantee against fatal violence. In recent years, murders committed against women in prostitution have been committed strictly against women in indoor prostitution.

MYTH

Mens sexuality must be satisfied or else

N T

o! It is not a human right to be allowed to act out ones sexuality anytime, anywhere. That goes for both men and women. he French commander Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted for the following statement: Without prostitutes, men would attack respectable women on the streets. Such was the view in 19th century France and the same view is still being aired with great enthusiasm and very few changes in Denmark in 2005! The debate hasnt changed much for the better in the past 200 years.

or is there anything in the rape statistics to support the claim that women in prostitution act as a kind of outletfor mens sexuality.

ne may ask why modern men apparently accept being regarded as savage animals who must have sexual satisfaction or else

pparently, men are in full control of their untamablesexuality when Tour de France or a football match is on TV, and according to women in prostitution, the clients are not exactly queuing up on Sunday mornings either. Here the prospect of breakfast and the Sunday paper seems more attractive than the body of a complete stranger.

MYTH

Banning prostitution will increase violence in the prostitution environment

N V

o! One may ask if it is even possible to increase the violence?

iolence, rape and, in extreme cases, murder are well-known phenomena in the prostitution environment. In street prostitution, the vulnerable woman who is forced to go with a man to his hotel, to get into a car and go to a deserted industrial area or to get into a porn shop cubicle is at the mercy of the man. The woman is also vulnerable in indoor prostitution where she is often alone for many hours.

nother survey of women in prostitution from 1998 was designed as a questionnaire-based survey in five countries, and had a response rate of 81%. The survey shows that: 64% had been raped by prostitution clients 58% had been raped more than 5 times 56% of the prostitution clients wanted the women to perform acts they had seen in pornography 40% wanted to photograph the woman for pornography

British survey from 2002 based on 222 women in prostitution shows that 6 out of 10 women had been raped by prostitution clients or pimps.

he Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (USA) has conducted a survey in five countries showing that 80% of the women had been subject to extensive violence from prostitution clients and pimps.

llowing and condoning prostitution is the same as accepting a large number of women in a violent subculture.

MYTH

Prostitution will become more covert and violent if we criminalise prostitution clients

o! On the contrary, women in prostitution would probably be more inclined to report violent assaults if the client could be held liable.

O S

s a society, we do not accept that men subject their partners to violence. Nor should a modern society based on equal rights accept that men have right to purchase womens bodies.

n the whole, violence against women in prostitution has probably been aggravated in recent years due to the increasingly violent nature of pornography, since we know that pornography is a frequent source of inspiration for prostitution clients. ome fear that criminalising prostitution clients would make the violation, which prostitution in itself embodies, even more violent. In the public debate, this is often presented as an argument against criminalising prostitution clients. But that is equivalent to allowing wife battering for fear that the violence would probably get even worse if society were to intervene against violent husbands.

hen prostitution was legalised in Denmark on 1/7/1999 for those selling prostitution services, it had been possible to punish women for more than 500 years. Perhaps society should now consider lodging responsibility with those who purchase prostitution services, i.e. the clients!

MYTH

10

We cant regulate our way out of prostitution anyway

o! Banning other violent acts such as murder, wife battering, rape and abuse of children for pornography and prostitution would not eliminate them either. Even though it is forbidden in Denmark to beat ones children or to drink and drive, these offences are still being committed. To a limited extent, however.

tudies show that approx. 14% of Nordic men purchase prostitution services, whereas the estimated figure in Spain and Italy is 30-40%. In Thailand about 70% of all men are estimated to purchase prostitution services.

ut no one would dream of legalising those offences by arguing that we cant regulate our way out of them anyway. Normative legislation is as much about establishing common attitudes, respect for human rights and common values in the society that the legislation is intended to regulate.

ur sexuality is culturally conditioned and reflected in mens consumption of women for prostitution.

hese figures emphasise that sexuality is culturally conditioned, and as a society we try to influence culturally conditioned conduct in all sorts of ways. Campaigns targeted against speeding and drink driving are cases in point and we can see that they work. Wherever practicable, such attitudinal campaigns are supported by legislation. For example, campaigns against drink driving would be hollow gestures if drink driving were sanctioned by law.

he same goes for the purchase of prostitution services. If as a society we really want to help women in prostitution, this should be reflected in the law.

Graphic Design: Michael Sndergaard Printed by Islev Tryk a/s

KFUKs Sociale Arbejde Holsteinsgade 26 DK-2100 Copenhagen Telephone +45 35 26 30 33 Telefax +45 35 26 10 77 Giro 817 0037 E-mail post@kfukssocialearbejde.dk www.kfukssocialearbejde.dk