Seventy percent of France’s 20,000 sex workers are migrant women. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2013 (IPS)

The age-old debate over how to regulate sex work has led to a rift between the United Nations and anti-trafficking organisations, which are pressuring the world body to rethink its position following two reports that advocate decriminalising all aspects of prostitution.

“When we saw the reports we became very concerned,” said Lauren Hersh, New York director of Equality Now, which is leading the public campaign that launched this week. “To have U.N. agencies call for brothel-keeping is egregious,” she told IPS.“People in prostitution need to be recognised as trafficking victims… We don’t believe anyone chooses.” -- Stella Marr of Sex Trafficking Survivors United

The coalition of 98 groups is asking the U.N. to update and reissue the reports, which were published last year, to reflect the experiences of survivors of prostitution, and include a wider range of views on the impact of legalising of the sex industry.

The two reports, Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific, backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Joint United Nations Programme of HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and HIV and the Law, published by UNDP’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law, are focused on reducing HIV/AIDS while simultaneously protecting the rights of those involved in prostitution.

Survivors say that addressing the demand that keeps the cycle of prostitution in motion is imperative and is not adequately addressed in the reports.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for UNDP said in a statement that the reports examined the issues of sex work through a specific lens of the HIV epidemic and strongly condemned sex trafficking.

“UNDP advocates and promotes the respect of human rights for all, especially the most excluded and marginalised. The report on Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific… clearly distinguishes between adult consensual sex work and human trafficking for sexual exploitation,” the spokesperson said.

Spokespersons from UNFPA and UNAIDS told IPS that the UNDP statement accurately reflects their agencies’ position.

The reports also see decriminalisation of the sex industry as a way to promote the ability of prostitutes to negotiate condom use, but Equality Now says that for many women in prostitution, there is an economic dependency, thus pressure, to have sex without a condom as clients will often offer more money for sex without one.

If women are trafficked or controlled by a pimp, they have less ability to insist on the use of condoms.

In a statement, UNDP said that the criminalisation of sex work increases vulnerability to HIV and limits access to condoms and sexual health services.

But Hersh says that, “Often it’s the pimps and buyers that dictate condom use as women can get more money from not using one.”

Hersh emphasises that the coalition is not trying to undermine the efforts of the campaign against HIV/AIDS. Equality Now has spent nearly a year reaching out to the U.N. through internal channels, including sending a letter co-signed with over 80 organisations, to Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS.

Prostitution is legal in many countries, including Switzerland, where “sex boxes” were recently introduced in Zurich to promote the safety of prostitutes in what the city considers a more pleasant environment. But the situation for men and women in countries where prostitution is legalised and decriminalised remains dire, according to Equality Now.

“One of the major issues is that the reports did not consult with our partners on the ground, particularly survivor-led organisations,” Hersh told IPS.

Stella Marr, executive director and one of the co-founders of Sex Trafficking Survivors United, an international organisation of over 100 survivors of prostitution, is herself a survivor, first trafficked at age 20 and involved in prostitution for 10 years.

“If we don’t address demand, there will always be trafficking,” Marr told IPS, adding that she is “saddened” at the reports.

Marr believes the best solution is the Nordic model, which criminalises the purchase of sex, but decriminalises being a prostitute.

Marr left prostitution after a buyer offered to help her, giving her a safe place to live for two years. She is the only person she knows who this has happened to.

“The fact that I got out doesn’t mean I was strong. I was lucky,” Marr said.

Survivors of the sex industry do not have their voices heard as loudly as those who are currently involved due to the amount of shame around it, said Rachel Moran, a founding member of Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment (SPACE) International, who was prostituted from age 15 until she was 22.

Another facet of the reports Equality Now wants to address is the definition of “trafficking” by the U.N. In 2000, in the U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, commonly known as the U.N. Trafficking Protocol, members states agreed on a broad definition of trafficking that reflects a variety of experiences from sex trafficking survivors.

The 2012 U.N. reports recommend narrowing down and redefining the definition, which could mean many trafficked persons would no longer be considered victims and their traffickers would not be held accountable.

“I understand that it’s difficult… you have to have a way to help people out of that life,” Marr said. “People in prostitution need to be recognised as trafficking victims… We don’t believe anyone chooses.”

Equality Now is optimistic about future reports, including a recent study from Asia and the Pacific, launched by UNDP, UNFPA and U.N. Women, that reports the purchase of commercial sex in the region is strongly associated with widespread rape and sexual violence against women.

An ECPAT campaign picture against sexual exploitation. Credit: Arabella Shelbourne.

By Silvia Giannelli
ROME, Jul 7 2013 (IPS)

The scandal around the under-age prostitute that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi allegedly had sex with is not about just that one girl: an estimated 10,000 under-age girls become victims of sexual exploitation every year in Italy.

Most of them are not “seen”; street prostitution is in fact on the decline. But that is only because these “services” are accessed more and more online.

“Sometimes I worry when I hear people discussing underage prostitution,” Myria Vassiliadou, anti-trafficking coordinator at the European Union Commission for Home Affairs, told IPS. “When you talk about girls and boys whose bodies are used for sexual services, it is an illegal activity.”

According to European Commission statistics, based exclusively on identified and presumed victims, 9,528 victims of trafficking were reported by EU member states in 2010. Of these, 66 percent were used for sexual exploitation, and of these, 12 percent were girls and three percent boys below 18.

The official figures do not come close to describing the real situation. In Italy 9,000 to 11,000 children become victims of sexual exploitation every year, according to End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT) estimates. ECPAT is an Italian NGO defending children from sexual exploitation."Selling one’s sexuality is a way of obtaining something immediately, be it a seat in the parliament or the latest phone or designer clothing."

“In Italy, the outdoor prostitution we usually think of involves mainly migrant girls,” Yasmin Abo Loha, Italian coordinator of ECPAT told IPS. The main countries of origin are the eastern European countries, followed by a constant flow from Nigeria, and now emerging trafficking from Asia, mainly China.

“The victims that are forced to prostitute themselves on our streets are usually girls of advanced age,” said Loha. “We also estimate that 15 to 20 percent of the victims are boys, but it is particularly difficult to give a precise percentage especially when it comes to male prostitution, which is the hardest to intercept.”

There is also a myth to dispel, said Vassiliadou. “We are used to saying that trafficking is something that affects migrant people, but 61 percent of the victims of trafficking we now know are EU citizens.”

With Italian children, the main arena where contacts are made for sexual exploitation is now online. In most cases, the phenomenon cannot be defined as prostitution since in many cases contact may not lead to physical sexual intercourse, but may involve pornography and more.

The new forms vary quite widely, “from teenagers simulating sexual intercourse among them and then selling the images,” said Loha, “to step-by-step stripteases on webcam, where the price starts from 15 euros to show the breasts and can go up to 50 euros.” In such cases the payment can be a phone top-up or other direct presents.

Prostitution in the strict sense usually happens around underage clubs where teenagers perform sex acts in exchange for money. “If we compare it to the standard forms of prostitution, where minors are forced, Italian teenagers seem induced by a certain message and a cultural change that is happening,” said Loha.

“Today, selling one’s sexuality is a way of obtaining something immediately, be it a seat in the parliament or the latest phone or designer clothing,” said Loha.

The many dangers of sexual exploitation that stops short of prostitution have been hidden behind the publicity around the Berlusconi scandal.

“However we put it, a person under 18 that is sexually exploited is a victim,” said Vassiliadou. “There is a law against it and I don’t think we should be having a debate on that.” Yet, the fact that Karima el-Mahroug (the Moroccan girl Berlusconi allegedly had sex with) was 17, and the fact that she looked older, gave space to a vivid debate on whether she was or not aware, and responsible for her actions.

Instead of concern, there was gossip, Loha said. “We often hear these comments also from professionals in our area, who think that 17-year-old teenagers are grown up and can do what they want. The fact is that the law states the opposite and as such must be applied.”

The debate should focus instead on ways to end trafficking and sexual exploitation, Vassiliadou said. “Because for victims to be there, it means there is someone willing to buy the services.”

The attempts to counter this have to come through training, campaigns, actions targeting the persecutors and the victims, and through media. But the problem is that so far there is no successful model to apply, Vassiliadou said.

“We don’t have any example, anywhere in Europe. So as far as I don’t have an answer I need to ask more questions, and push more.”

The Supreme Court overturned a mandate that certain organisations receiving HIV/AIDS funding state their opposition to prostitution. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jun 20 2013 (IPS)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a decade-long practise under which the government linked global HIV/AIDS funding to a controversial requirement that organisations explicitly state their opposition to prostitution.

The court’s decision to overturn the mandate surprised many observers, with the 6-2 ruling now being lauded as a major victory by a broad coalition of global health, women’s rights and free speech advocacy groups.

“We are surprised but very happy to hear how the decision came down,” Crystal DeBoise, co-director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Centre, a New York advocacy group, told IPS.

“This is a very good progression for the human rights of sex workers and will be a positive development for organisations that are best situated to meet the needs of sex workers and other people who have social and health risks,” DeBoise said.

“Hopefully this indicates that we’re moving in the direction of serving the most vulnerable members of our societies better and more efficiently.”

The anti-prostitution mandate has been part of U.S. policy since 2003, enacted as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). That programme, focused particularly on Africa, offered the largest ever commitments to fight HIV and AIDS.

In the decade since it was enacted, PEPFAR has made available almost 46 billion dollars for HIV/AIDS programmes, according to official figures, directly providing antiretroviral medicines to more than five million people. For this and next year, President Barack Obama has requested another 13 billion dollars.

Yet from the start, Congress wrote the legislation in such a way that any organisation receiving PEPFAR funding would need to explicitly state its opposition to prostitution. Since then, experts from the health community have warned that such a policy runs counter to the aim of wiping out the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

“This policy didn’t emerge from within the public health field, but rather arose when some U.S. legislators saw an opportunity, through PEPFAR, to insert and enforce an ideological purity about sex work,” Serra Sippel, president of the Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), a Washington advocacy group, told IPS.

“That was disturbing in part because it’s not a public health intervention to silence people or require organisations to adopt a specific viewpoint of some legislators.”

Building trust

The U.S. government has always explained the anti-prostitution oath by stating that stamping out sex work is a central component of the country’s broader anti-HIV policy. Civil society has also been split on this issue, with some groups – particularly anti-trafficking organisations – supporting the pledge in some way (several such groups contacted by IPS were unable to respond by deadline).

Still, many critics on the ground have for years warned that the oath stood in the way of the independent thinking necessary to find an end to the HIV epidemic. In particular, it distanced health workers from sex workers.

“It’s considered a best practise in public health to build trust among sex workers and to work to end the stigma and discrimination that fuel the epidemic,” Sippel said.

She noted that forcing an organisation like Pathfinder International – a sexual health advocacy and implementing group, and one of the lead plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case – to sign the pledge essentially pushed the organisation to adopt policy stating that it opposed the very people it was supposed to serve."We signed the pledge, knowing that we would wilfully ignore it."
-- Kevin Frost

“There’s no question that the programmatic goal of ending prostitution comes into conflict with the programmatic goal of trying to end HIV infection,” Kevin Frost, CEO of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, told IPS. “You end up making it exponentially more difficult to reach and built trust with the kind of individuals who are on the front lines of this issue.”

Such contortions led Frost’s organisation to sign the pledge and then continue to do what it thought best.

“Like many, our hand was forced into signing the prostitution pledge, even though we felt from the beginning that this was bad both policy-wise and programmatically and would have a negative impact on our ability to reach the population that needed the kind of services we offer the most – commercial sex workers,” Frost noted.

“So we signed the pledge, knowing that we would wilfully ignore it. We discussed the policy at the board level and signed on, but did so with objection.”

Still law

Thursday’s court decision hinges on a view of the anti-prostitution oath as infringing on free speech, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment.

“The [oath] requirement mandates that recipients of federal funds explicitly agree with the Government’s policy to oppose prostitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “The First Amendment, however, ‘prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.'”

Given the polarised nature of sex work in the United States, the case before the court had been specifically tailored to deal solely with this free speech context. As such, the court did not weigh in on the merits of arguments or policies regarding sex work more generally.

Nor did the decision actually strike down the prostitution oath. Rather, it found that the oath infringed on the free speech of the organisations that were directly party to the court case.

More broadly, the case’s interpretation will affect only U.S., rather than international, groups receiving PEPFAR funding. Yet amfAR’s Frost noted that the majority of groups that receive PEPFAR funding are based in the United States and that the programme’s ability to enforce diktat for international organisations is limited.

Still, with the oath still on the books even after Thursday’s decision, the impetus will now come down to how President Obama’s administration proceeds. To date, administration officials have refused to discuss their view of the oath, given that it has been the subject of legal proceedings since Obama took office.

“This is not over – it’s an important milestone in defeating this policy, but the work needs to continue to make sure it’s not applied in a negative way to groups on the ground,” CHANGE’s Sippel said.

“This decision now gives us an opportunity to look at specific instances where U.S. funding can engage sex workers on a more critical agenda,” Sippel added. “Globally, we’re making a lot of progress on HIV/AIDS, particularly in looking at this from a public health and human rights perspective.

“This case now helps us continue to move the conversation in that direction.”

In June, New York state legislature will vote on a bill that will increase protection for sex trafficking victims. Credit: Bigstock

By Lucy Westcott
NEW YORK, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

It started for Ruth when she was 12 years old and for Lowyal when she was 13. After being raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Ruth ran away from home and was picked up by a pimp, who sold her into prostitution.

Lowyal, bullied at school and facing a deteriorating situation at home, dropped out of school and eventually began working on the streets. In a drawing Lowyal created to depict this traumatic time in her life, a wide eye reflects a city skyline as red flames curl at the bottom, with menacing faces on both sides.

This month, New York’s legislature will vote on the New York Trafficking Victims and Protection and Justice Act (TVPJA), which would give more protection to girls like Ruth and Lowyal, and harsher punishments for those who trafficked them. It is part of the Women’s Equality Act that supporters hope will be voted on before the legislative session ends Jun. 20.

Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, is working with the Jewish Child Care Association and the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition to get the law passed.

The organisation is encouraging supporters to send letters to Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, and State Senator Dean G. Skelos.

The TVPJA will direct resources to toughening laws to target and arrest pimps and buyers rather than victims. And under the new law, penalties for buying sex from a minor will be similar to those for statutory rape.

The law would also mean that all prostituted persons under the age of 18 are treated as trafficking victims instead of criminals in the state of New York. Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds arrested for prostitution are prosecuted as adults.

“There are two provisions that we are having a hard time with and [are] getting opposition to,” Lauren Hersh, New York director of Equality Now, told IPS. Hersh is perplexed as to why these provisions are problematic."Sex trafficking is happening within New York City, and many of its victims are American-born."
-- Lauren Hersh

The first is making sex trafficking a violent felony in New York State, which would send a message to law enforcement that trafficking is a violent crime, Hersh explained.

“Talk to any sex trafficking victim, and they’ll tell you how violent it is,” she added.

The second is aligning New York state law with U.S. federal law, which does not require prosecutors to prove that minors were coerced into sexual acts. Under the current law, with most cases in New York, victims have to testify in court, Hersh said.

“The New York State assembly is historically against raising penalties,” Emily Amick, staff attorney at Sanctuary for Families and legislative director for the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition, told IPS.

“The law needs to evolve,” Amick said. “Albany is letting politics get in the way of helping people,” she added, with state lawmakers who oppose these provisions working against the livelihoods and futures of sex trafficking victims.

Despite some opposition, Hersh sees the bill as “excellent and comprehensive”.

The fact that women and girls are being trafficked not only inside U.S. borders, but also within city limits, may be a surprise to some people, Hersh said.

“When people think of sex trafficking, they often only think of women and girls being smuggled across international borders. But sex trafficking is happening within New York City, and many of its victims are American-born,” Hersh said in a statement.

Legislative justice is one part of the solution. Sexually exploited girls like Ruth and Lowyal should also be given a voice in the process of advocacy and justice, Hersh said. Project IMPACT, a New York-based programme that allows trafficking victims to share their stories, if and how they choose to, is one way to do so.

“I think telling my story matters because it could help other girls like me,” Veronica, another formerly trafficked girl, said, after sharing her story at Project IMPACT. “Storytelling is important because I lived this – I’m the one who knows what it’s really like.”

Ruth, Lowyal and Veronica are part of Gateways, a residential treatment program for commercially sexually exploited youth that is run by the Jewish Child Care Association and allows them to rebuild their lives and self-esteem. Some Gateways residents visited Albany in May to lobby for the bill’s passing.

Reliable statistics on sex trafficking are difficult to obtain due to the hidden and underground nature of the crime, according to Hersh, but a 2010 State Department report put the number of people trafficked to the United States each year at around 15,000.

Two million children are exploited each year in the international commercial sex trade, according to 2012 data from the International Labour Organisation, which also estimates that women and girls make up 98 percent of sex trafficking victims.

And in the United States, while little data is available for the number of victims, the FBI estimates that 293,000 American children and teenagers are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

“The only way we’re going to have justice in New York is to pass this bill in its entirety,” Hersh told IPS.

Anti-trafficking, anti-prostitution activists demand an amendment to India’s existing laws regulating the sex trade. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Sujoy Dhar
KOLKATA, Dec 21 2012 (IPS)

In a small dingy room on the edge of a brothel in west Kolkata, capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a 42-year-old former sex worker is trying to eke out a living selling cooked food in her neighbourhood, while tending to her sick husband and a paralysed son.

Despite the hardships of everyday life, Rubiya Bibi (not her real name), who was trafficked to India from neighbouring Bangladesh when she was a teenager, knows one thing for sure – she does not want to go back to prostitution.

Recalling the days when pimps and madams would force her to sleep with men even when she was sick, Rubiya Bibi says: “Poverty forced me to prostitution. But once in the trade’s vicious cycle, I faced even more atrocities.

“I was never allowed to say ‘no’ to those who ran the brothels. I was only 18 when I (tried) to escape but was caught and tortured,” she told IPS.

“I am now trying to live a life by other means though it is very difficult since my son is both physically and mentally challenged and my husband is also ill.”

In India, girls form the majority of the country’s 1.2 million child prostitutes, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s leading federal investigation agency.

Though no exact data is available, government officials and NGOs have tentatively placed the number of sex workers in India at about three million.

In addition, the U.S. State Department says India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.

‘Cool men don’t buy sex’

In an effort to raise awareness about prostitution, Rubiya Bibi is now working with an ongoing anti-prostitution and anti-trafficking campaign, called ‘Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex’.

Spearheaded by the anti-trafficking NGO Apne Aap (meaning ‘on our own’), sex workers, trafficked women and students of Indian colleges and universities, the campaign brought under one umbrella women like Rubiya, sex workers’ children and young people from prominent educational institutions, in an effort to reach as broad of a spectrum of the public as possible.

Celebrities have also shown their support by endorsing the campaign.

The idea for ‘Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex’ first came from students of Symbiosis College in Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, earlier this year, but the campaign really started to gain momentum this December with the collection of thousands of signatures on a petition calling for a change in laws regulating the sex trade.

The students who started the project wanted to take a stand against the idea that women can be bought and sold, while simultaneously putting pressure on the Indian government to punish pimps and johns instead of stigmatising the victims and survivors of the sex trade.

The campaign has spread to various campuses across the country. Anuja Bhojnagarwala, a third-year student in the human development department at the J D Birla Institute in Kolkata, feels strongly about the issue and invited Apne Aap members on to campus to educate her fellow students.

“I wanted people to learn about the reality of sex trafficking and prostitution,” she told IPS.

“I know that it will not be easy to abolish prostitution, and it cannot happen until women can be offered (an alternative) livelihood,” she added.

According to Apne Aap Founder Ruchira Gupta, the Indian Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), an anti-prostitution law, has consistently failed to protect girls and women from sex trafficking.

“It criminalises and stigmatises trafficking victims and allows the true perpetrators of crime – traffickers, pimps, johns – to exploit women and children with impunity,” Gupta said.

Earlier this month, Apne Aap presented President Pranab Mukherjee with more than 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for amendment of the existing anti-trafficking law that would deter the purchase of sex by increasing punishments for buyers and traffickers, and protect the women and girls that fall victim to the industry.

According to Apne Aap, the Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex Campaign shifts the focus away from victims and highlights the force that fuels the trade itself – the male demand for sex – without which traffickers, pimps, and brothel owners will be driven out of business, activists say.

“We (also) recently got a letter from the ministry of women and child development to say that the our suggestions would be taken on board,” Gupta told IPS, adding that this brings the movement closer to its goal of securing both societal and legislative change.

“Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex enlists both men and women to put pressure on the Indian government for the amendment of the proposed Section 5C of the ITPA (that seeks to punish clients found in brothels). This amendment will shift the burden of criminalisation from women and girls in prostitution to the men who buy sex and the pimps who profit from violent exploitation,” she added.

However, India’s largest sex workers’ body, which is also opposed to certain aspects of the ITPA that have failed to prevent harassment of sex workers, does not see eye to eye with the demands of organisations like Apne Aap.

“Those who are spearheading this campaign do not (seem to understand) that criminalising the buyers of sex will be an attack on the livelihood of sex workers,” according to Bharati Dey, secretary of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) – a collective comprised of 65,000 female, male and transgender sex workers based in West Bengal.

“We are against trafficking of minor girls too. Since 2000 we have rescued 941 girls who were being forced into the profession. We did this through our self-regulatory board,” Dey told IPS. “But if you get rid of brothels, you cannot fight HIV/AIDS like we did by spreading awareness in the brothels of Kolkata.”

Indeed, DMSC’s method of HIV/AIDS prevention has served as a model for other major global health organisations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Back in the 1990s, the sex worker collective taught its members how to resist attempts to force unprotected sex on them. By 1998, after a long battle, condom use reached 90 percent, an unprecedented increase from just three percent in 1992.

Dey stressed that if brothels are banned, underground sex work will thrive, with more people affected by sexually transmitted diseases.

How many condoms is it legal to carry around in your pocket? That’s the question sex workers in the United States are asking after being routinely targeted by police for having prophylactics – not in itself a crime.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch launched “Sex workers at risk: Condoms as evidence of prostitution” at a press conference in Washington. The report includes more than 300 interviews, with 200 current and former sex workers as well as outreach workers, advocates, prosecutors, public defenders, police, and health department officials.

The “criminalising” of condoms has left sex workers in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC and San Francisco wary of carrying condoms, and exposed them and their customers to the threat of HIV.

Tanya B, a Latina transgender sex worker from NYC, recounts her harrowing experience with the police.

“I was stopped and threatened. The cops said ‘empty your purse.’ I cleared out everything but left the condoms at the bottom – I got caught. They said ‘how come you didn’t pull out the condoms? I can arrest you because of this.’ I said ‘it’s not a problem, I have no weapons, no drugs’ and the police officer said ‘next time, I will arrest you because this is evidence you are a prostitute’.”

Andrea Ritchie, coordinator of AT Streetwise and Safe (SAS), and a lawyer specialising in police misconduct, gave insight into this unofficial but prevalent practice. The most common victims in New York are women of colour and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, she said.

Between 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBT, and many turn to “survival sex” to earn enough money to eat and get a place to sleep.

“The police believe it is doing their job. The order to confiscate condoms, though unofficial, comes from district attorneys,” Richie told IPS. “NYC is the epicentre for AIDS, and these practices put countless women, LGBTs and men at risk.”

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) launched a safe sex campaign in 2007, ultimately distributing more than 40 million free condoms across the city.

The actions of the police directly counteract the city’s initiative to protect people from disease, and can be seen as a huge waste of resources, rights advocates say.

In Washington DC, the AIDS epidemic is one of the most widespread in the United States. Of the 17,000 people with HIV, 75 percent were African American males. African American women in DC are 14 times more likely to be infected than their white counterparts.

Groups such as Rubber Revolution in DC and Get Some! in NYC are taking the fight for condom use to the media, using popular social media platforms. They worry that the “condom as evidence” practice is seriously undermining these efforts.

If bills such as one pending in the New York State Assembly are passed, condoms will not be allowed to be used as evidence of prostitution. The bill specifically states, “Provides that possession of a condom may not be received in evidence in any trial, hearing or proceeding as evidence of prostitution, patronizing a prostitute, promoting prostitution, permitting prostitution, maintaining a premises for prostitution, lewdness or assignation, or maintaining a bawdy house.”

For Megan McLemore, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, the issue at hand is clear. If someone has to be arrested for prostitution, it should be because law enforcement officials saw them agreeing to a sexual act for money. Condoms should not figure into the debate.

At the launch of the report, all the speakers stressed that criminalising condoms is a public health issue. It endangers the general public, and exposes them to diseases which can be easily prevented.

The report provides insight into the ordeals faced by sex workers, which include police harassment of transgender people such as vulgar insults, mockery, and disrespect. In one case, a police officer grabbed a woman’s wig, threw it to the ground and stepped on it. Such behaviour points to a pattern of discrimination that goes beyond simple stop and search tactics.

“We have a saying in NYC. If on one side of the West Village a frat boy is standing with 10 condoms in his pocket, he is hopeful and practicing safe public health. If on the other side stands a gay man with condoms in his pocket, he is obviously engaging in prostitution,” says Ritchie.

The arrests last week of the three remaining perpetrators of the alleged Opapa human trafficking ring, which forced 19 people recruited from Hungary to endure long work days, poor living conditions and no pay in the Canadian construction industry, has cast a light on Ottawa’s new measures to combat the crime.

While some advocates argue the one-month-old programme is the most well-coordinated anti-trafficking effort among all stakeholders, others label certain aspects contentious and unfair.

For years, World Vision Canada urged a sweeping initiative targeting the crime both within Canadian borders as well as overseas because the two components are tied together, said Carleen McGuinty, a child protection policy adviser for the NGO based in Toronto.

The international development organisation also asked for a policy addressing labour trafficking because “for every person forced into sexual exploitation, nine are forced into labour,” said McGuinty.

As well, she told IPS, it was important that the government include boys and girls, the “most vulnerable to human trafficking”.

In the end, World Vision Canada was satisfied with a final product containing much of the “language” which will serve as a first step to tackling the crime, she added.

Released in June, the four-year plan will introduce Canada’s first integrated law enforcement team to fight trafficking; boost front-line training to identify and respond to human trafficking and enhance prevention in vulnerable communities; offer more support to Canadian and newcomer victims of the crime; and improve coordination with domestic and international partners combating the activity.

Technically, human trafficking differs from human smuggling because the transported individual has given no consent and is further exploited on arrival in the destination country. However, a soon-to-be-published paper by Canadian criminologist Yvon Dandurand states that people who are smuggled into a country often have not realised they are on the verge of being victimised.

In 2005, the Canadian government specifically prohibited trafficking in persons; previously, the law included offences like kidnapping, uttering threats and extortion.

Due to the clandestine nature of trafficking and the reluctance of victims and witnesses to come forward, it is difficult to make statements about the extent of the crime in Canada in relation to the number of victims, said Sgt. Julie Gagnon, a media relations officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), quoting the agency’s Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre.

However, human trafficking convictions and current investigations into human trafficking are proof that this crime is occurring within the country, Gagnon told IPS in an e-mail.

As of May, the RCMP was aware of 23 Canadian cases in which human trafficking charges were laid, she wrote. Forty-three people have been convicted in these cases, including 22 convictions for sexual exploitation, she said. The Canadian courts are now reviewing another 62 cases involving about 152 victims.

Ottawa’s 25-million-dollar blueprint to battle sexual exploitation and forced labour is not “a ground-breaking plan”, noted McGuinty, the child-protection expert, “and it hasn’t been hailed as such.” Yet, it finally coordinates the activities of federal government departments, provinces and NGOs and includes round tables allowing for stakeholder recommendations, she said.

“At least everyone can work from this, and we can hold our government to account,” McGuinty said, and added that she hopes the programme will deter human traffickers by illustrating Canada’s resolve to deal with the crime.

Yvon Dandurand, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C. and a senior associate at the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver, said the new federal action plan consists of many activities currently undertaken by government departments but which are now being integrated.

For instance, in response to the federal government’s new commitment to bolstering front-line training to tackle human trafficking and increase prevention in vulnerable communities, Dandurand told IPS that the Vancouver centre developed training packages for law enforcement eight years ago. But if indeed there are more cases involving victims reluctant to come forward, he added, investing more money in training makes sense.

“Depending on how this (new plan) is rolled out, it might be an improvement if things are accelerated or more resources are put into it,” he said, but it will not reduce the international dimensions of the crime.

Overall, trafficking is a “complex offence” requiring three major elements – intent, coercion, and lack of consent or deception – which is difficult to confirm, he noted. “Whereas it’s easier to prove that someone had a false passport, or that someone was sequestered and held against their will . . . and basically get evidence on related offences and get a conviction on that basis.”

A more controversial aspect of the revamped national human trafficking strategy was the government’s Jul. 4 announcement that Canadian businesses will be prevented from hiring temporary foreign workers in cases where there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect a risk of sexual exploitation or degrading work. Strip clubs, escort services and massage parlours are among the targets.

In an RCMP report on human trafficking, investigations carried out in the late-1990s found “strong indications” that women were recruited from Eastern Europe for non-sexual work but then made to perform in strip clubs and offer sexual services. Police, however, have been unable to “substantiate” the trafficking of foreign nationals in exotic dance clubs, though the possibility remains, according to the 2010 report.

The RCMP have confirmed one case in which a woman recruited from China for a position at a Canadian restaurant was later “forced to work in a massage parlour performing sex acts”, spokeswoman Gagnon noted.

Although human trafficking charges were laid in this case, the accused was ultimately convicted of other prostitution-related crimes, she added. She said the majority of human trafficking cases in Canada are connected to prostitution but do not involve foreign workers.

For the most part, it is clear that public opposition to the practice of doling out permits to foreigners intent on working in sex-related businesses “embarrassed” Ottawa, argued Dandurand, the academic. He said last week’s legal move is “more a political matter than a genuine victim-protection matter”.

Linking foreign strippers to human-trafficking victims has rattled the Toronto-based Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, which represents both establishments and workers. No one has considered how the 700 dancers, who are not prostitutes, will be victimised once they are stripped of their legal papers and lured “into the underground for these predators to exploit them . . . in prostitution rings,” warned executive director Tim Lambrinos.

“The women are not going to go home,” said Lambrinos, adding that legal action is now the only option for the association’s members. The women, many of whom send money to their families overseas, will now be “reluctant to report any abuses or improprieties because they’re here in Canada illegally”.

In the past, his association has posted notices offering toll-free phone numbers for women to contact if they are being held against their will, but he argued he has fielded no calls. It would be difficult to commit such a crime, he said, as dancers interact to a great extent with their colleagues and the public, and would be able to walk out of a club if they wish.

Mary Taylor, a former stripper of 21 years, believes the government’s new foreign-worker guideline is a positive move for both international and local dancers. The law may force club owners to improve working conditions in order to entice greater numbers of Canadian women to enter the business, she said.

In 1997, Taylor co-founded the Exotic Dancers Association of Canada, which recently became inactive due to funding challenges. She still, however, advocates for the rights of women in the trade and laments that the industry has gone from “burlesque entertainment to foreplay in public”.

As for criticism that distressed foreign dancers denied a work permit under new regulations will be forced to take jobs in a private massage parlour or “a hole in the ground”, she replied: “They can do that now anyway.”

Taylor, who urges increased government scrutiny of strip clubs and massage parlours, said she speaks regularly to dancers. In this capacity, she told IPS, she has heard stories about foreign workers in Toronto being denied their passports and locked overnight in clubs.

The RCMP’s 2010 report indicates that nations with a high unemployment rate are among the “common source countries” of trafficked victims, raising legitimate concerns that a declining global economy may drive more desperate people overseas toward risky situations rather than greener pastures.