Letter 15

Autumn Burris

Survivor/Advocate

 

 

Dear Amnesty International,

 

On Human Trafficking Awareness Day 2016, I reflect on the exploited individual and how your egregious policy will affect their lives.  I write as a member of Amnesty International USA (AI-USA) in response to the human rights policy concerning the decriminalization of sexual exploitation, particularly sex buyers and traffickers and the lack of inclusiveness of the exited survivor Leader voices. We do agree on one matter, exploited individuals should not be arrested; however, we differ profoundly with regard to the decriminalization of sex buyers and traffickers.

 

On November 20-22, 2015, Amnesty International USA failed to listen to exited survivor voices at its 2015 Regional Conference, From Moment to Movement, in a number of critical ways:

 

(1) An EXITED survivor panel was denied prior to the conference resulting in attendees formally hearing only one side of the story (Program Session Block 1: …Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights);

 

(2) At that session, participants were promised a Q&A at the end of the session, which did not happen;

 

(3) In order to get our voices heard, we distributed materials to members and placed documents presenting our side of the argument, which were removed by an AI-USA staff member;

 

(4)  During the Voting Plenary, it was stated that a number of organizations, including the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) and S.P.A.C.E International were consulted.  This statement is untrue as these organizations were never contacted for consultation on the policy.

 

The result of denying our voices, directly in a variety of ways, was a vote in favor of this heinous policy at the Los Angeles conference. 

 

 

International Human Rights Instruments Ignored

 

The process at the conference, and historically on this issue, has been one-sided against exited survivors and biased towards promoting systems of oppression and violations of human rights, including International Human Rights Instruments.  We urge you to have a more inclusive voice from among the membership. The attempt to delink prostitution and sex frafficking is a myth that contradicts established international law. For example, in the Palermo Protocol, Article 3(a): “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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation…” [i] 

 

Additionally, the Palermo Protocol calls to implement strategies to reduce the demand that leads to sex trafficking. The AI proposed policy supports sex purchasing as well as traffickers, including brothel owners. In general, the human family has the inherent right NOT to be bought and sold! How do International Human Rights Instruments co-exist with the proposed AI policy that decriminalizes sex buyers & traffickers?

 

 

Survivor Perspective 

 

I am writing as an EXITED survivor of prostitution, the stripping industry and on behalf of the survivors I have had the opportunity to work alongside for the past 18 years.  If the extensive harms, and frequent physical and psychological violence, of prostitution are kept right before our faces, this policy and your use of sanitizing terminology would be absent from Amnesty International’s policy consideration. If you ever lived prostitution as I did, and millions like me have, you would be ashamed to entertain this proposed policy, which directly contradicts the human rights mission of Amnesty International. 

 

In my lived and professional experience, I vehemently reject the “decriminalization” policy proposal because prostitution is a violation of human rights. I am perplexed and deeply concerned about the proposed policy concerning the decriminalization of “sex work” due to the inherent harms in prostitution from both sex buyers and profiteers. The use of terminology describing survivors of prostitution as “sex workers” and the institution of prostitution as “sex work” is troubling due to the fact that the majority of survivors do not utilize this term, because it misrepresents the real harms and human rights violations of the institution of prostitution. I request that you listen to survivors who have exited sexual exploitation in order to formulate the policy that represents the majority of us.

 

 

Harms of Prostitution 

 

As a survivor of prostitution, I am personally and painfully aware of the inherent harms in sexual exploitation. The level of danger and murder rate far exceeds any type of work as evidenced by a study illustrating that prostituted women are 200 times more likely to be murdered than other women their age and race.[ii]  Whether indoor or outdoor, prostitution is routinely violent on several levels, psychologically and physically. On the most basic level of what the transaction entails, repeatedly, having someone you are repulsed by touch you and/or penetrate your body causes psychological damage. Disassociation is necessary in prostitution to survive it. One can simply not stay present while an intruder violates your body.  It is common for sex buyers to act out violently on prostituted women and it is immediately clear that there is no such thing as respect for your human rights or physical boundaries as soon as a client buys his power over you.

 

Prostitution is repeated paid rape by buyers of sex. I can honestly say the act of having my body purchased for a price was always about vulnerabilities and the need for survival. The buyers of sex utilized my vulnerabilities for their personal gratification. The sex buyers’ demeanor, attitude, or amount of money did not make the act any less painful or damaging than the next purchaser who may have had expectations of acting out violence against me.   

 

 

Human Rights Denied 

 

From negotiation to completion of the purchased sex act, dignity and equality guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are violated. Equality is violated by the unequal power dynamic between the oppressor and the exploited.  Dignity is denied to the exploited, from negotiation to the completion of the act. For example, the feelings of degradation that arise when verbalizing the sex acts and placing a price on what is intended to be priceless, to knowledge of the personal violations that would soon take place, and then, while enduring all this harm, realizing it might happen again, you’ll be bought and sold again, within an hour or so. There is no equality, dignity, autonomy, or physical security: This is no life for a human being.

 

Security is denied as the exploited person essentially has no control over the actions of the buyer.  For example, one evening, I got into a late model truck with a male sex purchaser.  A few miles down the road, it became clear I needed to exit the situation in order to survive. Jumping from the moving vehicle was the safest option for escape. I reached for the door handle only to realize I was locked in. The panic I felt, knowing what was sure to come, was unbearable. Prior to being discarded like a piece of garbage onto the road, I was raped and beaten beyond recognition.  This incident was not an isolated one, rather a common occurrence in my life while involved in prostitution. It is an incident I’ve heard repeated, with slight variations, hundreds if not thousands of times during my work over the past 17 years with other survivors.

 

 

Language Usage

 

In terms of linguistics and language use, the terms “sex work” and “sex worker” should be eliminated because the majority of individuals in prostitution and those who have exited from prostitution do not refer to themselves using these terms. Sex is not work as the above example from my former life illustrates; it is exploitation and denial of human rights based on vulnerabilities and power imbalances between the oppressor and the oppressed. These erroneous terms imply choice, and attempt to sanitize the brutality at the heart of the prostitution experience, while de-linking prostitution from sex trafficking. Choice is absent in prostitution as evidenced by Dr. Melissa Farley’s study of nine countries which found 89% of women in prostitution wanted to escape immediately but had no other means for survival. [iii](Farley, 2003)

 

I strongly urge you to listen to the vast majority of survivors of prostitution worldwide who reject the decriminalization of sex buyers and profiteers. Instead, we favor increased accountability for the harm these men are causing by criminalizing the demand for commercial sex. As an AI member and survivor, my expectation is that a human rights organization should protect the human rights of vulnerable and marginalized people including those exploited in systems of prostitution.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Autumn Burris

 

 

 

 

References

 

[i] Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, 2000.

 

[ii] John J. Potterat, Devon D. Brewer, Stephen Q. Muth1, Richard B. Rothenberg3, Donald E. Woodhouse, John B. Muth, Heather K. Stite1, and Stuart Brody, “Mortality in a Long-term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women,” Am J Epidemiol 159:778–785, 2004.

 

[iii] Farley, et al, Prostitution, Trafficking & Traumatic Stress, Haworth Press, Inc., Binghamton, NY, 2003