A report
issued by the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the
Law; recommends that nations around the world get rid of “punitive”
laws against prostitution – or what it calls “consensual sex work” --
and decriminalize the voluntary use of illegal injection drugs in order
to combat the HIV epidemic.
The commission, which is made up of 15 former heads of state, legal
scholars and HIV/AIDS activists, was convened in 2010 by U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and is jointly backed by the United
Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS – the Joint U.N. Programme on
AIDS/HIV.
The commission recommends repealing all laws that prohibit “adult
consensual sex work,” as well as clearly distinguishing in law and
practice between sexual trafficking and prostitution.
The report--“HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health”--cites a
recommendation by the International Labour Organization, which
recommends that “sex work” should be recognized as an occupation in
order to be regulated “in a way that protects workers and customers.”
Specifically, the commission wants to:


-- “Decriminalise private and consensual adult sexual behaviours, including same-sex sexual acts and voluntary sex work.”


-- “Reform approaches towards drug use. Rather than punishing people
who use drugs but do no harm to others, governments must offer them
access to elective HIV and health services, including harm reduction
programmes and voluntary, evidence-based treatment for drug
dependence.”
-- “Work with the guardians of customary and religious law to promote
traditions and religious practice that promote rights and acceptance of
diversity and that protect privacy.”
The commission calls laws against prostitution “bad laws,” and said
criminalizing injecting drug use and prostitution stands in the way of
“effective HIV responses.”
“Laws that criminalize and dehumanize populations at the highest risk
of HIV--including men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender
people and injecting drug users--drive people underground, away from
essential health services and heighten their risk of HIV,” the
commission said in a July 9 press release announcing the report.
The commission says 116 countries and territories have punitive laws
against sex work and 80 countries or territories have some legal
protections for sex workers.
According to the report: “Some governments deploy anti-human
trafficking laws so broadly that they conflate voluntary and consensual
exchanges of sex for money with the exploitative, coerced, often
violent trafficking of people (primarily women and girls) for the
purposes of sex.”
The report quotes Secretary-General Ban, who stated his support in
2009 for removing all laws which criminalize “sex workers” – or
prostitutes.
“I urge all countries to remove punitive laws, policies and practices
that hamper the AIDS response,” Ban said. “Successful AIDS responses
do not punish people: they protect them. We must ensure that AIDS
responses are based on evidence, not ideology, and reach those most in
need and most affected.”
Other recommendations include: abolishing national drug registries
and mandatory HIV testing, and shutting down all compulsory drug
detention centers and replacing them with voluntary services for
treating drug abuse.
The commission specifically recommended that the United States should
also repeal its federal ban on funding of needle and syringe exchange
services that inhibit access to HIV services for people who inject
drugs.
Dr. Janice Crouse, the director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at
Concerned Women for America in Washington, D.C., says the proposal to
redefine and decriminalize prostitution worldwide is not new.
“(L)iberals have always used the term ‘sex work’ instead of prostitution,” Crouse told CNSNews.com.


“They like to legitimize the whole industry that way so that it can
be regulated and so that it can be considered a ‘legitimate option’ for
women and give it more respectability. But, the sad fact is in every
instance where prostitution has been legalized, illegal prostitution
has flourished,” she said.
“The pimps all want prostitution legalized; they like that. The sex
traffickers want it legalized because they gain far more traction with
their own illegal activities anytime that is the case – it’s happened in
Germany, it happened in Amsterdam, it’s been shown over and over
again.”
Linking the elimination of laws against “sex work” with AIDS is a cop
out, according to Crouse, because it ignores the role of behavior
change and personal responsibility.
“It’s fascinating to me the way they (the report’s authors) dance
around to avoid addressing the issue of behavior and to avoid the issue
of consequences of promiscuity,” Crouse said.
“This is an example; they don’t want anything that would suggest to
anybody that they ought to curb their sexual behavior. They don’t want
anything to curb anybody’s enjoyment of sexual activity without
consequences and all of this is an attempt to mainstream behaviors and
then deal with the consequences -- and that plan does not work.”
The U.N.-backed commission interviewed prostitutes, activists and
public health advocates in 140 countries across the world to come to its
conclusions.
The study received funding from the governments of Canada, Norway,
Australia, the U.S. (through USAID) and from billionaire Geroge Soros
through his Open Society Foundations.