[Asia-HR-Alert] Asia Pacific Women'

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Subject: Re: [Asia-HR-Alert] Asia Pacific Women's Consultation on Prostitution

AWHRC wrote:
> 
> Press Release
> 24 February 1997
> 
> Asia Pacific Women's Meeting Declares: Recognize the Work, Dignity and
> Human Rights of Women in Prostitution
> 
> The Asia Pacific Women's Consultation on Prostitution held in Bangkok
> concluded last week with the forging of a commitment to support the
> recognition of prostitution as work and the promotion and protection
> of the human rights and dignity of women in prostitution.
> 
> In a statement, human rights activists, sex workers, lawyers and
> academics who participated in the two-day meeting held on 17-18
> February 1997, defined all labor performed by women in the sex
> industry as work and recognized women in prostitution as workers.
> 
> "Much of women's work in the domestic and reproductive spheres has
> been invisible and devalued", the statement read. "As such, there is
> an urgent need to recognize the reproductive labor of women as work in
> various sites", including women's work in prostitution.
> 
> "The acceptance and recognition of prostitution as work is to
> recognize and validate the reality of women who are working in
> prostitution", the statement read.
> 
> To this end, the statement also advocated for the "decriminalization
> of prostitutes as workers and of prostitution as a site of work".
> 
> The statement rejected the view that sex work is per se exploitation.
> "Sex work is not the problem' abuse, violence and criminality are the
> social problems", the statement read.
> 
> Fifty participants from 20 coutnries in Asia and the Pacific also
> criticised governments for "failing to recognize the rights of all
> women to work under safe and humane conditions", including those in
> the sex industry. "We hold governments accountable for ignoring the
> abuses and exploitative conditions under which women must work in the
> sex industry", the statement read.
> 
> The statement also pointed out that "stigmatisation of women working
> in prostitution has kept their legitimate concerns, including
> situations of abuse, in the shadows, away from the attention of
> mainstream human rights organizations, feminist groups, and society
> and general.
> 
> The participants further said that society's stigmatisation of women
> in prostitution as immoral and evil women pits "good" women against
> "bad", deterring all women from recognising their common vulnerability
> and the manner in which they are actually or potentially labeled as
> "whores". Participants therefore committed to work to erase the
> "stigmatisation of women engaged in prostitution and to have their
> full dignity, integrity and rights recognised as workers and citizens
> or civil society.
> 
> Nelia Sancho, women's rights activist and coordinator of the Asian
> Women's Human Rights Council-Manila who participated in the meeting,
> said the stigma largely attached to women in prostitution only mirrors
> the low status and opinion society confers on all women in general.
> Sex workers receive some of the most extreme forms of degradation,
> abuse and violence that all women are vulnerable to, said Sancho, by
> virtue of social, political and economic structures that generally
> devalue, or render invisible women's work, individuality and
> contributions.
> 
> Sancho said prostitution must be situated within the realities of the
> intensification of powerlessness, especially among women and girls,
> and the widening poverty and marginalization of people and communities
> brought about by the growth of a global market economy. As big
> business corporations manipulate the world's economies for bigger and
> bigger profits for themselves, the lives and human rights of more and
> more people living in the fringes of society as well as poor
> communities are sacrificed. In this situation, more and more women are
> incorporated into work in the sex industry, largely in situations of
> abuse, violence and criminality aggravated by the non-recognition of
> the work and dignity of women in prostitution.
> 
> The Asia Pacific Women's Statement called on governments to apply and
> enforce existing labor, occupation and safety laws to the sex
> industry, and if necessary, create new regulations to protect the
> women in consultation with the women themselves.