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Looking at the astronomical growth and profits of the
sex industry, it is easy to overlook the human cost. One can get lost in cyberspace or
confuse glamorous numbers and digital images with real women and children. The profits of
the sex industry are based on sexual exploitation, which starts with harm to real
people.[278] Sexual exploitation violates human dignity and bodily integrity and is a
violation of human rights. The basic premise of international human rights is that people
have a right to lives with dignity. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states that:
"All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights"
(Article 1)
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude"
(Article 4)
"No one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment" (Article 5).
All of these principles of basic human rights are violated by sexual
exploitation.
Forms of sexual exploitation depend on a demand market, in which pimps
and predators choose to buy and sell women’s and children’s bodies and sexuality
for sexual gratification, profit or advancement. It is a practice that reduces women of
the world to a second class status. Sexual exploitation inflicts grave harm on
women’s minds and bodies, and aggravates the harm of existing inequalities. If a
woman’s life is constrained by lack of education and employment opportunities by
racism, by illegal immigration or migration, by economic or political crisis, by childhood
sexual, physical or emotional violence, or by poverty, then sexual exploitation aggravates
and intensifies the inequalities, disadvantages and harm. Prostitution and trafficking are
not victimless crimes, or just another form of work, as pimps and apologists for the sex
industry would have us believe. Even when women voluntarily enter into these situations,
in hope of making money or finding a better life, the dynamics of the brutal, often
illegal sex industry, quickly leave the women with few other options and powerless to
leave.
We are living in a time of globalization in which revolutionary
communications technology brings us almost instantaneous connections to people throughout
the world. These new technologies of the Internet have leapt over national borders and
left lawmakers and police scrambling to catch-up. Internet users usually adopt and defend
a position of unbridled libertarianism. Any kind of regulation or restriction is met with
near hysteria and predictions of a totalitarian society. Even the most conservative
restrictions on the transmission of child pornography are greeted with cries of
censorship. In the December, 1996 issue of Wired, new state legislation in US that
criminalized the transmission of indecent materials to minors was called censorship.
The attitude of Internet libertarianism coupled with US free speech
absolutism is setting the standards for Internet communication. This political position of
the Internet industry and its users, lack of regulation of the Internet, and lack of laws
or enforcement of laws against sexual abuse and exploitation are contributing to the
globalization and trafficking of women and children. Expressions of concern or
condemnation of forms of sexual exploitation of women and children on the Internet are
minimized by claims that pornographers have always been the first to take advantage of new
technology - first photography, then movies, then VCRs, now, the Internet. Those concerned
about the use of the Internet for sexual exploitation are chastened with history lectures
on new technology and pornography.
While the history about pimps and predators being the
first to adopt new technology is correct, so is it the case that when those with power
introduce a new technology into a system of oppression, it serves to expand the
exploitation. The promotion and engagement of trafficking and sexual exploitation of women
and children on the Internet expands men’s treatment and access to women as sexual
commodities.
To counter these powerful alliances who are profiting from the sale and
abuse of women and children is a small, but dedicated, international feminist movement for
women’s rights. These women from around the world are demanding a redefinition of
men’s use of women. They have made the crimes of battering and rape visible. Now,
women are working to make the crimes of sexual exploitation visible. No longer is
prostitution labeled as immoral behavior, or pornography called indecent pictures. Women
human rights activists are naming the harm to women as violence and sexual exploitation,
which violate women’s human dignity, human rights and chance for equal opportunities
in society. In November 1996, at the international meeting, "Violence, Abuse and
Women’s Citizenship" in Brighton, England, the conference organizers took an
uncompromising stand against sexual exploitation by naming all forms of sexual
exploitation, including prostitution, as violence against women
"The steering group is uncompromisingly
anti-prostitution. We do not recognise the false distinctions between forced and so-called
free prostitution. There is no platform for a pro-prostitution position at this
conference. We deliberately chose to have keynote speakers who reflected our own position
on pornography and prostitution. We make no apologies for this choice; we have no regrets
about it. We consider all of the issues discussed at this conference to be violence
against women. It is unfortunately rare these days, for feminists to have access to a
conference which is clear and uncompromising in its opposition to prostitution. We are
glad that we have been able to give that space to women here who are working against the
international sex industry. We hope it has given them strength in continuing their
fight."[279]
We are at a critical point for women’s human rights. We can go with
the predator’s view that the Internet is just a new technology being used to transmit
men’s entertainment. We can also choose to accept the pimp’s redefinition of
pornography and prostitution as forms of sex work. Or we can begin to make real change to
advance women’s dignity and equality, by defining forms of sexual exploitation as
human rights violations and crimes against women, which we will not allow in our
communities or on the Internet.
Resoultion -- Misuse of the Internet for
the Purpose of Sexual Exploitaiton
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