What’s Current: AF3IRM rejects Amnesty International’s proposal to legalize the business of prostitution

Young women protest outside the Jack the Ripper museum on Tuesday. Photograph: Paul Brocklehurst/Demotix/Corbis.

Hundreds of women protest outside the Jack the Ripper museum in London.

AF3IRM, an anti-imperialist, transnational feminist organization, rejects Amnesty International’s draft policy on “sex work”:

Decriminalizing the johns and pimps and regulating the business of prostitution do not provide those who are prostituted “more decision-making power;” rather, it puts the entire industry in the hands of the oppressors to own. The john is the power; the pimp is the power; the brothel owner is the power – and this has been so, from the beginning of patriarchy. Prostitution is not about sex;  it is about power and profit – by and large male power and to male benefit.

153 scholars and researchers from 19 countries reject Amnesty International’s draft proposal to decriminalize brothel-keeping, pimping, and the purchase of sex.

Holly Madison’s life in the Playboy mansion may have looked glamorous on TV, but the reality was not much different than what is experienced by the tens of thousands of other women in the sex industry.

Julie Bindel obtained documents that showed Amnesty International intended to proceed with a pro-decriminalization policy back in 2013, revealing their “consultation process” to be a sham.

Meghan Murphy

Founder & Editor

Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist from Vancouver, BC. She has been podcasting and writing about feminism since 2010 and has published work in numerous national and international publications, including The Spectator, UnHerd, Quillette, the CBC, New Statesman, Vice, Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, and more. Meghan completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012 and is now exiled in Mexico with her very photogenic dog.