What’s Current: Amnesty International votes in favour of legal sexual exploitation

Yesterday, Amnesty International voted in favor of a policy that recommends the decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners, and buyers of sex, rather than recommending the Nordic Model, which evidence shows decreases violence and trafficking. Amnesty claims criminalization of any part of the sex industry constitutes a violation of human rights — even, apparently, the rights of men to buy other humans for sex.

Survivor Rachel Moran speaks out against AI decision -- Photograph via Youtube
Survivor Rachel Moran speaks out against AI decision — Photograph via Youtube

Rebecca Mott on Amnesty International turning their backs on women:

I would be a solid member of AI, if they had not allowed themselves to have their policy on prostitution written by pimps and fully backed by the sex trade lobby. Are the prostituted class not human enough to have access to full human rights?

Rachel Moran is interviewed on BBC Radio 4 regarding Amnesty’s vote. The segment starts at 1:51:48. She says:

What Amnesty are considering doing here is actually endorsing a human rights violation on a global level. That is quite crazy. It’s not something we’ve ever been faced with before… The purchase of sexual access to a person’s body is in and of itself a human rights violation under three United Nations instruments.

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Susan Cox

Susan Cox is a feminist writer and academic living in the United States. She teaches in Philosophy.