Hollywood Feminists Upset With Amnesty International Going Soft on the Global Sex Trade

August 1st, 2015 2:50 PM

Diana Falzone at FoxNews.com reports that there’s some intra-liberal squabbling on the Hollywood Left over a new proposal being considered at Amnesty International that would call for a global decriminalization of sex trafficking.

Over 400 people signed a letter from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) that decries a “policy that calls for the decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners and buyers of sex — the pillars of a $99 billion global sex industry."

Celebrity signatories include Christine Baranski, Angela Bassett, Emily Blunt, Lena Dunham, Anne Hathaway, Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Kline, Lisa Kudrow, Carey Mulligan, Kyra Sedgwick, Meryl Streep, Allison Williams, Debra Winger, and Kate Winslet.

It also included ten signatures from the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship alongside well-known radical feminists like Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, and former New York Times and Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen.

Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of CATW, told Fox that Amnesty's move to legalize prostitution would leave an already vulnerable population in even direr straits:

“A prominent human rights organization like Amnesty should be listening to the sex trade victims, women’s rights groups and imploring them to not decriminalize the pimps, the brothel owners, and the sex buyers," Bien-Aimé said.

“Amnesty International has not made a decision yet on this issue. It is important to stress that given that the consultation process is still on-going, no decisions have been made,” Amnesty’s Deputy Executive Director Cammie Croft told FOX411. “No policy has been adopted by Amnesty International and it is not possible to speculate about the eventual outcome of the vote.”

But Croft says something needs to be done.

“Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups in the world so it is important that we understand how, as Amnesty International, we can work to support their human rights. The violations that sex workers can be exposed to include physical and sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion and harassment, human trafficking, forced HIV testing and medical interventions,” Croft said. “They can also be excluded from health care and housing services and other social and legal protection.”

The sex-trade policy Amnesty is considering is similar to the German model that was adopted in 2002. According to Bien-Anime that model has resulted in “explosive growth of legal brothels in Germany that has triggered an increase in sex trafficking.”

CATW supports the Nordic Model, the world's first law to recognize prostitution as violence against women and a violation of human rights. Bien-Aime says this model “criminalizes the purchase of commercial sex and offers women and children an exit strategy.”

So far, The Nordic Model, which originated in 1999 in Sweden, has been passed in the Republic of Korea, Norway, and Iceland, Canada, and most recently Northern Ireland.

Attorney Ameer Benno told the Fox reporter "Sexual commerce should be treated like other kinds of work, and sex workers like workers in other occupations. That means that they should be afforded the full panoply of rights, protections, and responsibilities that come along with that, without stigma."