Case 20-2016: United Nations
(UN) & Secretary General Ban Ki-moon & Secretary
General Antonio Guterres
MANIFESTO on Prostitution
The Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights,
defender of the rights of global citizenship and of all beings of Mother Earth,
exercising the cultural sovereignty that emanates from the Buddhist Peoples and
Spiritual Communities, is aware of the situation of exploitation that millions
of women are suffering throughout the world by means of prostitution;
The Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights has a
universal ethical vocation, so that it calls upon the entire international
community to become aware of the crimes against women that are being
perpetrated by means of prostitution and the sexual trafficking networks;
The Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights
addresses the United Nations (UN)
from the perspective of Ethics and International Law in order to analyze the
legal situation that the legalization of prostitution implies;
It is stated
that the United Nations (UN) is
violating one of the main precepts of Buddhist Law, because by supporting the
legalization of prostitution, the precept of developing an adequate sexuality
is violated, since it should be practiced healthy and respectfully, always
based on the experience of love and the recognition of the dignity of the
fellow beings.
It is stated
that when interpreting the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, prostitution would be prohibited by
articles 4 and 5, where it is explicitly forbidden to subdue people to slavery,
servitude, human trafficking, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment.
It is stated
that prostitution is nothing more than a form of slavery, being also functional
to human trafficking, organized crime and corruption, since low-income girls
and women and other vulnerable groups such as immigrants would be co-opted to
be exploited during their whole lives under conditions that could never
resemble a decent job.
It is stated
that the United Nations (UN) should
eradicate prostitution and human trafficking, often associated with selling
poor women and girls for sexual slavery, having the duty to comply with the
vision of many international conventions and protocols approved by the General
Assembly of the United Nations, so
that the UN should respect the 1949 Convention for the Suppression
of the Traffic
in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which affirms that prostitution and trafficking
violate the dignity and value of the human being, and they endanger the
well-being of the individual, family and community, reason why anyone who
allows prostitution or exploits it should be punished even if there is consent
of the person.
It is stated
that the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in its Article 6, has the
goal to struggle against trafficking in women and the exploitation of female
prostitution.
It is stated
that the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women establishes
that violence against women includes physical, sexual and psychological
violence, sexual abuse, trafficking in women and forced prostitution.
It is stated
that the Palermo Protocol of 2000 seeks to prevent and punish the trafficking
in women and children, complementing the UN
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
It is stated
that the legalization of prostitution would be a form of support for pedophilia
and sexual abuse of minors, because in prostitution, female child
prostitutes are often used by adult men, and also adult women prostitutes
usually admit male children as clients, both cases constituting crimes
against children that usually go totally unpunished.
It is stated
that in the United States of America there is a plague of murders of
prostitutes which has been left in total impunity, because they are considered
as a social pariah and this makes that they are not adequately protected by
security forces.
It is stated
that legalization of prostitution is unconstitutional and betrays human rights
treaties, because it reduces the intrinsic dignity of the human being to an
object, merchandise or instrument of consumption, both in the case of women and
girls as well as in the case of men and transsexuals who also belong to
prostitution networks.
It is stated
that the mass media convey an unfavorable image of women when showing them as
an object or merchandise, thus disregarding the dignity and liberty of the
human being.
It is stated
that the Cambodian activist Somaly Mam of the Afesip organization, who has
received international awards for rescuing dozens of women forced to prostitute
themselves, is absolutely right in stating that legalizing prostitution goes against dignity and it means legalizing
violence against women, since female trafficking could not be dissociated from the
legalization of prostitution, because trafficking is a consequence of the
supply and demand developed by the prostitution business.
It is stated
that the Buddhist Tribunal agrees with Janice G. Raymond, director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
(CATW), who in March 2003 said that legalizing prostitution as a job does
not mean empowering women but rather strengthens the sexual industry, so that
from data of the Netherlands and Australia she argued multiple reasons against
the legalization of prostitution, as it
would be a gift for pimps and traffickers to become entrepreneurs, would
promote sexual trafficking of poor foreign women, would expand and would not control
sex industry, would increase illegal prostitution by not protecting anonymity,
would promote child prostitution, would not protect women prostitutes from
violence, would increase the demand for prostitution by encouraging men to buy
women as sexual consumption products in environments of permissibility and
acceptance, would not promote improvements in women's health for being exposed
to venereal transmission diseases, would not increase the women's possibilities
to choose, and it would go against the will of millions of women who do not
want to legalize the sex industry.
It is stated
that in 2001, in a scandalous way, the Court
of Justice of the European Union ruled the recognition of prostitution as
an independent economic activity,
which is a similar position to that of the Ministry of Justice of the
Netherlands and its consideration that the prohibition of prostitution would
conflict with the right to free choice of
work, despite the fact that obviously the oppression and commercialization
of women along with slavery do not constitute forms of dignified work.
It is stated
that in 1998 the International Labor
Organization (ILO), which is part of the United Nations (UN), suggested the international community that
prostitution be legalized as a legitimate economic sector in order to collect
taxes for the State coffers, even though the ILO itself recognizes the fact that prostitution is an alienated form of work where women work
suffering, with remorse and forced, reason why sociologist Julio Godio - a
specialist in labor issues and former member of the ILO - stated that it is an aberration
that this UN dependent institution
proposes to legalize prostitution as work, since it would be legalizing oppression despite the fact that the ILO has agreements against slavery and
forced labor (Convention No. 29), rather than encouraging the fact that
prostitutes free themselves from their exploiters.
It is stated
that it is a historical shame that the United
Nations (UN), through its 2012 report entitled "Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific",
recommends the legalization of prostitution in Asian-Pacific countries under
the pretext that this would bring large amounts of social, legal and health
benefits for prostitutes.
It is stated
that the legalization of prostitution does nothing but expand the sexual market
of women and increase human trafficking, as described by Seo-Young Choa Axel
Dreher and Eric Neumayer in 2012 in their work called "Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?".
It is stated
that Rachel Lloyd, director of Girls
Educational and Mentoring Services, is right when saying that the solution
to prostitution does not lie in the criminalization of victims neither in the
legalization as sexual work, but is found in the criminal prosecution of traffickers and clients of prostitution,
penalizing the demand but not its supply, as happens in the Nordic model, in addition to dealing
with structural social problems such as poverty and ignorance to avoid the
economic coercion suffered by the prostitutes, all of which produce a
significant decline in the social malaise of prostitution.
It is stated
that the way to reduce prostitution is not through its legalization but through
the reduction of demand, creating an integral strategy against trafficking in
persons and the use of women as merchandise, because the best way to fight
against prostitution and sexual exploitation is the Nordic model of Sweden, Iceland and Norway, where buying sexual
services is a crime at the same time that victims who exercise this resource
are not criminalized, so the model is persecuting clients instead of the
prostitutes.
It is stated
that at the end of the 20th century the Swedish government banned and penalized
the sexual purchase of women, stating that prostitution
is an undesirable social phenomenon and an obstacle to the development of
gender equality.
It is stated
that prostitution constitutes an act of gender inequality and violence that
affects more than 40 million people in the world, being one of the most
atrocious violations of basic human rights that exists.
It is stated
that the defenders of the legalization of prostitution often use the same
rhetoric as the defenders of the legalization of abortion and the legalization
of drugs, by saying in a utilitarian way that women have the right to do what they want with their bodies.
It is stated
that in June 2017 the UN and the WHO have called on the international community
to decriminalize the use of drugs and prostitution, not only ensuring that this
would improve public health, but also even lying by saying that punitive laws
have negative results.
It is stated
that Secretary General Guterres of the UN is right to confirm that prostitution
and sexual slavery thrive where laws are weak or nonexistent, as impunity and
injustice are fueled by these crimes that would be much worse than drug trafficking.
It is stated
that the majority of people who practice prostitution in their childhood have
been victims of some form of rape or even incest, which is a vicious circle
whereas prostitution leaves physical and psychic consequences that are lasting
and almost as devastating as torture.
It is stated
that the UN in 2017 has begun to try to decriminalize prostitution in the
international community, calling it a sexual
work despite the fact that women rescued from prostitution confirm that it
is actually paid rape and not a job.
It is stated
that the majority of victims who practice prostitution would like to abandon
it, although they do not have the resources to be able to do so, and therefore
they need humanitarian help and solidarity from all society.
The United Nations Organization (UNO) is
required to immediately adopt righteous and appropriate policies that do not
violate human rights, fundamental freedoms and the intrinsic dignity of the
people, so that a zero tolerance approach that prevents and protect victims of
prostitution should be urgently initiated, by judging clients or criminals and
simultaneously directing economic resources to help prostitutes to be free of
the exploitation and alienation that they suffer.
On August 23, 2018, as a way of contribution to a more
peaceful, just, cultured and healthy world, the present Manifesto on Prostitution is expressed.
Always with reconciliation (maitri),
Master Maitreya Samyaksambuddha
President and Judge of the Buddhist Tribunal
on Human Rights
