AI Adopts Controversial Sex Work Resolution

           The result of the debate described in the previous two posts: Amnesty International’ s International Council Meeting 2015 adopted a controversial resolution, which recommends that Amnesty International develop a policy that supports the full decriminalization of all aspects of consensual sex work. The policy will also call on states to ensure that sex workers enjoy full and equal legal protection from exploitation, trafficking and violence.

Read the full text here.

           A strongly dissenting opinion written by Jessica Neuwirth, human rights lawyer who worked at AI, and founder of Equality Now and Donor Direct Action, read it here.

           According to Neuwirth, “Sweden has made a legal distinction between those driven into the sex industry by poverty and discrimination and those who buy sex as an exercise of power and privilege. Its model law criminalizes only the buying of sex and offers support services to those who are bought. This progressive feminist method aims to decriminalize prostituted women without legitimizing the men who buy them.”

           Without the benefit of having been present at the discussions, we wonder why this sensible view did not prevail?