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E/CN.4/Sub.2/447 page 15
In
In addition, the representative of CSDHA informed the Working Group that the world Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women, meeting at Copenhagen on 14-30 July 1980, had adopted a resolution on the "Exploitation of the prostitution of others and traffic in persons" which, inter alia, deplored "the scant intercst shown by Governments and international organizations in this serious problem", and expressed the belief that it would be desirable to improve the procedures and expand the activities of organs in the United Nations system, including the Working Group on Slavery, which could help to prevent prostitution, suppress its exploitation and facilitate the rehabilitation of its victims. its operative parts, the resolution inter alia, invited Governments to ratify the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others and to submit to the Secretary-General the information specified in Article 21 of that Convention; invited the Caracas Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders to study the relationship between under-development, prostitution and slavery; recommended that the Secretary-General of the United Nations should invite the Governments of States Members to take action against international networks of traffickers and procurers; and requested the Secretary-General to submit to the twenty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women and to the next session of the General Assembly of the United Nations the requested report on prostitution throughout the world, its causes and the social and economic conditions which encourage it.
57. The Working Group also heard a statement by a representative of the International Abolitionist Federation, a non-governmental organization devoted to the campaign for the abolition of the exploitation of prostitution and the traffic in persons. He emphasized that the exploitation of prostitution was
a form of slavery, since the prostitute could not freely dispose of her body or her earnings. Prostitutes were enslaved to their customers, who treated them like merchandize; habitual prostitution was in fact characterized less by remuneration for the sexual act than by the impossibility for the prostitute, in most cases, to choose her sexual partner, or even the number of her partners. Prostitution did not really exist if there was freedom of choice even if the sexual act was still accompanied by monetary consideration or gifts. Secondly, he emphasized that habitual prostitution could not be exercised without the presence of a souteneur, hotel-keeper or house of prostitution, since independent prostitutes were usually quickly discovered by criminal rings and brought under their control.
Secondly,
58. Referring to the trial in Grenoble of a number of souteneurs in the spring of 1980 which had resulted in heavy sentences for most of the accused, he stated that the trial marked a turning point in the history of the struggle against enforced prostitution. Firstly, the trial had shown that the most dangerous traffickers were operating under the cover of respectable professions. it had destroyed the myth of voluntary prostitution, based on a few highly publicized cases of prominent call girls. The trial had shown that prostitutes had been forced to continue to exercise their profession under threats, beatings and torture, which in one case had resulted in death; and that they were forced to surrender most of their earnings to the souteneurs. Finally, the trial had shown that prostitutes could organize themselves to fight against their exploiters if they were assisted by the authorities and by private organizations. He expected that other prostitutes would follow the example of the Grenoble women and that souteneurs would soon be brought to trial in a number of other cities in France. He emphasized the essential role of voluntary organizations in assisting prostitutes who wished to escape their souteneurs and to be reintegrated into
In his view, compulsory re-education programmes had usually failed.
society.