Trafficking and Prostitution as Gender-Based Violence

The articles and reports below focus on the issue of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation and raise the issue of whether prostitution is a form of gender-based violence. 

The Swedish Approach to Prostitution, Sari Kouvo, Department of Law, University of Göteborg, Sweden.
This article discusses Sweden’s 1999 law, which forbids the buying and attempted buying of sexual services, as a unique legal approach to the problems of prostitution and trafficking.

Globalized, Wired, Sex Trafficking in Women and Children, Vanessa von Struensee, E Law - Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, Vol 7, No 2, June 2000.

Men Create the Demand; Women Are the Supply, Donna M. Hughes, University of Rhode Island, from a lecture on Sexual Exploitation, Queen Sofia Center, Valencia, Spain, November 2000. 

Also available in Russian: Мужчины создают спрос; Женщины являются предложением.

Declaration of Rights for Women in Conditions of Sex Trafficking and Prostitution, from the conference Organizing Against Sexual Exploitation Regionally Globally, convened by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Dacca, Bangladesh, 29 January 1999.
This declaration calls for the validation of sex work and challenges governments to provide rights and protections for women who work in prostitution, while also punishing those who sexually exploit women and children.  The declaration includes a list of proposed rights and government obligations, such as limiting criminal sanctions of women who have been trafficked, prosecuting traffickers and pimps and the elimination of the causes of prostitution.

Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work on the International Agenda, Anti Slavery International and Network of Sexwork Projects, 1997.
This report examines the treatment of commercial sex work within the international human rights framework and explores the definitions of ‘trafficking’, ‘prostitution’ and ‘slavery.’  The report also provide an overview of UN and ILO standards that relate to the commercial sex industry.