CSW 60 Mon21

Today's Reports

The Pastoral Care of Women and Girls Working or Living on the Streets
The Holy See, Women at the Well

2016-03-21           Luke Cozens

SDGs: 1 3 4 5 8 16

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

Archibishop Auza was the Moderator for the session

He suggested that women and girls living or working on the streets are at the highest risk of being “left behind” on the 2030 Agenda. He said that achieving the SDGs by 2030 was “a tall order because the situation in 2016 is grave”.

He noted comments from the Second Vatican Council that trafficking and sexual abuse “dishonour the creator” and from Pope Francis that the sale of women and girls into slavery is an “open wound” on the body of global society.

Sister. Lynda Dearlove, Women at the Well, Caritas

Listed slavery, prostitution, and trafficking for organs as crimes against humanity.

She described the work done by Women at the Well as providing holistic care for survivors of exploitation which deals with multiple layers of trauma, much of which began in childhood, without sending survivors from door to door. This includes not asking women to constantly repeat difficult areas from their past. Layers of trauma include previous inability to engage with services, having a child being taken away and many other traumas.
Sister Dearlove noted the importance of allowing survivors to work according to their own timeline and to provide an environment where women feel safe, which for Women at the Well means providing a women-only environment. This safe environment includes freedom from feeling judged as well as practically being homely, warm, and not having rules posted on the walls. She also highlighted the importance of survivors being able to help each other which enables them to feel understood, listened to, and respected, as well as feeling that they have something to bring. Sister Dearlove highlighted that she does not see herself as “the fixer”.
Sister Dearlove highlighted that “prostitution for the women we work for is not a choice” and “is not about sex”. Claims which she illustrated with the statistics that 70% of their clients were originally in the childcare system and 68% meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the same range as victims of torture undergoing treatment.

Sister Dearlove briefly discussed the current UK legislation for prostitution which she said often works against those in prostitution on the streets. She particularly noted the inappropriate use of ASBOs, which can ultimately restrict access to services within a banned area, as well as the difficulties caused by prostitution being listed as a sexual offense which turns up in criminal records checks. She said that the buying of sexual acts should be criminalised and gave her support to the Nordic model.

In concluding Sister Dearlove noted that poverty is the greatest force pushing women into prostitution and also highlighted the right to identification documentation for those on the streets.

Rachel Moran, Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Empowerment (SPACE), Author “Paid for”

SPACE international calls for the Nordic model as a political solution because it puts the legal burden on the exploiters and criminalises the demand for paid sexual access to human beings. She said that pimps are only interested in profits and that areas where the Nordic model is in place causes them either to leave or not arrive in the first place. However, she noted that while France is about to institute the Nordic model, brothels are being set up on the German border where prostitution is legalised. This lead her to suggest a need for an international solution which she sees as the only alternative to sexual tourism leading to the exploitation of women of colour in the developing world. She suggested further that the decriminalisation of pimping causes trafficking and lets the organised crime, which she sees as involved in all prostitution, out of control.

Ms. Moran said that “it is not ok to buy your way inside a human being” and “not everything that is remunerated deserves [to be called] work”. She said that poverty does not cause prostitution but only forces women to comply with it.

Kevin Hyland OBE, UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner

He suggested that trafficking and slavery are worse for women and girls who are selected and exploited because of an underlying gender imbalance. He noted the extreme version of this with ISIS who keep ledgers and operate sexual-slavery as a commercial enterprise. He suggested that society’s failure to recognise gender imbalance was one of the largest causes of trafficking and slavery.

Mr Hyland noted the importance of SDG 8.7 and the UK modern slavery act. He said that victims must be treated as victims and that women in source countries such as Nigeria should be educated in order to bring around cultural change. He noted that men and boys are also trafficked.

Kathryn Hodges, Anglia Ruskin University

She discussed the complex legislative context in the UK which she says simultaneously condemns and condones prostitution, is unbalanced, and targets victims. She noted a focus on individual choice without mindfulness of the context of those choices, and asked if professionals know the choices women are facing, and who decides which needs are responded to.

Ms. Hodges discussed multidisciplinary working and said that women cannot be expected to engage with multiple services and manage multiple appointments. She said that primarily women wanted to be treated as people, with people who remember their names etc.

Ms. Hodges gave support to the Nordic model and concluded by saying “we need to bring women to the front of the queue to ensure that no-one is left behind.”

Zambia’s Permanent Secretary for Gender representing the First Lady of Zambia

She noted that Zambia is the only country to be Christian in its constitution and that it is also known as a peace-loving country, but asked “so what?” She noted that a lot of gender issues happen within the Church as well as without. She also noted the illegal but institutionalised trafficking by gangs and the use of young girls as mules. She suggested that there is a need for research into those who are differently physically abled who are often hidden at home and sexually abused.

Questions from the floor

focussed on the connection between demand and pornography, education around personal sexual rights v education around sexual responsibility and women who choose not to leave prostitution. Ms. Moran responded that the cause of prostitution is male demand and that poverty is a cause only of women complying with this demand. She suggested that prostitution and pornography are elements of the same system and that you cannot eradicate prostitution while condoning pornography. However, she noted a distinction between erotica and pornography, the latter which she considered to involve degradation and denigration with 80% of pornography involving some form of abuse of women. Sister Dearlove echoed Ms. Moran’s comments on poverty and added that the services of Women at the Well are not conditional on women choosing to leave prostitution but that they aim to help their clients believe that it is possible to leave, provide them with hope, improve their life and empower them.

What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
It is necessary to tackle the root causes of the exploitation of women in terms of culture, gender imbalance and male demand in order to effectively tackle the issues.

Women at the Well provide examples of good/best practice that practitioners may wish to examine

The Salvation Army could consider developing an international positional statement on prostitution.  Exploring factors, within such a document, that contribute to exploitation of women in this way, such as legal frameworks, would help congregations understand the issues involved.