On Aug.11, Amnesty International, the largest human rights organization, voted to amend their policy toward prostitution: Amnesty will now support the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work. Outrage followed quickly. Celebrities, includingOutrage followed quickly. Celebrities, including Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, signed a viral Change.org petition urging Amnesty to reconsider their stance. 

The UK newspaper the Guardian started an onslaught of editorials condemning the action. American nonprofits, such as the Coalition against Trafficking in Women International, embarked on campaigns rallying against the change. Perhaps most important for the public, Lena Dunham got in a highly publicized Twitter battle criticizing the decriminalization of prostitution. These celebrities and organizations believe that decriminalizing prostitution will send the signal that not only is the exploitation of women acceptable, it is encouraged. 

The strong reaction to the decision was surprising to me as co-president of the Brandeis chapter of Amnesty International. Firstly, it is rare for major news organizations, nevermind Hollywood actors, to take interest in the bureaucratic proceedings of Amnesty. But even more so, the outrage is surprising to me because I believe at its core, the choice to support the decriminalization of prostitution is the most human rights centric choice. 

Aphorized as the world’s oldest profession, prostitution has existed in nearly every Western and non-Western civilization. Today, prostitution is roughly a $186 billion industry, according to the Havocscope, a research organization that studies black markets. There are 14 million prostitutes solely in countries where prostitution is illegal. In fact, China, a country with criminalized sex work, makes up about half of the international total sex trade revenue.  

Despite this ubiquity, there is widespread human rights abuse. Societies shun prostitutes, causing Amnesty to consider them one of the most marginalized groups in the world. They are subject to rape, beatings, extortion and imprisonment. Human trafficking is a major concern. The International Labor Organization predicts that there are about 4.5 million people involved in forced sexual exploitation on a global scale. 

Furthermore, those in the sex trade out of their own volition often have no other option, blurring the lines of consent. In research published in the feminist magazine Off Our Backs, Patricia Barrera found that 92 percent of prostitutes wanted an escape from prostitution, 70 percent wanted alternative job training and 73 percent needed a home or safe place. She also enumerates that nearly 90 percent of prostitutes are incest and/or child sex abuse survivors who entered the industry, on average, at the age of 14. 

The human cost of prostitution is abhorrent. It should be made abundantly clear that Amnesty International does not support human trafficking or any human rights violations committed against sex workers. Yet, it is important to recognize the reality of the situation. Stopping all sex work is unreasonable and naïve. The criminalization of sex work not only penalizes women for their lack of choices, it prevents them from accessing services that could empower and protect them. Amnesty’s official policy, which is neglected by the media attention surrounding the decision, is that states must provide “adequate and timely access to support—for example, state benefits, access to education and training, or alternative employment” to those involved in sex work.  

Additionally, criminalization of prostitution means that it is much easier to imprison prostitutes- those actually committing the illegal act-han pimps, who are often the source of abuse. Amnesty calls for laws that are more specific than the current criminalization, which would enact strict punishments for pimps and abusers. Workers would not be punished under this model, allowing them to be empowered to seek help if they desired it. 

Most importantly, decriminalization is a policy favored overwhelmingly by those in the sex trade. Amnesty spent two years researching the decision, most of that research being interviews with sex workers. The nonprofit Sex Workers Outreach Project, consisting of current and former sex workers, also supports the action, emphasizing that current media attention fails illustrate “that criminalization actually makes these inequalities worse.” 

A notable exception to this support is a recent New York Times op-ed, written by a former sex worker, which condemns Amnesty’s move to support decriminalization. The op-ed, however, denounces the policy change because Amnesty “wished to help women and girls in prostitution and mistakenly allowed themselves to be sold the notion that decriminalizing pimps and johns would achieve that aim.” This claim is patently false, as Amnesty makes very explicit that pimps would still be criminalized under their proposed program. 

What sex workers think of this issue is, frankly, all we should consider. Arguments over what is best for prostitutes, whether they stem from Lena Dunham or college feminists like myself, are incredibly paternalistic. Instead, we must remember that sex workers have human rights and listen to them to determine what they need to access these rights. We must fight to protect the human rights of all people and resist the temptation to tokenize any person because of their relationship to sex.  

—Christa Caggiano ’17 is the co-president of Brandeis Amnesty International.