Beijing+10: Consensus on human trafficking

The 130 country delegations agreed March 5 to an unconditional reaffirmation of the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which took place in Beijing in 1995. But it only happened after the women’s groups united amid great public controversy to block divisive U.S. language on abortion.

Both sides loudly claimed victory, but then turned down the volume this week in order to tackle specific problems facing the female half of the planet.

On trafficking, which involves at least two million people every year, women’s groups themselves are divided. Some focus on trafficking in sectors including but not limited to sex work, while others see it only in relation to prostitution. They agree, however, that protection for women’s human rights should be the framework of any workable approach.

The U.S. position, visible in legislation pending in Congress, began as textbook right-wing conservative: punish everyone involved, including the victims, labeling them all pimps or prostitutes.

A draft U.S. resolution pushing law enforcement, legislation and other action against “exploiters and sex buyers who create the demand for prostitution that leads to sex trafficking” circulated furiously all week behind the scenes at the UN. It looked like another example of U.S. unilateral and narrow thinking driven by domestic right-wing politics.

But a number of other governments and some women’s groups took a positive approach, offering amendment after amendment, reminding the U.S. delegation that much human trafficking involves objects of desire other than sex – slave-type laborers, domestic servants, babies, even human organs – and that economic conditions, official corruption, and inadequate labor laws have much to do with the global traffic.

Discrimination against women at home drives some to sex work, which may be the only job available to them.

“The punitive, law-enforcement model is largely unhelpful to individuals who have been trafficked,” argued a paper of the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy. It noted that abuse, violence and repression often come at the hands of law enforcement officials.

“Our goal must be to protect the human rights of women who are trafficked and find ways to assist them that do contribute, rather than the anti-migration policies of many governments that often drive women underground and do not help them,” said Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership.

These arguments seem to have registered with the U.S. delegation. The final resolution added enough human rights language and broadened enough terminology against “all forms of exploitation” to be tolerable to enough other governments for consensus to be achieved late Friday.

Several other resolutions on issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention, economic empowerment, and women in Palestine and Afghanistan were also approved, and everything will feed into the UN High-Level Millennium Review session in September.

“What we proved here is that the United States can’t bully the world when it comes to women’s human rights,” said June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization.

“We’re pleased that the United States ultimately rejoined the global consensus on women’s rights, but we will continue to monitor their actions. We must be vigilant about any future attempts to roll back women’s rights at home and abroad.”