Commission on the Status of Women, Fifty-Eighth Session, 2014 The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women respectfully takes the

floor to urge immediate action to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly MDG 3 to promote gender equality and empower women and MDG 6 to combat HIV/AIDS. In order to make progress toward these goals, changes in laws and policies addressing trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls, including prostitution, pornography, the Internet bride industry, and sex tourism are necessary. The commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls is a significant barrier to achieving gender equality. The United Nations recognizes that MDGs are interconnected and that progress on MDG 3 is a keystone to achieving productive employment and decent work under MDG 1. The commercial sex industry, sustained through profits from the trafficking and exploitation of the most vulnerable women and girls, must not and cannot be categorized as decent work. If violence against women continues to undermine efforts to reach MDG goals, then there is no industry in which women and girls suffer more than in the commercial sex industry, including prostitution. Prostitution is not sex work a term used in an effort to sanitize the sex industrys inherent and pervasive violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape. Myriad reports indicate that entry into the commercial sex trade, including prostitution, occurs when a girl is a minor. Therefore, her victimization, the harm and abuse of power exerted over her does not end when she reaches the age of 18. She does not miraculously become a voluntary worker in the sex trade. The violence and discrimination she suffers remains intact. In many countries, women and girls bear the weight of responsibility for prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS despite having little, if any, decision-making power over with whom, whether and when to engage in sexual relations. Womens equality is gravely hindered by policies such as the legalization of prostitution, which exacerbates the widespread sexual abuse of women and girls by increasing the demand for prostituted women and girls, and thus fueling sex trafficking. Legalization policies fail to recognize that prostituted womens and girls lack of negotiating power coupled with the violence that is inherent in prostitution increases womens vulnerability to contracting HIV/AIDS. As the commodity in a transaction between the customer and the pimp, the sexually-exploited woman or child usually must acquiesce to the customers demands, including risky sexual practices. The price of resistance is violence. Research shows that the majority of women and girls in situations of commercial sexual exploitation are subjected to violence by both customers and pimps and have little control over their fundamental bodily integrity. Trafficking, prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation are fueled by male demand. Legalization of prostitution codifies male abuse of power and gives men governmental permission to contribute to trafficking for sexual exploitation. Legitimizing prostitution as work exponentially increases the demand for sex trafficking victims. Men must share in the responsibility for ending this form of gender-based violence by helping to eliminate demand for commercial sex. No society that purports to promote gender equality should tolerate and accept an industry that fosters violence and discrimination against women and girls, as does the industry of prostitution. The UN, governments and civil society must, therefore, shift the moral and criminal responsibility for sexual exploitation and the greater burden of HIV/AIDS prevention away from the women and girls who are victimized to the men who purchase their bodies, the traffickers who enslave them and those governments who countenance such violence. Governments must increase support and services for victims, develop meaningful exit strategies, and initiate public education campaigns aimed at preventing victimization and eliminating demand. Governments must create and enforce effective laws against trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of girls and women in full accordance with the Palermo Protocol, the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of

Others, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and other international instruments. Legalization and normalization of the sex industry are short-sighted policies that prevent societies from achieving the MDGs of gender equality and the empowerment of women and combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. The imperative for the United Nations and its Member States is to protect the human rights and ensure the dignity of all women and girls, including those bought and sold in the commercial sex industry. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present this statement.