Trafficking and Prostitution

Ottawa 2000

Resolution on Trafficking and Prostitution a Modern Form of Slavery

As adopted by the Congress of Liberal International, Ottawa/Hull, Canada 26-28 October 2000

This Liberal International Congress, recognizing Liberals’ total commitment to freedom of the individual as crucial to the development of truly democratic societies:

Notes with grave concern the recent resurgence and growth of human slavery in the form of international trafficking of women and children of both sexes into the sex industry.

Observes that this growth is promoted by the collapse of several national economies, the inadequacy of infrastructure for protection of law and order in emerging nations and in particular by the accelerated expansion of unregulated global Internet services.

Notes that entrapment by violence, coercion and debt are the overwhelming causes of women entering prostitution, that this exploitation results in serious physical and mental harm to the victims, and that the vast majority of prostitutes are seeking to escape from their situation.

Finally notes that legislation against prostitution concentrates primarily on the victimized women and not on the criminal procurers or the customers.

Calls accordingly on all Liberal parties world-wide to:

• recognise that the sexual exploitation is a growing and brutal form of slavery;
• promote awareness of many appalling direct and indirect effects of this degrading industry;
• ensure that their countries sign and ratify the 1949 UN Convention of the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, and subsequent resolutions;
• work to render this trafficking and exploitation illegitimate in all its forms and to oppose all proposal for legitimization;
• shift prosecution from the victims to the procurers, pimps and clients;
• promote measures for controlling the proliferation of sex industry services on the Internet;
• track down and prosecute organisation conniving in laundering of profits from trafficking and sexual exploitation;
• establish strong penalties for any exploitation of women perpetrated by the authorities (e.g. custodial rape);
• promote the education of women and girls, men and boys regarding the true nature of prostitution and methods of procreation.