NCJ Number
195712
Date Published
June 2002
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This testimony before the U.S. House Committee on International Relations focuses on the evidence of a connection between prostitution, whether legal or widely tolerated, and sex trafficking, with attention to the countries in the European Union.
Abstract
The percentages of "foreign" women in prostitution in the European Union, meaning they are not citizens of countries of the European Union, have shown a consistent increase between 1997 and 1999. In the last 2 years, two European countries (the Netherlands and Germany), both with a severe trafficking problem, have legalized prostitution, pimping, and brothel keeping. In October 2000, the Netherlands officially legalized prostitution and brothels; the Dutch sex industry is now a $1 billion business or 5 percent of the Dutch economy, with the industry having increased 25 percent in the last decade. In December 2001, Germany legalized pimping and brothel keeping (prostitution was already legal), and officially stated that prostitution was no longer to be viewed as immoral. There are an estimated 400,000 women in prostitution in Germany, and 75 percent of the prostitutes are foreigners; 80 percent of the trafficked women in Germany are from Central and Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. Increasing the demand for women in prostitution in countries where a significant portion, and in most cases the majority, of the women are foreign citizens violates the criteria set out in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, which criminalizes severe forms of trafficking for commercial sex acts and forced labor. The TVPA mandates that governments adopt measures to prevent such trafficking. Tolerance and legalization of sex industries also leads to an increase in child prostitution. The TVPA defines the use of any child under 18 for a commercial sex act as a severe form of trafficking. The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) 2002 report, which is a tool to evaluate and rank the countries in the world on their efforts to combat trafficking, failed to grasp the scope, magnitude, or causal factors of trafficking in women and children. This report is so weak that it subverts the intent of the TVPA. The trafficking in women and children for prostitution will only decrease when there are sufficient arrests and convictions that carry sentences commensurate with the severity of the crimes and when there is a reduction in the demand for women and children to be used in prostitution. These two critical factors are missing in the evaluation and ranking of countries in the 2002 TIP Report. The U.S. House Committee on International Relations is urged to use its power to ensure that the TVPA of 2000 is implemented as intended, so that victims of the global sex trade are freed from their bondage and new victims are not recruited to replace them. 27 footnotes