Report prostitution council of europe Open letter from 14 umbrella organisations representing more than 2,000 feminist, survivor-led and grassroots NGOs to Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

We, the undersigned, representing 2,000 feminist, grassroots and survivor-led NGOs, call on the Members of the PACE to reject and vote against the report “Protecting the human rights and improving the lives of sex workers and victims of sexual exploitation”.

Our organisations have decades of grassroots experience in addressing issues related to violence against women, human rights, migrant rights, prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation among others. Our expertise allows us to conclude that prostitution is a violence targeting the most vulnerable and that its legalisation (or “full decriminalisation” as quoted in the report) poses a real threat to the lives of women in prostitution and women’s rights globally.

Our 14 umbrella organisations collectively advocate for the Equality Model on prostitution, one that decriminalises all persons in prostitution, provides exit pathways and alternatives to them and penalise the perpetrators: pimps and buyers of sexual acts. This model – existing among others in Sweden and France – has proven to be efficient in protecting persons in prostitution while fighting trafficking for sexual exploitation and was recently praised by the European Court of Human Rights.

We wish to express our extreme concerns on the report named “Protecting the human rights and improving the lives of sex workers and victims of sexual exploitation” which is based on a biased, opaque consultation process with organisations promoting an approach aimed at legalising all aspects of the prostitution system including pimping and the purchase of sexual acts. The procedure excluded the voices of survivors of prostitution and of grassroots and feminist organisations.

We consider that the report which will be voted on October 2nd is harmful for persons in prostitution and women’s rights for several reasons:

The report promotes the “Belgian model” which recently went further into the decriminalisation of pimping in its criminal code leading to disastrous consequences for persons in prostitution, and which was denounced by grassroots NGOs on the ground repeatedly. The depenalisation of pimping allows pimps to hide behind legal facades to exploit prostituted persons in total impunity. Europol addresses that where prostitution is legal, trafficking for sexual exploitation increases. In Germany, which legalised prostitution in 2002, 82% of persons registered in prostitution are foreigners. Former commissioner Manfred Paulus in charge of fighting trafficking in human beings in Ulm, underlines that

”Thanks to liberal, favourable policies towards traffickers, the red-lights districts in Germany are and have been under the control of criminal networks for years. These include albanic clans, the russian mafia (…) and the Hells Angels”.

The report fails to acknowledge that male demand for the purchase of sexual acts is the rootcause of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Where prostitution has been legalised/”fully decriminalised”, the male demand for the purchase of sexual acts has exploded. Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have become hotspots for sex tourism and human trafficking. Germany is now referred to as “The Brothel of Europe”, with 1 million men going to a brothel every day. In Spain, it has become normalised for young people to go to a brothel as a birthday celebration, and 39% of men acknowledge having paid for sexual acts at least once. In the Netherlands, it is now legal for a driving instructor to request a sexual act as a means of payment from his students.
The use of the terminology “sex work” goes against UN and European agreed language which uses the neutral term “prostitution”. The International human rights law (UN 1949 Convention) recognises prostitution as a “violation of the dignity of the human person”. It is thus extremely difficult to understand how a violation of human dignity could be recognised as work by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The report does not uphold the highest standards of protection of International and European human rights on prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation:

– The UN 1949 Convention, a universal binding treaty, addresses that prostitution is incompatible with human dignity. It calls on Members in its Article 1 & 2 to penalise pimping in all of its forms including brothel owning, and profiting from the prostitution of others even with the consent of that person.

– The UN Palermo Protocol calls on States to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation.

– The CEDAW in its Article 6 calls on States to suppress the exploitation of prostitution of women.

– The European Parliament recognises that prostitution is a “violation of human dignity” and “an obstacle to equality between women & men, contrary to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU”. In 2023, it reaffirmed that prostitution was a violence and called on Member States to depenalise persons in prostitution, provide exit pathways to them, penalise the purchase of sexual acts and pimps in line with the Equality Model.

– The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women addresses that the “legalization of prostitution increases the demand, fosters violence against women and girls and weakens the tools required for law enforcement to monitor, target and prosecute perpetrators, including traffickers and other third-party exploiters.” The rapporteur calls on Member States to adopt the five pillars of the Equality model.

The report makes unsubstantiated claims about so-called negative effects of the Equality Model which the European Court of Human Rights itself refutes in the judgment M.A vs France from July 2024. The Court addresses that there is no evidence that the criminalisation of the purchase of sexual acts has produced negative effects towards persons in prostitution (§155), that these effects might as well be attributed to the prostitution system itself. It further highlights that the Equality Model law is a coherent global approach which:

– reversed the balance of power between persons in prostitution and buyers of sexual acts in favour of prostituted persons (§163);

– protects persons in prostitution, safeguards human dignity, fights trafficking (§141).

It therefore upholds its conventionality.

In view of these elements, we, 14 umbrella organisations representing more than 2,000 grassroots NGOs, survivor-led organisations and feminist organisations worldwide, reaffirm that a Europe where the most vulnerable women and girls are not commodified, bought and sold in the sexist, racist and class-based prostitution system is possible.

We urge you to reject and vote against the harmful report on “Protecting the human rights and improving the lives of sex workers and victims of sexual exploitation”.

Signatories:

Brussels Call

Bundesverband Nordisches Modell (BVNM)

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International)

Coordination Française pour le Lobby Européen des Femmes (CLEF)

Equality Now

Euromed Feminist Initiative (EFI)

European Network of Migrant Women (ENOMW)

European Women’s Lobby (EWL)

Federación Estatal de Mujeres Abolicionistas (FEMAB)

FiLiA

Rights4Girls (R4G)

Swedish Women’s Lobby (SWL)

Survivors of Prostitution Abuse Calling for Enlightenment (SPACE International)

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