Education, Tougher Enforcement on Those Buying Sex Will Eradicate Sexual Exploitation
By Movieguide® Contributor
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) says lowering the demand for prostitution and not decriminalization is the answer to stopping sexual exploitation.
“Full decriminalization and sex buyer impunity is not a pathway for harm reduction; instead, it is the operations room for harm production,” Dr. Marcel van der Watt said at the Primary Prevention of Sex Trafficking: Moving the Needle on Demand Reduction symposium.
Dr. Marian Hatcher added, “Nevada has been a failed science experiment for more than 50 years…The bottom line is they have increased organized crime, they have increased child exploitation, they have increased co-occurring crimes.”
Nevada is the only U.S. state where prostitution is legal.
A report put out by NCOSE cited that countries that have legalized prostitution have higher rates of sex trafficking than those where sex buying is still illegal.
A study of 150 countries found that those “countries with legalized prostitution have larger international human trafficking inflows.”
Another study of 39 countries found that transnational sex trafficking is more “prevalent” in states where prostitution is legal.
In a specific comparison of two countries, Germany, where prostitution was made legal in 2002, and Sweden, which made prostitution illegal under the Swedish Sex Purchase Act in 1999, Germany has 62 times more trafficking victims than Sweden.
NCOSE stated that Ipswich, England’s “zero tolerance” of prostitution, which included a “high profile police presence,” led to an “almost complete disappearance of kerb-crawlers [i.e., sex buyers] from Ipswich streets.”
While NCOSE does not advocate for legalized prostitution, they want to see the focus on prosecuting the sex buyers rather than the seller. They cite that in Harris County, Texas, “68% of arrestees were female while only 28% were male.”
They also report that of men who are “high frequency buyers”—those who buy sex illegally weekly or monthly—only about 6% of those men say they were arrested.
“Shifting law enforcement’s limited resources from arresting people in prostitution toward arresting sex buyers corrects this imbalance and holds those responsible for inflicting abuse and harm accountable,” the NCOSE report stated.
Statistics show that a majority of women involved in prostitution are victims of violence.
“Survey data from more than 10,000 men and 3,000 women across six countries showed sex buying was strongly associated with non-partner rape and using physical violence against female partners,” NCOSE wrote.
World Without Exploitation cites a grim statistic for women caught in prostitution.
“Ninety-two percent of trafficked women in one study report being subjected to physical violence, such as being shot, strangled, burned, beaten, stabbed, or punched. Many are victims of multiple forms of violence,” they report.
NCOSE believes that the key to combating sex exploitation is “demand reduction,” with offender education programs that would be paid by those arrested for buying sex instead of taxpayers.
“Robust efforts aimed at curbing demand for paid sex such as maintaining, strengthening, and enforcing laws that deter sex buying creates a culture that prevents harm before it happens,” the nonprofit wrote.
Some of those efforts suggested are involvement within the mental health profession and physicians to communicate the risk involved with buying sex.
They cite San Francisco’s First Offenders Prostitution Program as a successful demand reduction initiative, where arrestees are given the choice between prosecution or attending a class and paying a fee. Those who went through the program paid over $3.1 million in whole that went towards the education program and to programs that help recovery for those in prostitution.
The topic of sex trafficking, especially child trafficking, has been in the media a lot recently. 2023’s SOUND OF FREEDOM, which won this year’s Movieguide® Faith and Freedom Award, has stirred people into action, especially those involved in the film.
Eduardo Verástegui, the film’s producer, told The Christian Post that he wants to dedicate his life to end child trafficking.
“Is it dangerous? Yes! [But] it’s more dangerous not to do it,” he said. “So at the end of the day, we’re going to die and we’re going to answer to God. Every day I think about this: How am I using my life?”
Actress Mira Sorvino, who stars alongside Jim Caviezel in the surprise hit, served as UN Goodwill Ambassador to fight child trafficking, shared about the impact the movie has had on audiences as Movieguide® previously reported:
Sorvino’s new film, SOUND OF FREEDOM, is currently playing in theaters. She plays the wife of a man who devotes his life to rescuing young victims of human trafficking. Sorvino shared what it was like to witness people’s reactions to the movie.
“To see people… [with] their hearts in their throats, like watching this unfold and understanding the reality of two million children in the world who are trapped in child sex exploitation right now who are being trafficked and sold to evil people who have not one wit of compassion or empathy for them as human children—it was powerful,” Sorvino said.
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