End violence against women= Say “no” to prostitution

Published on Friday, 25 November 2016 11:22

In the frame of the international day for the fight against violence to women, the Fondation Scelles is a partner to the meeting this Friday November 25^th 2016 at 1.pm, organized by the Pontoise Court on the theme: “France is an abolitionist country”.

By the side of Gwenola Joly-Coz, the President of the Pontoise Court of first instance in civil and criminal matters, Yves Jannier, the State Counsel, Hélène de Rugy, the main Delegate for the Amicale du Nid and Rosen Hicher, the co-founder of the Mouvement des survivantes in France, Yves Charpenel, the Fondation Scelles President and State Prosecutor at the Supreme Court, will present the current and future stakes of the combat against prostitution in France and all over the world; he will also recall how urgent it is for all countries to put an end to prostitution which is an extreme violent damage to women and a serious breach of human rights.

Prostitution is a form of violence against women

The prostitution system, 85% of whose “offer” includes females, is synonymous with violence. The latter occurs before, during and after the prostitution activity, whatever the forms and modes of prostitution and whatever the countries and juridical systems. An idealized image of prostitution is conveyed by the prostitution lobby; it has nothing in common with the violent and deadly reality which has been established from real facts.    

- Violence is the first factor of morbidity and mortality, direct or indirect, for prostituted women whose life-expectancy is only 40 years.

- Violence is a ceaseless occurence by a great number of varied perpetrators: clients, pimps, passers-by, institutions resulting in social violence…Every day prostitutes are faced with numerous forms of physical, psychic and sexual abuses: recurrent rapes, tortures, illegal confinements, physical attacks, threats with arms, thefts…Their risks to be attacked or die a violent death are 60 up to 120 times higher than for the population in general. They are potential victims of a rape at least 6 times more often than the rest of the population. Associations for the community’s health regularly publish “survival kits” for prostitutes, which give advice to help them face clients’ abuses.

- This violence is even worse in the cases of exploitation and trafficking in human beings which result in the main forms of the current prostitution characterized by systematic violence. All the victims of human trade report the extremely violent acts performed in order to “season” them.

- Violence which is relevant to prostitution can be observed objectively. Prostitution is an abuse by itself because it implies repeated sexual relations, up to several dozens a day, under constraint; this constraint occurs through networks concerning 9 women out of 10 and is a financial binding for all of them.

- Whatever the prostitution situation, the sexual assaults that threaten prostitutes result in the most serious physical and psychic harms; they operate, in the same way as torture, through the permanent sexual intrusion which is intensified by a previous history of sexual attacks such as incest, pedophilia, rapes, in over 80% of the cases. For that matter, the UN defines the purchase of sexual relations as a “sexual abuse”. Money does not make “acceptable” repeated rapes, tortures, wounds, shaming, depressions, nightmares, stain feeling, social phobia or serious relationship difficulties.

- Prostitution activity generates serious psychic suffering: psychosomatic problems, anxious and depressive disorders, addictions, nervous breakdowns and post-trauma syndrome (PTSD) in 68% of the cases; this psychological destruction may even result in psychiatric pathologies. Between 60% and 80% of prostitutes suffer serious post-trauma disorders; the same percentage is found among tortured victims and political prisoners.

Read also

>>> A summary of prostitution... A universe of violences

>>> La loi française du 13 avril 2016 contre le système prostitutionnel

>>> The Scelles Foundation 2016 Global Report on prostitutions

>>> Pontoise court