Communiqué

Regional Conference on Ending Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Women

Taj Pamodzi Hotel, Lusaka

Background

Tasintha Programme and Equality Now sponsored and organized a 3 day regional African Conference from 20-22 June 2008 in Lusaka Zambia.

The Conference - with participants from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe - gave organizations and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation the opportunity to share their experiences and strategies in working to end the trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls.

The Conference recognized that trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls is a global crime and knows no national boundaries and is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms. After examining the many causes, the Conference found that the roots of the problem include:
Gender inequality, racism, classism and homophobia
Discriminatory laws and cultural practices which impact women negatively
Poverty
The demand for paid sex
A false vision of gender roles
The political system of male dominance that creates the demand for paid sex
The inadequate social and political structures relating to the girl child and women
The media objectification of females and the normalization of male dominance and racial, class and gender stereotypes.

Best practices were shared amongst the participants of the Conference. Such practices included survivor initiated actions, state legislative actions by some countries, NGO initiated actions and actions on the international level.

In the light of the above, the Conference urges governments to put in place laws, policies and measures or review existing laws and policies that are inadequate in promoting, protecting and respecting the human rights of women and of the girl child and specifically:
to identify the presence or absence of policies and laws which address trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children;
to ratify and implement international instruments, especially the Trafficking Protocol to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crimes (the Palermo Protocol) which calls for the institution of national laws and policies to address trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children;
to identify, design and promote policies and National Plans of Action aimed at eliminating the demand for paid sex through strengthening of legislative, educational, social and cultural measures which discourage such demand;
To recognize that the legalization and/or state regulation of prostitution is not the answer but part of the problem.
To allocate sufficient resources for research as a way of understanding the causes and consequences of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.
To design pro-poor and anti-poverty policies and programmes specific to local needs aimed at the elimination of gross inequality which is a major cause of trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children.

Recognizing that more people are enslaved in the world today than in the historic slavery of the 1800s, and that at least eighty percent of them are women and children, we declare ourselves to be:

The New Abolitionists

We expose and fight sexual slavery and commercial sexual exploitation everywhere.
We stand with women and children anywhere whose bodies are being sexually colonized.
We oppose traffickers and pimps as the sexual imperialists who sell the bodies of women and girls.
We oppose sex buyers who are some of the root causes of the sex market in their own countries and worldwide.
We oppose the economic and gender injustice that underlie prostitution and sex trafficking.
We demand economic alternatives, gender equality, reproductive and sexual freedom.
We support treatment programs for men who are addicted to sexual dominance.
We demand short term aids such as hotlines for sexually colonized women and children as well as for reporting alleged buyers to be investigated for creating the market for sexual enslavement and exploitation.
We demand such long term solutions as humanizing both gender roles so that “masculinity” no longer requires domination and “femininity” no longer requires being dominated, and the democratization of families so that they no longer normalize hierarchy or violence.
We call for ending political and economic instability and globalization as macro forces compelling sexual slavery and exploitation.
We oppose the legalization of prostitution and any efforts to use such occasions as the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 to promote commercial sexual exploitation, and we urge the South African government to enforce the Sexual Offences Act of 2007.
We call on governments not to permit or support the use of sports or sport activities in promoting the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.
We support studies of the long term effects of body invasion as the most traumatic of crimes against the person.
We demand the re-imagining of sexuality – not as domination and passivity, victor and victim, or as an act that is moral for procreation only – but as a natural form of human communication that is rooted in free choice, cooperation and mutual pleasure.
We support and dedicate ourselves to organizing at every level, using every medium to gain these ends.

Authors
Anne Amadi, FIDA-Kenya
Damalie N. Lwanga, Office of Public Prosecutions, Uganda
Edda Kawala, Kiota Women Health Development (KIWOHEDE), Tanzania
Elizabeth Akinyi, Solidarity with Women in Distress (SOLWODI), Kenya
Esohe Aghatise, Coalition against Trafficking against Women (CATW)
Faiza Jama Mohamed, Equality Now
Imelda Molokomme, Nkaikela Youth Centre, Botswana
Margaret Karara, Sisters of Rwanda, Rwanda
Maria Clara Paulo Mutumba, OMES, Mozambique
Martine Chuulu, Women in Law Southern Africa (WLSA)
Mphikeleli Dlamini, PSI, Swaziland
Nontobeko Mbuyane, Swaziland
Prof Nkandu Luo, Tasintha Programme, Zambia
Rodgers Kasirye, Child Trafficking and Enslavement of Children in Uganda
Ruth Bikwa, Girl Child Network, Zimbabwe
Sara Longwe, Activist, Zambia
Sarry Xoagus-EISES, Namibia Media Women's Association (NAMWA), Namibia
Shamsi Kazimbaya, Society for Women and Aids in Africa (SWAAR), Rwanda
Seodi White, Women in Law Southern Africa (WLSA), Malawi
Wendy Issack, People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), South Africa

Lusaka on June 22, 2008

For more information please contact: Prof. Nkandu Luo +260 1 224670 / +260 977 794206