Esteemed colleagues who focus on religious liberty issues are uncharacteristically divided regarding the
Supreme Court's decision yesterday that struck down as unconstitutional a government requirement that recipients of grants to fight human trafficking and AIDS provide assurance that they oppose prostitution, which spreads AIDS and human trafficking.
Some legal advocates who focus on religious liberty issues had filed
briefs opposing the "prostitution pledge" provision. They reasoned that its allowance would let the government unconstitutionally dictate the ideological views of any organization that receives government funding. These groups understandably feared strengthening the Obama administration's attacks on religious liberty, buttressing local governments' attacks on
pregnancy centers through speech requirements, and squeezing out campus student groups that decline to conform to university dogma on social issues. The groups
reasoned that even the tax exemption status of charitable groups, seen (oddly) as a form of government subsidy, could be jeopardized if groups opposed the social policies of the government.
Other religious liberty advocates, such as the
American Center for Law and Justice, reasoned--rightly, in my view--that requiring grantees to supply proof of opposition to prostitution was an eminently reasonable requirement to further the goals of a government health program that hinges on stopping prostitution. The anti-prostitution requirement, in this view, does not restrict the free speech of anyone--it just keeps the government from paying for speech opposed to the goals of this particular program, which provides funding on a completely voluntary basis. Justices Scalia and Thomas agreed in their
dissent:
But here a central part of the Government’s HIV/AIDS strategy
is the suppression of prostitution, by which HIV is transmitted. It is entirely
reasonable to admit to participation in the program only those who believe in that
goal.
In a comment relevant to the funneling of government funds to groups that support prostitution, abortion and other evils, the dissenting Justices noted,
Money is fungible. The economic reality is that when NGOs
can conduct their AIDS work on the Government’s dime, they can expend greater
resources on policies that undercut the Leadership Act.
Whatever one might conclude regarding the theoretical impact of this case on religious liberty, what remains undeniable and real are the immediate harms, from a pro-life, anti-trafficking and anti-AIDS perspective, that result from this ruling:
- more money to groups that see prostitution as legitimate "sex work" rather than as an evil to be eradicated--including pro-abortion and pornography (see CATW footnote below) groups;
- a blow to efforts to eradicate prostitution, along with prostitution's threat to public health and its degradation of and violence against women and children;
- the prospect of yet more forced and elective abortions, resulting from relying on condom distribution programs and unionization of prostituted women and children rather than rescuing them out of sex trafficking and other forms of prostitution.
Following are a few examples that illustrate the real-world implications of striking down the anti-prostitution requirement:
Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW) - Supreme Court brief
E. Sections 7631(e) and
(f) were enacted in the wake of specific abuses documented prior to the passage
of the Leadership Act. The requirement of a “policy explicitly opposing prostitution
and sex trafficking” was enacted, not in a vacuum, but in the wake of specific abuses
by certain organizations that have used HIV/AIDSprevention funds to support their
own efforts to promote legalization of prostitution and acceptance of prostitution
as legitimate employment for poor women. The requirement in Section 7631(f) is justified
as a way to ensure that HIV/AIDS-prevention
funds are used to support programs that distribute condoms and provide health services,
while seeking to eliminate prostitution rather than perpetuate it.
A vivid example of such an abuse is an organization in South
Africa called SWEAT (Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce), in which the
pro-prostitution “advocates” and the sex industry have been one and the same. SWEAT
received funding to do HIV/AIDS-prevention work in AIDS-ravaged South Africa and
used the funds not only to
distribute condoms but to advocate decriminalization and legalization of the sex
industry. 69 In 1995, SWEAT distributed a pamphlet whose goal was to “assist
you in your career in the [sex] industry.”70 Funded with HIV/AIDS-prevention monies,
SWEAT offered training in “sexual massage.”71
The Tab
Bazar brothel in Bangladesh is another example of an organization that perhaps
helped prostituted persons in some small measure, but in reality, perpetuated the
sex slavery of vulnerable women and children.72 The brothel does in fact provide
services for prostituted persons: condoms, HIV treatment, postnatal checkups, and
gynecological care. 73 Yet the brothel, the largest in Bangladesh, locks women and their children inside,
“constantly available for purchase but out of public view.”74
Against this backdrop, it is even clearer that the United States
has compelling reasons to adopt a policy that requires organizations combating HIV/AIDS
through work with prostituted persons, to oppose prostitution and sex
trafficking . 75 Organizations advocating the legalization of prostitution are promoting
the interests of the commercial sex industry and, in cases such as the ones cited
above, are the sex industry.
The United States has an interest in ensuring that federal money
is spent on organizations that, while addressing HIV/AIDS’s harm, will simultaneously
attack the source of that harm, not defend it. In light of the extensive evidence
of the devastation caused by prostitution and sex trafficking, this interest is
truly a compelling one.
69 Farley, Prostitution
Harms Women, supra note 27, at 1113.
70 Id.
71 Id.
72 Id. at 1114.
73 Id.
74 Id.
75 Indeed, in an
action filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia,
in which the plaintiff’s claims are similar to the ones at issue here, the plaintiff is DKT International.
DKT International’s president is Phil Harvey, who runs a multi-million dollar pornography business.
Complaint at 10-11, DKT Int’l, Inc. v. U.S. Agency for Int’l Dev. et al., 435
F. Supp 2d 5 (D.D.C. 2005) (No. 05-01604); U.S. Man’s Porn Sales Helping Fight
AIDS Overseas, Associated Press, Oct. 10, 2005,
http://ww1.aegis.org/news/ap/2005/ AP051016.html.
Pregnancy in Prostituted Children
Willis, B.M., Levy, B.S. Child Prostitution: Global Health
Burden, Research Needs, and Interventions. Lancet
2002; 359: 1417-22.
The following consequences
of pregnancy in prostituted children have been estimated to occur each year
based upon 9 million prostituted girls:
• Maternal deaths - 4752
• Induced abortions - 1,224,000
• Abortion related
complications - 367,200
• Abortion related
deaths - 710
The Reality of Human Trafficking: One Woman’s Story
I was transported to Florida, and one of the bosses told me I
would be working in a brothel as a prostitute. I told him he was mistaken and
that I was going to be working in a restaurant. He said I owed him a smuggling
debt, and the sooner I paid it off the sooner I could leave. I was constantly
guarded and abused. If any of the girls refused to be with a customer, we were
beaten. If we adamantly refused, the bosses would show us a lesson by raping us
brutally. We worked six days a week, 12 hours a day. Our bodies were sore and
swollen. If anyone became
pregnant we were forced to have abortions. The cost of the abortion was
added to the smuggling debt. I was enslaved for several months; other women
were enslaved for up to a year. Our
enslavement finally ended when law enforcement
raided he brothels and rescued us.”
Girl
testifies she had abortion at 12
Published: Feb. 21, 2013 at 12:20 AM
LONDON, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A witness testified Wednesday at the
London trial of an alleged sex trafficking ring she was recruited at 11 and endured an abortion when she was
12.
'Pattern Emerges' Of Abortionists Covering For Child Sex-Traffickers
3 more Planned Parenthood locations caught aiding 'child
prostitution ring'
Published: 02/04/2011 at 9:55 PM
Three more undercover videos taken at separate Planned
Parenthood clinics have been released by an organization called Live Action,
which claims it’s finding
“alarming patterns” of abortion providers willing to aid and abet underage sex-trafficking.
“Live Action has previously released more than a dozen
hidden camera videos from ten states,” Live Action asserted in a statement.
“This body of visual evidence shows several alarming patterns of illegal
Planned Parenthood activities including cover-up of sexual abuse of minors, the
skirting of parental consent laws, citing unscientific and fabricated medical
information to manipulate women to have abortions, and Planned Parenthood’s
willingness to accept donations earmarked to abort African-American babies.”
As WND reported earlier this week, the Live Action team, posing
as the leaders of an underage prostitution ring in Richmond, Va., discovered a
Planned Parenthood worker assuring them they’d find “no judgment, no sharing of
information, like, uh, nothing here,” at the clinic and explaining how they
could go about getting a “judicial bypass” of abortion laws for girls as young
as 14 or 15.
Modern-day slaves, hostage to abortion
Set aside politics to help Catholic groups that fight human
trafficking
New York Daily News
By Steve Wagner And Kim Daniels
Some contend that Catholics are simply trying to impose their
beliefs regarding abortion and contraception on others. Those who make this
argument particularly ignore the context here: When abortion or contraception is provided to trafficking
victims who remain under the control of those who exploit them, it’s the
trafficker who benefits, continuing to exploit his victim without interruption.
In fact, with its edict, the government is imposing an
ideological position without regard to the welfare of the victim. There is no possibility of a
victim providing informed consent for abortion, sterilization or contraception,
whatever the trafficker considers convenient; this is referred to as
“modern-day slavery” for a reason.
Alveda King speaks on Human Trafficking
And in this sense, human trafficking does not stand alone as a
separate issue. It’s part of a greater
over-arching problem plaguing our world since the beginning of time – our
selfish tendency to dehumanize those whose humanity is in the way of what we want.
Then there’s the case of Karnamaya Mongar. Mrs. Mongar was forced to leave her tiny
Himilayan nation of Bhutan because of internal strife. Discrimination in her country had led to the
loss of livelihood, loss of rights, and even loss of life. Tens of thousands, including Mrs. Mongar and her
family, fled Bhutan and lived in refugee camps in nearby Nepal. Mrs. Mongar had been dehumanized by her
government.
After spending 18 years in a hut in a refugee camp with no real
home and no real hope, Mrs. Mongar was allowed to come to the United States
with her family. It was here, though,
that her lack of hope and trust caused her to seek out an abortionist when she
became pregnant. Mrs. Mongar’s grown
daughter had urged her to keep the child, but Mrs. Mongar didn’t share her
daughter’s optimism.
Her desperation led her to Kermit Gosnell, a human trafficker if
ever there was one.
