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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	912
Proposal	2018 Platform Amendment Proposal - De-Criminalization of Sex Work
Presenter	Platform Committee Sponsored by Illinois Green Party
Floor Manager	Chris Blankenhorn
Phase	Closed
Discussion	05/28/2018 - 06/24/2018
Voting	06/25/2018 - 07/01/2018
Result	Failed
Presens Quorum	33 0.6666
Consens Quorum	93 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

Co-sponsored by the Green Parties of Alabama, Colorado, North Carolina and Utah and the Lavender Greens and Youth Greens

In its current form, the majority of the platform text contained under the "Violence and Oppression" section of the "Women's Rights" topic focuses on the party's support for the criminalization of sex work. Other forms of violence or oppression are mentioned in much less detail. Despite its header, the section is largely an anti-sex work section, with a few sentences of broader anti-trafficking language in one of the paragraphs.

It is the opinion of the authors of this document that the party's current stance on sex work as presented in II.A.1.n-s is morally indefensible, ideologically incoherent, and politically damaging. The submitted revisions represent an effort to eliminate derogatory language, move the Green Party's stated policy prescriptions away from carceral state solutions and more in line with the current thought of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, and ensure that Subsection II.A.1 of the party platform condemns violence against women without condemning or negating the existence of individual sex workers, voluntary or otherwise.

Discussion of sex work in the GPUS platform under these revisions would be removed from the Women's Rights subsection, and moved instead to Subsection II-3-H, the "Criminal Justice Reform" section of our platform.

Broadly speaking, the revisions seek to address three issues:

A. The Green Party's Obligation to Human Rights

Sex workers exist. They are human beings who live in our society. Their rights to health, safety, self-determination, and bodily autonomy should not be subject to debate or sacrifice to abstract principles. That is the fundamental principle underlying the revisions in this document.

Criminalization of sex work—the policy explicitly espoused by the GPUS Platform in its current form—empowers the state, in the name of sexual morality, to destroy livelihoods, incarcerate individuals, deport non-citizens, and force sex workers into an underground economy where they are more vulnerable to both state and non-state violence, resulting in harms ranging from poverty and unreliable income to physical abuse, rape, and death.

Even if we were to accept the eradication of sex work as a social goal worth endorsing (a controversial proposition in its own right), the acceptance of sex workers' incarceration, suffering, and death as a necessary cost of that goal is repugnant.

Nor is there any evidence to suggest that existing or harsher policies of criminalization would have the effect of eradicating sex work—sex work, both voluntary and involuntary, continues to exist in all countries where it is criminalized, including the United States, and there is no evidence to suggest that a policy of criminalization has ever successfully eradicated sex work in any society in human history.

As a policy in the contemporary United States, the criminalization of sex work actively harms human beings for no demonstrable gain beyond the moral satisfaction of people who do not have to suffer those harms. By supporting it, the Green Party is stating in no uncertain terms that it values the moral purity of opposing sexual labor more than the health, livelihoods, and actual lives of sex workers.

B. The Green Party's Position on Labor

If the Green Party purports to stand in solidarity with all workers who exchange their time, labor, and skills for income, then the Green Party cannot exclude workers from that solidarity on the basis of their particular form of labor.

In a capitalist economy, and particularly in a country with scant social services, most citizens must exchange labor for capital as a matter of survival. Sexual labor is one of many possible forms of that exchange, and should be treated in solidarity with the rest.

The notion that a sex worker is inherently degraded by performing labor which they may or may not enjoy, but a worker in a call center or a coal mine or an accounts office is not, derives from patriarchal notions of purity and sexual immorality, not from any labor-centered principles. Standing in solidarity with sex workers is an issue of necessary moral consistency for any party that claims to represent the working class.

The Green Party platform calls for or indirectly supports the elimination of any number of industries (fossil fuels, military, etc.), but it does not call for the criminalization and punishment of individual workers in those industries—except, currently, sex workers. The inconsistency is glaring and damaging.

C. The Political Cost of Anti-Sex Work Language

The Green Party platform's aggressive opposition to sex work and use of derogatory language towards sex workers has not gone unnoticed within feminist and activist communities.

A casual Google search for "Green Party sex work" will find a long list of articles castigating the party for its outdated, offensive, and exclusionary language. Many members of the Illinois Green Party have encountered criticism of the language in II.A.1 in their personal conversations within progressive, politically active communities as well. Voters who feel ostracized from both mainstream parties and who might otherwise find a home in the Green Party are being turned away by the extremity of our stated position on sex work.

The framing of sex work and human trafficking as violence against women further harms the party by negating the lived experience of non-binary, LGBTQ, and male sex workers and trafficking victims, who currently do not merit even the acknowledgement that condemnation would require. Even if the party were to stand by its radically anti-sex work position, it would still face the political costs of rejecting the intersectionality of the issue.

Bluntly, the Green Party of the United States cannot afford to exclude sex workers and all their allies if it wishes to succeed as a party that speaks for oppressed people and communities. By deliberately and explicitly denying the humanity of a group that is not only oppressed by its current criminalization, but also disproportionately made up of LGBTQ and minority individuals, the party is undermining its claim to be a platform and a voice for those that need one most.

The revisions in this amendment are designed to eliminate the GPUS Platform's current inconsistencies on sex work as a moral, labor, and political issue. It is imperative that we vote to approve the amendment.

Proposal

To amend GPUS Platform Chapter II, Section A, Subsection 1, paragraphs n-s (subheader "Violence & Oppression" under the "Women's Rights" header) and insert a new paragraph j to Chapter II, Section H, Subsection 3 ("Criminal Justice Reform") as follows:

n. Violence against women is increasing nationwide. We must address the root cause of all violence even as we specifically address violence to women. We support stronger legislation, programs and enforcement. We also call for new dialog and re-thinking that can lead to better language, ideas and solutions. We urge that the term "domestic violence" be replaced by the term "violence," because "domestic violence" is not perceived as real violence, which leads to it not being treated legally and practically for the violence that it is.

o. The Green Party has zero tolerance for the illegal international trafficking in humans. Of the millions of humans trafficked worldwide, the large majority are women and children who are bought and sold as slaves. They are kept captive and in debt-bondage that can never be paid off. Trafficked slaves are forced to labor in agriculture, sweat shops, hotels, restaurants, domestic service, sexual service, and other forms of servitude.

p. The Green Party urges a more thorough dialog and understanding of violence against women and girls, including from violence currently characterized as "domestic" and from trafficking. We recognize and oppose the patriarchal structures of oppression that inflict economic hardship, injury and other health issues, and even death upon women worldwide and in the United States, and we call for legislative action in the states and at the federal level to combat violence against women.

Platform Subsection II-H-3, Paragraph J (all new language)

j. The Green Party calls for the decriminalization of voluntary sex work under improved state and federal laws in the United States. We recognize that many sex workers are pressured into sex work by a patriarchal, exploitative capitalist society and would not choose the work if they had other options. We recognize that women have predominantly been targeted for this exploitation. However, criminalization, including “Nordic model” laws that penalize purchasers rather than purveyors, forces the sex industry underground, enabling the exploitation of sex workers by clients, traffickers, and law enforcement alike and increasing the dangers associated with the work. Decriminalization provides protections to all sex workers, both those who would choose to do the work and to those who would choose not to when given other options. Decriminalization is the model recommended by Amnesty International and a wide range of sex worker advocacy groups, and in New Zealand (where decriminalization was enacted in 2003), decriminalization has led to increased health and safety among sex workers and their clients. It is the position of the Green Party that sex work should be treated under improved labor laws, including the right of sex workers to unionize and to organize against exploitation for profit and against systemic violence. We uphold the Green Party’s commitment to workplace democracy and freedom from exploitation for sex workers as for all other workers.

Current Platform Language:
Platform Subsection II-A-1, Paragraphs n-s

n. Violence against women is increasing nationwide. We must address the root cause of all violence even as we specifically address violence to women. We support stronger legislation, programs and enforcement. We also call for new dialog and re-thinking that can lead to better language, ideas and solutions. We urge that the term "domestic violence" be replaced by the term "violence," because "domestic violence" is not perceived as real violence, which leads to it not being treated legally and practically for the violence that it is. We urge that the term "sex work" not be used in relation to prostitution. With the increasing conflation of trafficking (the violent and illegal trafficking in women and girls for forced sex) with prostitution, it is impossible to know which is which, and what violence the term "sex work" is masking. No source in existence knows which forms of prostitution comprise forced sex and which comprise free will or choice prostitution. Forced sex is rape, and it is a crime. An increasing number of experts think the percentage of choice prostitution is very small, leaving the larger number of women exposed to serious and often fatal violence. Much of what is commonly called prostitution is actually sex trafficking by definition. The Green Party calls for a safer world for women and girls.

o. The Green Party has zero tolerance for the illegal international trafficking in humans. Of the millions of humans trafficked worldwide, the large majority are women and children who are bought and sold as slaves. They are kept captive and in debt-bondage that can never be paid off. Most are sold over and over again for forced sex prostitution. Forced sex is rape and a serious crime. Some are forced to labor in agriculture, sweat shops, hotels, restaurants, domestic service and other forms of servitude. According to Human Rights Watch, in all cases coercive tactics — including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, or debt bondage — are used to control women. Estimates of human trafficking in the U.S. vary greatly from 18,000 to 50,000 to over 100,000 with a worldwide estimate of 12.5 million, mostly women and children.

p. The Green Party calls for new U.S. legislation relating to prostitution modeled on the Swedish law passed in 1999, now adopted by other countries and being considered by more, that has drastically reduced human trafficking and prostitution in Sweden. That law criminalizes the purchase of services from prostitutes, pimps and brothel keepers instead of criminalizing the prostitutes. The Green Party urges the U.S. to open dialogs and visit with Sweden as a step toward introducing legislation in the U.S. Congress to address the exploitation, violence and harm to women through prostitution.

q. The Green Party supports all efforts to eradicate this extreme abuse of human rights, including but not limited to enforcement of existing laws and passage of tough new ones, punishing traffickers, aiding victims, increasing public awareness, reforming immigration laws, supporting existing programs and creating new ones.

r. We support the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report as an important document to begin to combat this abuse. We support and urge enforcement of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (HR 3244) signed into law on October 28, 2000. This Act authorizes funding for the prevention of trade in human beings and for protecting victims. It gives the State Department a historic opportunity to create an office with the exclusive responsibility of ending traffic in humans and protecting the victims of this worldwide trade. We urge committed political support to achieve the cooperation of all different levels of government.

s. The Green Party urges a more thorough dialog and understanding of violence against women and girls, including from prostitution and trafficking, that causes health and injury damage that seriously degrades their lives, even to death or premature death including from HIV, syphilis and many other diseases, as well as causing severe economic hardships. We call for solutions to this enormous problem that can result in awareness and the introduction of legislation in the U.S. Congress to address it.

Resources

Approval of this proposal will amend the 2018 GPUS Platform

CONTACTS:
Platform Committee - Bruce Hinkforth, co-chair, bhinkforth@milwpc.com, 262-569-1370; Linda Cree, co-chair, creelinda@hotmail.com, 906-942-7076
Illinois Green Party contact: Geoffrey Cubbage secretary@ilgp.org.

References

Additional commentary and explanation may be found at:
http://gpus.org/other/platform-2017/criminalization-of-sex-work/

For further reading, see - Long Form Decriminalization Papers: Amnesty International Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers; Sex Work and the Law: The Case for Decriminalization (World AIDS Campaign); Criticism of the Green Party's Anti-Sex Work Stance: The Green Party's Troubling Stance on Sex Work; The Green Party's Problem with Sex Workers, and Why It Needs to Matter; Why Sex Workers Shouldn't Vote Green; The Green Party Is Failing Sex Workers; Criticisms of the "Nordic Model" of Criminalization: Myths, Truths & Why We Oppose the Nordic Model (Sex Workers Outreach Project); What the Swedish Model Gets Wrong About Prostitution; The Paternalistic Fallacy of the "Nordic Model" of Prostitution

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