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When the CEDAW Committee examined the Netherlands this year for its seventh periodic review, many of us hoped its findings would finally confront the reality that so‑called ‘regulated prostitution’ has not delivered safety or equality for women and girls. And the advance unedited concluding observations from the report do recognise serious harms in the Dutch prostitution model. Yet when it comes to what should be done, the Committee pivots to recommendations that normalise and expand the very system of exploitation it has just described.
The intent to reduce harm is clear. But the effect is to affirm the sex trade as a legitimate labour market that needs better zoning and more “safe and legal workplaces”, including in private homes, rather than as a system of sexual exploitation and discrimination that States must prevent and reduce. In practice, this framing pressures the Netherlands to liberalise its prostitution regime further, to reopen and expand legal venues, and to step back from any measures that would reduce the visible footprint of the sex trade.
The language used around children — girls — is just as troubling. UN communications on the review have referred to “minor sex workers”, terminology that has rightly alarmed survivor‑led groups and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. Under international standards, there is no such thing as a “minor sex worker”.
[N]o human rights body can fulfil its mandate to protect women and girls while promoting the normalisation and expansion of prostitution. CEDAW was not created to make the sex trade safer for buyers and profiteers. It was created to help secure the conditions in which our sex‑based protections and rights are realised, including the right not to be bought.
Source: Two steps forward, three steps back: CEDAW, the Netherlands, and the politics of ‘sex work’ – AAWAA
Exactly. The ‘minor sex workers’ appellation is precisely that in relation to which Epstein is being called out! In his original prosecution in Florida (circa 2008), the crime of trafficking and exploitation of children was watered down through plea bargaining to one or two charges of prostituting minors – of course it really was, at minimum, statutory rape in light of the children’s ages – 15 and below, so many of them. So now we have the CEDAW Cttee effectively endorsing the watering down of the Epstein charges and ignoring entirely the outrage and uproar (real or histrionic or feigned) about Epstein and his cronies!