Abolizionismo 1.4

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Prostituzione

The abolition of slavery was still a topic of the day, when Josephine Butler (1828-1906) helped create the very same moral outrage and collective action to abolish a different kind of legal oppression. As an upper-class progressive Christian feminist she was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes, leading a long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts from 1869 to 1886.

These acts had been introduced (1864, 1866, 1869) to control the spread of venereal diseases among the military personnel, giving magistrates the power to order genital examinations of prostitutes for symptoms of VD, and to detain infected women in a closed institution (lock hospital) for up to three months; to refuse the examination meant imprisonment. Police had the power over women: it was sufficient for a police officer to accuse a woman of prostitution to make magistrates order an examination. An accusation was enough to make women lose their livelihoods.

Escalation: In 1869, the "Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts" was formed to campaign to extend their operation beyond specified ports and garrison towns, leading to vehement opposition from Christians, feminists and supporters of civil liberty and to the setting up of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Later, male supporters were also allowed, and despite vilification and occasional physical assaults on Mrs. Butler, and the Acts were repealed in 1886.

What is the real abolition: that of repressive laws against prostitutes or that of prostitution as such?

Those who advocate the abolition of prostitution speak of “white slavery”. They find it misguided to speak of abolitionism and to attack laws regulating prostitution. Rather, they want to reserve the term to efforts against prostitution proper.

Protagonisti

Josephine Butler

Leitete von 1869-86 die erfolgreiche Kampagne der Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Gründete 1875 die International Abolitionist Federation (I.A.F.).

Anna Pappritz

Anna Pappritz (* 9. Mai 1861 in Radach, Brandenburg; † 8. Juli 1939 in Berlin) war eine deutsche Schriftstellerin, Frauenrechtlerin und Abolitionistin. 1895 erfuhr sie in England nicht nur von der Existenz der Prostitution und ihrer staatlichen Reglementierung, sondern auch von der Frauenbewegung. Nach ihrer Rückkehr ging sie zum Verein Frauenwohl und abonnierte die von Minna Cauer herausgegebene Zeitschrift Die Frauenbewegung. Als sie von einem Kongress der „Internationalen Abolitionistischen Föderation“ (IAF) in London und von Josephine Butler las, lernte sie ein Jahr später Butler auf dem Internationalen Frauenkongress in London kennen und begeisterte sich für die Sache. Sie gründete im April 1899 einen Zweigverein der IAF in Berlin.

So wurde der „Kampf um eine Höherentwicklung der sexuellen Moral, um die Befreiung [ihres] Geschlechtes aus der schrecklichen, sexuellen Hörigkeit“ zu ihrer Lebensaufgabe.

Durch Schriften und Vortragsreisen wurde sie zu einer der bekanntesten Expertinnen in Sittlichkeits- und Jugendschutzfragen und arbeitete in zahlreichen Kommissionen und Vereinen mit.

Zum Beispiel war sie neben ihrer Aktivität als Abolitionistin von 1902 bis 1914 Schriftführerin des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine und als einzige Frau im Vorstand der 1902 gegründeten Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten (DGBG) vertreten.

Sie leitete mit Katharina Scheven den 1904 gegründeten deutschen Zweig der IAF. Zuerst Scheven, dann Pappritz gaben das Organ des deutschen Zweiges der IAF, den „Abolitionist“ heraus. In Fragen der Sexualethik war sie Gegnerin von Helene Stöcker.

Als 1927 das Gesetz zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten verabschiedet wurde, das die Reglementierung formal-rechtlich abschaffte, schien das Ziel der abolitionistischen Bestrebungen in Deutschland erreicht.

Es stellte sich jedoch schnell heraus, dass die Rechtsnorm in der praktischen Durchführung nicht so leicht durchzusetzen war, da weder eine einheitliche Handhabung noch ein wirksames Strafmaß bestand.

Schließlich musste Anna Pappritz miterleben, wie die Nationalsozialisten Stück für Stück ihr Lebenswerk demontierten und die Frauenbewegung zerschlugen.

Schon 1933 konstatierte Pappritz, dass es wieder Bestrebungen gab, „Bordelle polizeilich zu genehmigen“. Die Nationalsozialisten führten neue, verschärfte Strafbestimmungen gegen Prostituierte ein, wodurch das Gesetz von 1927 teilweise rückgängig gemacht wurde. Pappritz zog sich aus der öffentlichen Arbeit zurück und legte Anfang 1934 aus nicht näher benannten Gründen den Vorsitz ihres Vereins nieder. Die Wiedereinführung des Bordellwesens am 9. September 1939 erlebte Pappritz nicht mehr.

Eine Verbesserung der Stellung der Frau in der Gesellschaft sollte vor allem durch die Durchsetzung gleicher moralischer Grundsätze für beide Geschlechter erfolgen. Dies spiegelt sich auch im Wahlspruch der Abolitionisten: „Es gibt nur eine Moral, sie ist die gleiche für beide Geschlechter“.

Die 1898 gegründete deutsche Sektion der I.A.F. artikulierte sich ab 1902 in den Abolitionistischen Flugschriften sowie in der Zeitschrift Der Abolitionist.

Während die sonstige I.A.F. sich auf das rein negative Ziel einer Befreiung der Prostituierten von Schikanierung und Kriminalisierung beschränkte, wollte die deutsche I.A.F. unter Anna Pappritz weniger die Repression als die Prostitution selbst bekämpfen und nur die brutalen Mittel des damaligen Rechts durch weichere und effektivere ersetzen.

Grundsätzlich wurde die Prostitution mit dem Geschlechtskrankheitengesetz vom 17.02.1927 dann auch straflos gestellt, obwohl das Gesetz der Polizei noch eine ganze Reihe von Möglichkeiten zur Kriminalisierung beließ.

The New Abolitionists

Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), Stop the Demand, Baptist World Alliance, World Hope International and others.

Dibattiti

  • Sex-Work: Autonomy or Victimization?
  • White Slavery
  • Respect or Rescue?
  • Stop Prostitution? - And: stop the demand or the supply? And: is there a function for the criminal law?
  • "Only rights can stop the wrongs" vs. "The new Abolitionism"
  • Ethical questions concerning the very nature of sex work itself
  • Miriam (2005) argues against the regulationist (pro-sex work) position “that the pro-sex-work approach depends on a contractual, liberal model of agency that both conceals and presupposes the demand side of the institution of prostitution”. In other words, the problem with sex work isn’t necessarily that women provide it, but rather that men demand it.
  • The regulationist claim against abolitionists is that they do not recognize or legitimize women’s agency in sex work. Miriam believes that this is a misconception, since what radical feminist abolitionists are really trying to do is “theorize power and agency outside of the liberal framework”.

The pro-sex work argument, on the other hand, wishes to legitimize sex work to maintain some sense of dignity for the women who have no other economically promising options. Through regulation, sex workers may be less vulnerable to violent assaults, rape, and STI transmission.

  • The pro-sex work Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) insists on a distinction between coerced and free prostitution so that migrant sex workers will have better access to financial resources and social services, instead of being mistaken for sex trafficking victims.
  • To focus on force alone plays into the hands of both traffickers and exploiters who will escape sanction except in the most extreme cases.

Melissa Ditmore:

  • "Anti-trafficking efforts such as increased border security and brothel raids are not only harmful to sex workers; these measures also sabotage the contribution that sex workers can make to combating trafficking. Sex workers and clients may be in the best position to assist those trafficked into the sex industry to escape. Sex worker-led grassroots responses to trafficking are among the most effective anti-trafficking projects known.
One such, the anti-trafficking effort of Kolkata’s Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee – better known as the Sonagachi Project – has assisted many women and girls held in the sex industry against their will. The project was started when one member, Mala Singh, helped a young girl to leave the red-light area and return to her family. Now, newcomers to the red-light areas are interviewed to find out how they arrived there, what they believed they would be doing, and whether they have been coerced.
This sex worker-led anti-trafficking initiative is not unique. Juhu Thukral, director of the Urban Justice Center Sex Workers Project in New York City comments: ‘In many of our cases where women and girls were forced to work in brothels, they were able to escape because the other sex workers, or even men who do other work in those brothels, recognized that our clients were in coercive situations and helped them to leave. Empowering more sex workers to identify and assist people who have been coerced is the most effective way to combat trafficking into sex work.
Treating all sex workers as either victims or criminals makes such efforts impossible. All sex workers are harmed by trafficking, in one way or another. It is therefore in the interests of all to raise awareness and work against it. But it is difficult for sex workers to do so in an environment where they are being demonized or accused of not taking the issue seriously enough. It’s essential to include sex workers in decisions about how to address trafficking because sex workers are invariably affected by responses to trafficking.
Too often anti-trafficking has become anti-sex work. Abuses committed under the rubric of anti-trafficking make sex workers wary even of the term ‘trafficking’. I believe that, for the long term, the most effective measure for improving conditions for sex workers, including workplace abuses, is to shift the debate away from looking at trafficking as a criminal issue and toward using a human-rights framework to promote workers’ rights for people of all genders who exchange sex for goods or money.
Sex workers use the slogan: ‘Only rights can stop the wrongs’ to highlight that a rights-based approach to sex work is the only way to prevent and stop abuses in the sex industry.

Proponents of legalizing prostitution believe it would

  • reduce crime
  • improve public health
  • increase tax revenue
  • help people out of poverty
  • get prostitutes off the streets
  • allow consenting adults to make their own choices.
  • They contend that prostitution is a victimless crime, especially in the 11 Nevada counties where it remains legal.

Opponents believe that legalizing prostitution would

  • increase sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS
  • increase global human trafficking
  • violent crime including rape and homicide.
  • They contend that prostitution is inherently immoral, commercially exploitative, empowers the criminal underworld, and promotes the repression of women by men.
  • Prostituzione e dignità
  • Prostituzione forzata: sempre?
  • Olanda vs. Scandinavia

Weblinks and Literature