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Abolitionism: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen
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==Prostitution== | ==Prostitution== | ||
From 1864 to 1869, the British Parliament passed so-called Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA). Designed to protect the armed forces of contagious diseases by tightening the control over prostitutes in certain ports and army towns, they started out in 1864 allowing police officers to subject women to compulsory checks for veneral disease and to confine infected ones to locked hospitals ("Lock Hospitals") for up to three months, a period gradually extended to one year with the 1869 Act. These measures were justified by medical and military officials as the most effective method to shield men from venereal disease. As military men were discouraged from marriage and homosexual behaviour was criminal, prostitution was considered a necessary evil. However, no provision was made for the examination of prostitutes' clientele. While the original act's limitation to a few selected naval ports and army towns was gradually extended so as to make the CDA operable in eighteen "subjected districts" by 1869, the evident one-sidedness of discriminatory controls that subjugated women, but ignored men, created a widespread uneasiness in the larger public. | From 1864 to 1869, the British Parliament passed so-called Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA). The idea was to control prostitutes in an attempt to combat the high level of venereal disease in the armed forces. One out of three sick cases in the army were caused by venereal disease; admissions into hospitals for gonorrhoea and syphilis reached 290.7 per 1,000 of total troop strength. | ||
Designed to protect the armed forces of contagious diseases by tightening the control over prostitutes in certain ports and army towns, they started out in 1864 allowing police officers to subject women to compulsory checks for veneral disease and to confine infected ones to locked hospitals ("Lock Hospitals") for up to three months, a period gradually extended to one year with the 1869 Act. These measures were justified by medical and military officials as the most effective method to shield men from venereal disease. As military men were discouraged from marriage and homosexual behaviour was criminal, prostitution was considered a necessary evil. However, no provision was made for the examination of prostitutes' clientele. While the original act's limitation to a few selected naval ports and army towns was gradually extended so as to make the CDA operable in eighteen "subjected districts" by 1869, the evident one-sidedness of discriminatory controls that subjugated women, but ignored men, created a widespread uneasiness in the larger public. | |||
In 1869, the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established; initially restricting women from its meetings, causing the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be quickly established by Josephine Butler. Both groups actively campaigned against the acts and between 1870 and 1885, 17,365 petitions against the acts bearing 2,606,429 signatures were presented to the House of Commons, and during the same period, more than 900 meetings were held. The repealists struck a chord with the public consensus on the issues surrounding prostitution and they highlighted the issue of double standards. It was the men and women of the National Association and the Ladies National Association who won the battle over the Contagious Diseases Acts, and, in 1886, the Acts were repealed, and abolitionism had won yet another victory. | In 1869, the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established; initially restricting women from its meetings, causing the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be quickly established by Josephine Butler. Both groups actively campaigned against the acts and between 1870 and 1885, 17,365 petitions against the acts bearing 2,606,429 signatures were presented to the House of Commons, and during the same period, more than 900 meetings were held. The repealists struck a chord with the public consensus on the issues surrounding prostitution and they highlighted the issue of double standards. It was the men and women of the National Association and the Ladies National Association who won the battle over the Contagious Diseases Acts, and, in 1886, the Acts were repealed, and abolitionism had won yet another victory. | ||
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:''It is men, only men, from the first to the last that we have to do with! To please a man I did wrong at first, then I was flung about from man to man. Men police lay hands on us. By men we are examined, handled, doctored. In the hospital it is a man again who makes prayer and reads the Bible for us. We are had up before magistrates who are men, and we never get out of the hands of men till we die! | :''It is men, only men, from the first to the last that we have to do with! To please a man I did wrong at first, then I was flung about from man to man. Men police lay hands on us. By men we are examined, handled, doctored. In the hospital it is a man again who makes prayer and reads the Bible for us. We are had up before magistrates who are men, and we never get out of the hands of men till we die! | ||
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In 1866, the Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established. It argued for the extension into the whole country. In 1869, the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established; initially restricting women from its meetings, causing the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be quickly established by Josephine Butler by December of that same year. . | In 1866, the Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established. It argued for the extension into the whole country. In 1869, the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was established; initially restricting women from its meetings, causing the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts to be quickly established by Josephine Butler by December of that same year. . | ||