Abolizionismo 1.4

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 Butler, and the Acts were repealed in 1886.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.

prostituzione josephine butler anna von pappritz

ambivalenz bis heute

Als die Engländerin Josephine Butler (1828-1906) im Jahre 1875 die International Abolitionist Federation (I.A.F.) gründete, um die rechtliche Diskriminierung und Kriminalisierung der Prostituierten, wie sie nicht zuletzt in den berüchtigten Contagious Diseases Acts (1869 ff.) Ausdruck gefunden hatten, zu beenden, war der Anklang an den Kampf gegen die Sklaverei durchaus gewollt, sah man doch im Schicksal der Prostituierten so etwas wie eine "white slavery". Die deutsche Sektion der I.A.F. wurde 1898 gegründet und 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.

proibizione alc women agrarian wasp lit

nzz Miriam, Kathy (2005) Stopping the Traffic in Women: Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking. Journal of Social Philosophy. Volume 36, 1, 1–17

Moore, Roderick (1993) Josephine Butler (1828-1906). Feminist, Christian, and Libertarian. London: Libertarian Alliance