Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Abolishing Slavery and its Contemporary Forms

Forms of Slavery
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of prostitution itself committed by adults over 18 is not explicitly prohibited by international stan-
dards but the Suppression of Traffic Convention strongly discourages it.
174
95. Some international instruments clearly consider the exploitation of prostitution – when
money made through prostitution is passed on a systematic basis to anyone other than the prosti-
tute herself – as inherently abusive and analogous to slavery.
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“Exploitation of prostitution,”
includes maintaining or knowingly financing a brothel,
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that is to say a place in which one or
more people are practising as prostitutes, or knowingly letting or renting “a building or other place
. . . for the purpose of the prostitution of others.”
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1. Forced prostitution
96. The three international instruments concerning the traffic of women for prostitution adopted
before 1933
178
address the various forms of coercion, threats and fraud that are used to force
women or men into prostitution or to continue practising as prostitutes. For example, the Interna-
tional Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic 1910 requires the punishment of
“any person who, to gratify the passions of others, has by fraud or by the use of violence, threats,
abuse of authority, or any other means of constraint, hired, abducted or enticed a woman or a girl
of full age for immoral purposes, even when the various acts which together constitute the offence
were committed in different countries” (emphasis added).
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97. Forced prostitution occurs when a person is prostituted against his/her will, that is to say is
compelled under duress or intimidation to engage in sexual acts in return for money or payment
in kind, whether such payment is passed to others or received by the victim of forced prostitution
him or herself.
180
Some commentators suggest that entering prostitution to earn money because
of acute financial need should also be interpreted as “forced” prostitution.
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98. Forms of control over prostitutes include “(1) physical abuse; (2) physical control of prosti-
tutes’ children, with threats to keep the children as hostages if prostitutes leave; (3) serious threats
of physical harm, including murder; (4) keeping prostitutes in a continuous state of poverty and
174
Ibid., preamble (stating that “prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose
of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the indi-
vidual, the family and the community . . . ”).
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See, for example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, supra
note 144, art. 6 (requiring States parties to suppress the “exploitation of prostitution of women”).
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Suppression of Traffic Convention, supra note 83, art. 2(1).
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Ibid., art. 2(2). Note that article 6 of the Convention requires States parties to put an end to licensing or “special
registration” of prostitutes.
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International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic of 1904; International Convention for
the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic of 4 May 1910; and International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic
in Women and Children of 30 September 1921, supra note 40 (for all three conventions).
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Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic of 4 May 1910, supra note 90, art. 2.
180
Michèle Hirsch, Plan of Action against Traffic in Women and Forced Prostitution, Council of Europe EG(96) 2
(1996) (proposing, as a definition of “forced prostitution”, the “act, for financial gain, of inducing a person by any form
of constraint to supply sexual services to another person”); see also International Labour Organization, The Sex Sector:
The Economic and Social Basis of Prostitution in South East Asia, Lin Lean Lim (ed.), 1998 (describing forced prostitution
as “the ownership of women and children by pimps, brothel owners, and sometimes even customers for the purpose of
financial gain, sexual gratification, and/or power and domination”).
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See, for example, report of the Special Rapporteur on the suppression of the traffic in persons and the exploi-
tation of the prostitution of others, United Nations document E/1983/7, para. 23 (asserting that “even when prostitution
seems to have been chosen freely, it is actually the result of coercion”, and quoting from the testimony given to the Con-
gress of Nice on 8 September 1981 by three “collectives of women prostitutes”: “As prostitutes, we are all aware that
all prostitution is forced prostitution. Whether we are forced to become prostitutes by lack of money or by housing or
unemployment problems, or to escape from a family situation of rape or violence (which is often the case with very
young prostitutes), or by a procurer, we would not lead the ‘life’ if we were in a position to leave it”); Kathleen Barry,
The Prostitution of Sexuality, 1995 (arguing that there is no such thing as consensual prostitution and calling for the elim-
ination of prostitution in all its forms); Centre on Speech, Equality and Harm, Creating an International Framework for
Legislation to Protect Women and Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation, University of Minnesota Law School
Preliminary Report (1998) (arguing that only coerced prostitution should be controlled and prevented).

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