Last week the co-hosts of the ABC show “The View,” discussed San Francisco’s Proposition K which would decriminalize prostitution.
Their discussion seemed to be based on a couple of inaccurate assumptions; that prostitution is a free choice for those who engage in it, and that decriminalization/legalization will make regulation of prostitution and testing for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD) easier.
Co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck stated that with decriminalization the city would not “waste time spending money, criminalizing and putting cuffs on the prostitutes. They’re going to put it somewhere else. It’s all about allocation of funds.”
I would like to know where they are going to put that money. Is San Francisco just going to ignore prostitution or will the city try to regulate it in some way?
Just decriminalizing prostitution alone is a bad idea. If the buying and the selling of sex acts is decriminalized, then the police will no grounds to investigate this activity. This means that it will be next to impossible to locate and assist women and girls who have been trafficked into the trade.
The San Francisco Chronicle, editorializing against Prop. K said it might make the city a magnet for prostitution. This has certainly been the experience in the Netherlands where, since legalization, the sex industry has expanded and the buying and selling of sex acts is becoming so socially and morally acceptable that sports clubs will now routinely celebrate a victory at a spa/brothel the way they used to in a restaurant or pub.
Many people assume that with decriminalization and/or legalization of prostitution comes better regulation of the sex industry. Regulatory programs for prostitutes depend on registering the prostitutes. The problem is that most prostitutes don’t register, but continue to operate in the shadows. This is because, contrary to popular wisdom, very few women in prostitution freely choose it, most see it as the only viable solution for survival among very limited options. So they don’t register for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, stigma, they see prostitution as something they are doing temporarily, they are under age, or they are already HIV positive. Prostitutes who are registered, are tested regularly for STD. Their customers are not. This is a problem if one of the objectives of decriminalization is to reduce transmission of these diseases.
Sweden has tried a different approach. It has criminalized the purchase of sexual services. Because it has become more dangerous and less profitable, prostitution and trafficking of women and children for sex is on the decline there. Pimps and traffickers, the ones who really make money in the sex industry, are getting out. Maybe they’ll move to San Francisco.
According to estimates from the UNAIDS 2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic, around 30.8 million adults and 2 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2007. The overwhelming majority of these people, 95% of the global total, live in the developing world. The proportion is set to grow even further as infection rates continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor health care systems and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the virus.
Women and girls already provide 90% of the care need generated by HIV/AIDS. Care giving diverts women from other productive tasks. One such task is food production. This is particularly devastating in developing countries where women produce between 60% and 80% of the food.
HIV is the fastest way for a family to move from relative wealth to poverty. Care giving usually makes it impossible for a women to hold a paying job outside the home, to access educational activities available in the community, healthcare for herself, or to participate in community decision making. Families often take on extra work, sell assets, borrow money and take children, usually girls, out of school and use the school fees to pay for medical interventions and the girls for care giving and other household tasks. Each of these strategies provides a short-term solution but makes the family worse off in the long term.
As the global recession deepens hard decisions will have to be made regarding how to best utilize limited resources. In this context it is important to note that research has shown that when public health services are downsized because of economic reasons, women’s traditional roles as housekeepers, nurturers and caregivers are reinforced. This means that more women and girls will have to take on the burden of care giving. In the developing world this will mean more hunger and more poverty. In the long term, as a result of girls being taken out of school, economic productivity will continue to decrease, infant and maternal mortality will increase, families will be less healthy and the next generation of girls less likely to go to school. It is a vicious cycle.
How can Passionists advocate for funding for public health programs and social protection for persons and families living with HIV/AIDS?
This is a fascinating article about the continuing impact of Michael Ham, a girls’ school founded by the Passionist Sisters in Argentina in the 1920’s.
It is a perfect example of the good things that happen when girls are given an education. Most Passionists in the United States don’t know anything about this.
Here’s the website of the Passionist Sisters in Argentina.
This summer at our Congregational Assembly, the Passionist Sisters declared that justice, peace and the integrity of creation are central to our charism and our way of life. We challenged ourselves to respond with urgency to the destruction of our planet. We committed ourselves to reducing our carbon footprint and to seeking simpler ways of living.
One of the most effective ways we could fight global warming is to reduce our consumption of meat.
A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Greenhouse gases cause global warming.
Raising animals for meat, eggs, and dairy not only produces carbon dioxide, it is the leading source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Methane, which farmed animals produce during digestion and through excretion of feces is more than 20 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere. Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency show that animal agriculture is the number one source of methane emissions in the U.S. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.
The world’s leading authority on global warming, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, recommends that people should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change and should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.
The action called for by Dr. Pachauri is simple and consistent with the sort of asceticism our Passionist vocation demands.
I applaud the clear thinking and courage of Father Ray Schroth.
There is no way I can separate my political, literary, or social judgments from my priesthood. The values that made me become a priest permeate everything I do. Those principles are that our love for one another must reach beyond the boundaries of family, nation, or creed and that national policy should above all protect the weak. For me this includes laws that would lessen the number of abortions, mostly through social and economic reform rather than by sending women who have aborted to jail.
Therefore I will vote for Barack Obama for president and encourage anyone who reads this to do the same and to pass the word.
I’m a Catholic sister and I’m voting for Obama too, and for the same reasons.
Question: Name a program that educates poor women and girls, reduces poverty, and promotes the use of sustainable, environmentally friendly solar energy.
The answer as you have probably guessed from the title is Barefoot College in India. Founded in 1972 by Bunker Roy, Barefoot College draws students, mostly illiterate women from developing countries and in as little as six months turns then into engineers capable of solar electrifying a village.
Barefoot College places a priority on training rural women. Mr. Roy says, “We’ve come to the sad conclusion men are untrainable. They expect too much. They are restless. If they’re young, they’re impatient. The first thing they ask even before the training starts is, do I get a certificate? They will use that certificate to get the worst job possible in a city, whereas if we take middle-aged grandmothers to be trained I don’t have that problem of migration.”
Graduates of Barefoot College are able to earn extra income for their families, have improved status in their homes and communities, provide a clean, sustainable energy source for their communities and are more likely to insist on education for their daughters.
Solar has opened new opportunities for work and study especially for girls. Girls are often kept out of school to perform household chores. Solar energy has made night schools for girls possible.
Funded by the UN and private foundations Barefoot College has solar electrified some 350 villages across India and dozens more in sub-Saharan Africa and even war-torn Afghanistan.
At the end of October, the United Nations will host a one-day consultation on Building Consensus on Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disarmament. Both Canada and the United States have been negotiating with India to allow trading nuclear reactors, materials and fuel with the U.S. and Canada to India. This will be the first time in thirty years that this nuclear trading will resume.
India was one of only three countries never to sign the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which led to a dangerous regional nuclear arms race with Pakistan. India has also refused to join other nations in signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which would ban all nuclear test explosions.
Send Postcard to:
President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Fax: 202-456-2461
Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington St.
Ottawa KIA 0A2
FAX: 613-941-6900
Dear______
I care about the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation. I oppose any support given to India that would allow the trading of nuclear technology and materials to India. I oppose any deal with India allowing them to resume nuclear testing.
Sincerely,
Background Information:
India should be urged to stop the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the fissile materials used in the production of nuclear weapons.
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have halted production of fissile materials.
India should be urged to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits all nuclear test explosions.
The U.S. Congress is being urged to rush through a nuclear cooperation agreement with India allowing them to resume nuclear testing without facing international sanctions.
Canada has changed it policy on nuclear non-proliferation to accommodate India’s entry into the club of countries that can trade openly in nuclear fuel and technology, despite its nuclear weapons programs.
