Denver has joined a growing number of major cities throughout the United States, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, and Seattle, to address commercial sexual exploitation by shifting how they police prostitution. Instead of continuing the failed approach of arresting people who are selling sex, Denver Police have shifted their focus to arresting the buyers.
This shift comes in response to the recognition that sellers are often victims of commercial sexual exploitation – and that buyers drive the market demand for the commercial sex industry in which these victims suffer harm. As the former UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking observed in 2006:
For the most part, prostitution as actually practised in the world usually does satisfy the elements of trafficking. It is rare that one finds a case in which the path to prostitution and/or a person’s experiences within prostitution do not involve, at the very least, an abuse of power and/or an abuse of vulnerability. Power and vulnerability in this context must be understood to include power disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity and poverty. Put simply, the road to prostitution and life within “the life” is rarely one marked by empowerment or adequate options.
These words are echoed by Becky Bullard, project director for the Denver Anti-Trafficking Alliance in the city’s district attorney’s office, who observed, “People call prostitution the oldest profession, and really it’s the oldest exploitation.”
The CSE Institute applauds Denver and the other Demand Abolition Network cities for rethinking how they address commercial sexual exploitation.