As the world celebrates Human Rights Day, the CSE Institute recalls the words of the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Women, in her 2006 report, “Integration of the Human Rights of Women and a Gender Perspective”:
“At the outset, the Special Rapporteur wishes to dispel a common misconception regarding the nature of a human rights approach to trafficking. It has been wrongly assumed in some quarters that a human rights approach to trafficking is somehow inconsistent with the use of the criminal law to punish prostitute-users. This conclusion can only be based upon the assumed premise that men have a human right to engage in the use of prostituted persons. This premise should be rejected. Men do not have a human right to engage in the use of prostituted persons. In some domestic legal systems, men have been granted a legal right to engage in the use of prostituted persons, but… this right may be in direct conflict with the human rights of persons in prostitution, the vast majority of whom…are victims of trafficking. Where the human rights of trafficking victims conflict with the legal rights granted to prostitute-users, the human rights of trafficking victims must prevail. That is what counts as a human rights approach to sex trafficking.”