This headline should read “Liberals stupidly allow Bush to frame aids education as pro-sex trafficking.
Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog
Over 100 Groups Urge President to Enforce Anti-Prostitution Policy to Aid Sexually Exploited Women and Children: “diet diet
News at eDiets relations
Over 100 Groups Urge President to Enforce Anti-Prostitution Policy to Aid Sexually Exploited Women and Children
WASHINGTON, Aug 8, 2005 (U.S. Newswire via COMTEX) — In a joint letter to President Bush, over 100 women’s, health and policy organizations have urged him to protect victims of human trafficking and ‘stand firm on legislation and policies that require groups receiving certain federal grants to provide written assurance that they oppose prostitution.’
The letter brings into sharp focus a contentious debate over how to best aid prostituted persons and sex trafficking victims. Some governments and groups favor the so-called ‘harm reduction’ approach that emphasizes supplying sexually exploited persons with condoms and trying to teach negotiating skills. The U.S. government instead promotes an abolitionist approach that opposes prostitution as inherently harmful and degrading and actively supports the rescue and restoration of sexually exploited individuals, most of whom are women and children.
The U.S. policy-supporting letter was delivered by the Christian Medical Association ( CMA, http://www.cmda.org ) to President Bush’s domestic policy advisor, Claude Allen. The letter counters the contentions of some activist groups, expressed in a letter sent to Mr. Bush in May, calling for the President not to enforce the anti-prostitution pledge policy, which was passed by Congress (the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003) and signed into law.
Consistent with that law, President Bush issued a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-22) that asserted, ‘Our Policy is based on an abolitionist approach to trafficking in persons… . The United States Government opposes prostitution and any related activities, including pimping, pandering, or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons.'”
Of coarse the harm reduction approach in no way endorses sex trafficking, but by focusing on legalization, rather than the fact that Bush isn’t allowing them to give information about safe sex, the people who oppose Bush on this make it look that way.