A/HRC/56/48
(g)
Mandate by law the provision of comprehensive tailored services to
victims of prostitution; increase such services, including single-sex spaces to prostituted
women and girls, irrespective of their migration status, as well as on housing,
psychosocial support, rehabilitation, trauma healing, child support, support to exit
prostitution, education, vocational training, access to a documented status and income
generation; give due consideration to victims’ agency, and avoid conditioning aid and
support for victims on their official condemnation of prostitution; and increase
outreach to victims, including through translation services;
(h)
Together with international organizations, use human rights-based
terminology and language to describe prostitution, and refrain from using terminology
that would mischaracterize it and minimize its serious human rights violations;
(i)
Decriminalize all women and girls in prostitution and offer them
recognition as victims, which would afford them protection, validate their experiences,
and support their recovery; such reframing would entitle victims to mandatory
assistance, protection, support and compensation; in this regard, a fund to support
victims should be established;
(j)
Refrain from adding conditions to the criminalization of pimping, such as
the burden of proof required to validate the situation of trafficking or subordination by
the exploiter of the prostituted person; the criminalization of the purchase of sexual acts
must not be related to the need to prove a potential situation of trafficking;
(k)
Prevent the weaponization of anti-trafficking policies to avoid addressing
the issue of prostitution as a form of violence against women by creating a harmful and
artificial dissociation between so-called “forced” prostitution assimilated to trafficking
from a so-called “free” prostitution assimilated to “sex work”;
(l)
Proactively investigate and classify the commission of crimes under the
prostitution system (e.g., classify the killing of women and girls in prostitution as
femicide), suspect exploitation in prostitution when women and girls go missing, and
apply the same commitment dedicated to abolishing slavery;
(m) Analyse aggravating factors and added victimization of women leading to
their exploitation in prostitution in the context of and as a result of armed conflicts, and
humanitarian settings;
(n)
Establish interministerial and inter-institutional coordination committees
with the full involvement of frontline and victim-led organizations in the design and
implementation of relevant policy, including through the creation of a
victims’/survivors’ council or reference group;
(o)
Gather disaggregated data on the profile of victims of prostitution,
including pornography, as well as the impact of prostitution on their well-being;
(p)
Clear the judicial records of victims of the prostitution system for charges
relating to their exploitation in prostitution; provide, where one does not exist, a legal
residence permits for victims; strengthen social safety nets for women from
marginalized groups; and provide safe, legal migration pathways to reduce
vulnerability to exploitation, including access to asylum away from gender-based
persecution;
(q)
Overhaul the approach of law enforcement and the judiciary to address
victims’ fear and lack of trust; reduce reporting barriers and tackle impunity and
corruption; delink the provision of support by law enforcement from the legal status of
victims and their readiness to cooperate; and provide victims with a minimum
reflection period and effective witness protection;
(r)
Address the root causes of the prostitution system, including sexism,
racism and class-based domination, gender-discriminatory laws that trap women and
children into poverty and make them vulnerable to prostitution;
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