Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Amnesty International has pimped itself out

There is no argument fiercer in feminism than the argument about prostitution. Say you want to ban it and the libertarian feminists denounce you as a ‘whorephobe’. Say you want to legalise it, and radical feminists denounce you as the tool of the patriarchy.

Inevitably, Amnesty International felt it had to intervene. And, this week, with an equal inevitability, it plumped for the apparently left-wing position of decriminalisation. I say ‘apparently’ because many on the left disagree. My sister paper the Guardian made the telling point that Amnesty’s leftism concealed rich-world prejudices.

[Its]suggestion that the trade be decriminalised but not then regulated is particularly far off-beam. Since when did unregulated markets guarantee human rights? There is nothing intrinsically repugnant to human rights in sex work if you exclude violence, deceit and the exploitation of children. But these aren’t fringe phenomena. They are central parts of the trade in most places round the world. To take as normative the experience of protected western adults is a morally disabling form of privilege.

Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and most older feminists I know were horrified too. But among younger feminists being a ‘whorephobe’ is up there with being a transphobe, homophobe, Islamophobe or any other kind of phobe. They believe what consenting adults do with their bodies is their business – a fine liberal argument that would be stronger if they did not engage in the thoroughly illiberal tactic of shouting their opponents down and banning them from public platforms.

In all the debate, one question was missed. Why did Amnesty have to adopt a position at all? Or to put it another way, what have the rights of prostitutes, pimps and punters got to do with prisoners of conscience?

The late Robert Conquest had three laws of politics. 

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