Internationally, poverty is one of the major factors pushing many women into prostitution. However, there are a multitude of push and pull factors, such as domestic violence and sexual abuse, that leave women around the world vulnerable to sexual exploitation. The pathway that leads a woman into sexual exploitation is very complex, cannot be understood simplistically in “cause and effect” terms, and is littered with experiences of brokenness, bondage, and brutality that are difficult to grasp from a Western, middle-class perspective.

Complex networks of buyers across Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and other regions lure thousands of women with the false promise of good jobs in a factory or restaurant or as a household helper. Tragically, family members are often involved in the sale of girls and young women. Females sold by family members often do not consider escape an option – even if the very rare opportunity arises – because they feel it is their duty to their family to continue “working” despite the horrors they endure. Likewise, they fear the shame and rejection they would face from their family and community as a result of the life they have been forced to live.

Other women willingly move from rural areas of developing countries to urban centers with the hope of finding employment and earning money to send home to their families. When they arrive in the city, jobs are often harder to find than they expected and they are vulnerable to those willing to take advantage of them.

Without money or a safe place to stay, and often without any support network, these women either have no means to return to their homes or are ashamed that they have not succeeded in their efforts to provide for their families. Some women then find themselves with no other option for survival other than to sell what they have left – their bodies. Typically, women exploited in prostitution are some of the most marginalized in society. Therefore, any “choice” they might make to enter prostitution must be seen as a “choice out of no choice.”(1) Furthermore, numerous interviews with and studies of women exploited in prostitution show that the vast majority wish to exit. A survey conducted among more than 850 women in prostitution in nine countries showed that 89% wanted to leave prostitution, but didn’t have other options for economic survival.(2)

1.  Bindel, Julie. “Press for Change – A guide for journalists reporting on the prostitution and trafficking of women”, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, p 11. <http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/PRESSPACKgeneric12-06.pdf>  Accessed April 18, 2008.
2.  Farley, Melissa. “’Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart’: Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized of Decriminalized.” Violence Against Women, Vol. 10, No. 10, 2004, p 10.

Created in the very image of God(1), every man, woman, and child is inherently endowed with dignity. Sexual intimacy was ordained by God to take place within the context of marriage, for the purposes of procreation, mutual pleasure, and the uniting of two as one. The sale and purchase of sexual services abuses God’s intention for sexuality by turning what God planned as a sacred act into a commercial transaction.(2) Rather than being an occupation on par with any other, prostitution may well be the world’s oldest oppression. Prostitution should never be validated as a type of work, but as a form of abuse of women. This has already been recognized by countries such as Sweden, where laws surrounding the selling and purchasing of sex are positioned within the larger body of laws regarding sexual abuse. The Swedish model recognizes the abuse of power that occurs within prostitution, and has thus decriminalized the sale of sex and criminalized the purchase of sex – enforcing the fact the demand side of the equation must be dealt with in order to end this systematic form of exploiting of women. The sale or purchase of one’s sexual intimacy is an affront to a woman’s dignity, and a violation of the image of God within each of us.

1. Genesis 1:27
2. Excerpted from a position paper on the legalization of prostitution written by a church in Vancouver, B.C.

The average age at which girls first become the victims of prostitution is only 12 to 14, so any argument of consent is nullified by their status as minors. Furthermore, “it is a mistake to assume that trafficked children are no longer victims but ‘voluntary workers’ when they reach the age of 18 or that prostitution no longer poses the same harms to their well-being.”(2)

The consent argument likewise holds little validity in the case of adult women in prostitution, for consent achieved through fraud, deception, threat of physical harm, or the abuse of power (economic, social, or physical) is no consent at all. The unequal power relationship that exists between a marginalized woman and a man offering payment shatters the idea that consent is present when a woman is forced to sell her body.

1. US Department of Justice, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/prostitution.html Accessed May 22, 2009. Referencing Richard J. Estes and Neil Alan Weiner, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S, Canada and Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, Executive Summary (2001).
2. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Statement to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Feb 28, 2008. http://action.web.ca/home/catw/readingroom.shtml?x=114598 Accessed May 21, 2009.

The United Nations’ Optional Protocol on Trafficking in Human Beings (widely knows as the Palermo Protocol) acknowledges that trafficking and prostitution are intrinsically linked, and rejects the false distinction between ‘free’ and ‘forced’ prostitution. The Protocol states that the consent of the victim is irrelevant; that facilitating the movement of women for prostitution within (as well as across) borders constitutes trafficking, and that governments have a responsibility to combat the demand for prostitution.(1)

According to the US Department of State 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders annually, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of the victims transported across borders are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors.(2) Global estimates on the number of people trafficked each year vary widely but range as high as four million. The United Nations’ Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking reports that 79% of human trafficking is for the purpose of sexual exploitation.(3)

1. Bindel, Julie. “Press for Change – A guide for journalists reporting on the prostitution and trafficking of women”, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, p 9.
2. US Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report” (2007), p 8. http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/2007_TIP_Report.pdf Accessed May 26, 2009.
3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons”, February 2009. http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Executive_summary_english.pdfAccessed May 22, 2009.

Women are valued very highly in the Bible’s teaching – God created both man and woman in His own image with the responsibilities of populating the earth and ruling over it. In the Gospel narratives, we gain many insights into Christ’s own valuation of women and His high regard for them as essential members of God’s kingdom. He understood their concerns(1), met their deepest needs(2), healed them(3), taught them4, raised their dead(5), and defended and affirmed their acts of service(6).(7)

In Luke 6:36, we are commanded to be compassionate, just as our Father in heaven is compassionate. Just a few verses later, starting in Luke 7:36, we read that Jesus was at the home of Simon the Pharisee for dinner when a woman who had lived a sinful life – generally thought to be sexually immoral – washes His feet with her tears and pours perfume on them. As she is washing His feet, Jesus says to Simon: “I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little,” and to the woman He says, “Your sins are forgiven.”(8) In John 8, we likewise see the compassion Jesus had for the woman caught in adultery, and that His response is to forgive and restore her to meaningful existence. Although people in that culture judged and labeled these two women as immoral, Jesus saw them through eyes filled with love and dignity. Following Jesus’ example, we, too ought to respond with compassion and mercy to those exploited in prostitution, and seek to live in such a way that introduces those caught in this cycle of exploitation to our compassionate Savior, the only One who can fully redeem and restore each of our lives.(9)

1. John 2:1-9
2. John 4, Mark 7:11-15
3. Luke 4:38,39, Matthew 9:20-22
4. Luke 10:38-42
5. Luke 7:11-15, John 11
6. Matthew 26:6-13
7. Excerpted from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, “Looking for Answers” www.billygraham.org/LFA_Article.asp?ArticleID=67 Accessed April 2, 2009.
8. Luke 7:47-48, NIV
9. Isaiah 43:1