NationStates Jolt Archive

The Most Serene Republic of Paramount Holiness has declared this month as the National Month of the Woman. As it stands as the regional delegate of Illarianna, for this month, we will be working on proposals and repeals in the hopes of lowering the burden and increasing the happiness of women within our own nation and also all the member states of the UN.

We want you to join us in our crusade for women's rights.

If one looks to the current proposals they'll find that we've started our work with an attempt to repeal Resolution #91. We ask that you support this repeal. It should be the option of individual nations to pick wether or not they allow prostitution. Furthermore, it endangers our citizens, but particularly our women.

Beyond that, I intend to write a proposal for a bill protecting the rights of women. I'd be interested to hear any input that the rest of you have on what such a bill should have. I look forward to your comments.

A bill protecting women would be illegal, I'd say. It would either duplicate substantial protections already in place, or it would contradict anti-discrimination legislation.

Oh, and we support a repeal of #91, but we don't try to hide it behind "concern for women" or whatever. We just want to control our citizens' minds.

EDIT: I should add - your repeal is more sexist than the original resolution, which is not sex-specific.

As a woman I will happily tell you I 100% support resolution 91 and will fight any repeal of it with all the strength I have.

Why the heck would you want to repeal the only protection prostitutes have to work by choice, not intimidation, in safe and clean conditions, not a street corner, legally, not in fear of arrest and imprisonment and recieving fair wages for their work not being bullied into handing their earnings over to a pimp?

Bugger the nations "right" to choose. Grown women aren't stupid children who need their government making personal or career decisions for them. They are quite capable of doing that themselves.

However, #91 does not give nations the option to choose wether prostitution be legal or not. It enforces prostitution, while not including any sort of protections thereof, beyond protection from being arrested.

You're sending innocent men and women out into the streets to be picked up by predators who now have easy access to victims who they now can easily rape, kill, etc..

and this is because they have a right to choose? The choice is based on desperation due to your policies that spit out people who cannot make fair wages. It is the choice of those who cannot choose.

Even from an economical standpoint this is a silly resolution. One can either ignore the risks, thereby making it a health concern, or create a huge bueracracy around making sure your prostitutes are healthy and safe. This doesn't even bring up the extra cost of the police that are needed to make sure that the prostitutes come home alive.

Lets have a look at the actual resolution.

The Sex Industry Worker Act


A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.

Category : Free Trade
Strength : Significant
Proposed by : Groot Gouda

Description : The NationStates UN,

RECALLING resolution #46 "Legalize Prostitution" and the repeal of that resolution,

ALSO RECALLING Resolution #7 (Sexual Freedom), and Resolution #53 (Universal Freedom of Choice), which make sex a private issue, instead of a government issue, and stating "a populace granted the freedom to make choices in life is a happier, more content and more productive society"

AFFIRMING in accordance with the above mentioned resolution that each person has the right to decide over their own body, and has the right to sell ther body if they decide to, without government interference,

ASSUMING an increase in Sexually Transmitted Diseases, as well as an increase in crime, and higher pressure on police, in a situation where prostitution is illegal,

ACKNOWLEDGING that health risks exist, even with legal prostitution,

1. DECLARES prostitution legal throughout the UN: any person who is mature ,and capable of making their own decisions may become a prosititute,

2. EMPHASIZES that legalizing prostitution must coincide with regulation from the government, such as health and safety and other employment legislation, just like any other profession,

3. RECOMMENDS nations that want to limit prostitution to tackle the issue by its roots and create education and social programs that will give more choice to people who might want to become a prostitute,

4. REQUESTS all nations to stimulate a clean and attractive working environment for prostitutes, and advises cooperation with the sex industry to renovate old "illegal" prostitution areas in towns and cities,

5. CONDEMNS child abuse and slavery in accordance with earlier UN resolutions (End slavery, Child Labor, Outlaw Pedophilia, The Child Protection Act, Ban Trafficking in Persons, etc) and advises strong punishments against people involved with these despicable crimes that explicitly are not covered by legal prostitution.

Votes For : 10,558

Votes Against : 6,452

Implemented : Sun Feb 6 2005

Clause 1 - Makes it a choice. No-one is forced into the business under this resolution. No-one is forcing them onto the street. Prostitutes in my nation work out of licensed and regulated brothels. Street walking is still an offense under the loitering laws.

Clause 2 - Self explainatory. Under this resolution, prostitution is an industry, just like any other industry, and subject to the same rights, laws and regulations of any other industry including workplace health and safety (if your nation has such a thing, mine does).

Clause 3 - Again, self explainatory.

Clause 4 - This sounds a lot like "get them off the streets and into a nice, clean and safe work environment". A lot better, and safer than a back alley or the backseat of a john's car.

Clause 5 - Very self explainatory.

The author of the resolution is quite free to give me a verbal kick up the rear if I've got any of this wrong, but it's how I read it.

If you want to protect a womans rights, then protect her right to sell her body if she wishes to do so. Making prostitution illegal won't make it go away. It will just drive it back underground where women (and men) are forced into it, not allowed to leave, subject to violence and abuse, constantly in fear of arrest and imprisonment, and at much, much greater risk of sexually transmitted disease than they would be in a legal, open, clean, regulated setting.

However, that does nothing to defeat my argument that it should be up to a nation wether this be legal. It shouldn't be the job of the UN to forcibley make dangerous choices available legally to the populations of it's member states.

This is as if to say that if we legalized pedophilia then pedophiles would be bound by other resolutions to only engage in consensual pedophilia with a condom. I'm sure you'll be right on that resolution.

However, that does nothing to defeat my argument that it should be up to a nation wether this be legal. It shouldn't be the job of the UN to forcibley make dangerous choices available legally to the populations of it's member states.
That's because you can't defeat a natsov argument. You can almost always say "Well, this should be up to individual nations" and it's hard to find an argument to stop it. In this case, some would say that human rights trump national sovereignity, which I would probably agree with.

Actually, I would happily see resolution 91 repealed, simply because of clause 1. Rather than legalising throughout the UN, the resolution should merely have attempted to provide safeguards for those countries within the UN that choose to make prostitution legal.

Lata Chakrabarti
Speaker to the UN

Actually, Ms Chakrabarti, you're misreading Clause 1. There are no prostitutes in Gruenberg, for example. There are only prosititutes.

Clause #2 would seem to allow governments so much leeway in how much regulation they set that they should effectively be able to keep a ban in place -- if they so desire -- anyway...

Actually, Ms Chakrabarti, you're misreading Clause 1. There are no prostitutes in Gruenberg, for example. There are only prosititutes.
It doesn't exactly strengthen the case for retention, does it?

It doesn't exactly strengthen the case for retention, does it?
Quite. We'll speak to our drafting department.

I must stand firmly against a repeal of "The Sex Industry Worker Act."

If I don't, Cluichstani Private Entertainment Services Ltd. will stop giving me kickbacks.

We stand strongly against prostitution in all its forms, all those who practice it, and all the Evil Cluichstani Masters who sell it. Your "businessman" gave me a black eye, you fucking bastard.

We stand strongly against prostitution in all its forms, all those who practice it, and all the Evil Cluichstani Masters who sell it. Your "businessman" gave me a black eye, you fucking bastard.

You should've paid like you were supposed to. ;)

However, that does nothing to defeat my argument that it should be up to a nation wether this be legal. It shouldn't be the job of the UN to forcibley make dangerous choices available legally to the populations of it's member states.

This is as if to say that if we legalized pedophilia then pedophiles would be bound by other resolutions to only engage in consensual pedophilia with a condom. I'm sure you'll be right on that resolution.

Not all of us are nat sov fanatics. Some of us believe an individuals right to choose their own path trumps any so called right of a government to run their lives for them.

This industry is only as dangerous as your government allows it to be. If you don't want the prostitutes in danger, regulate the industry. Going down a coal mine is dangerous, police work is dangerous, chemical plants are dangerous, do you want them banned too?

This is my last post in this thread. You totally destroyed any credibility you once had with me by dragging pedophilia into this. There is an immense difference between a grown adult making a choice about a job, and child abuse, as I'm sure you darn well know.

So your take on this is "let's protect and support women (and men) - by allowing national governments to take away their rights to their own bodies!"

I don't understand why, if your concern is for the welfare of individual women, you favour the concentration of power with governments and not individuals. If you really feel that the right to rent out one's possessions (including the body) within regulated circumstances and under the protection of law from abuse is detrimental to women, and want to fight for womens' welfare, surely you ought to be pushing this repeal so that you can follow it up with a ban on prostitution? Whether you think that being allowed to prostitute yourself is good or bad, your approach prioritises the rights of governments over the welfare of individuals.

I'll support any repeal of "The Sex Industry Worker Act."

So your take on this is "let's protect and support women (and men) - by allowing national governments to take away their rights to their own bodies!"

I don't understand why, if your concern is for the welfare of individual women, you favour the concentration of power with governments and not individuals. If you really feel that the right to rent out one's possessions (including the body) within regulated circumstances and under the protection of law from abuse is detrimental to women, and want to fight for womens' welfare, surely you ought to be pushing this repeal so that you can follow it up with a ban on prostitution? Whether you think that being allowed to prostitute yourself is good or bad, your approach prioritises the rights of governments over the welfare of individuals.

Rather I would follow it up with legislation that makes it mandatory for states that allow the practice of prostitution to provide protection and equal workers rights for their prostitutes, effectively making the whole argument for this bill a moot point.

As for your argument that I am choosing the right of government over the right of the people, I would rather say I am choosing the rights of a nation of people over that of a delegation of representatives. That's only semantics, either way.

meh, old draft I toyed with ages ago:

I've always hated this resolution, for a variety of reasons. And now I've managed to get them written down to a way that makes sense, and I'd like to make an effort to repeal it.

I appreciate it is quite a popular resolution, and I am not entirely opposed to it all, but it just makes a tremendous mess of things.

Anyway, the draft repeal....

ACKNOWLEDGING the idea of protecting the victims of the sex trade is a worthwhile cause

SUPPORTING the idea of people are free to make their own choices

NOTING that the victims of the sex trade are generally not capable of making a choice over their trade, and that many victims are forced into their trade by poverty.

NOTING the false assumption that unlegislated prostitution causes an increase in STD’s

NOTING the contradiction in the resolution, noting that sex is a private issue, yet requesting that governments implement legislation to equate it to any other profession. If sex truly is a private issue, then the government or the UN has no place legislating.

FURTHER NOTING that in order to equate it to other professions, taxation should be implemented, and that taxation of prostitution can be considered little more than state-sponsored pimping.

DETERMINED that pimping, be it by the government or private individuals equates to exploitation.

UTTERLY CONDEMNING state exploitation.

SUPPORTIVE of the concept of protecting victims of sexual exploitation, not punishing them.

NOTING the failure of the resolution to tackle the real issue, the client and those who profit from the exploitation of others.

CALLS UPON member states to implement practical, ethical, and well reasoned legislation that protects the victims of sexual exploitation, and punishes the perpetrators, rather than legislation which is contradictory, inadequate, unethical and inaccurate.

NOTING the false assumption that unlegislated prostitution causes an increase in STD’s

A couple of minor corrections. It should be written as follows:

NOTING the false assumption that unregulated prostitution causes an increase in STDs

A couple of minor corrections. It should be written as follows:

NOTING the false assumption that unregulated prostitution causes an increase in STDsmy mistake :)

I find that in some court cases within my nations, women are often favored in divorce cases because of the remaining 'motherly love' view society has cast upon them. Half of these women either smoke drugs, work in brothels, or abuse their children. I think maybe we ought to bring in true equal rights, in which men and women shall be treated no differently except in the cases of hygiene, healthcare, and medical conditions.

I find that in some court cases within my nations, women are often favored in divorce cases because of the remaining 'motherly love' view society has cast upon them. Half of these women either smoke drugs, work in brothels, or abuse their children. I think maybe we ought to bring in true equal rights, in which men and women shall be treated no differently except in the cases of hygiene, healthcare, and medical conditions.

However, we also have to face that women are biologically different and therefore have different needs than men. For example, consider:

Nation A has little regulation for corporations.

Company B of Nation A, being wholly unregulated to do otherwise, does not grant paid vacations for employees and fires employees who go on unpaid leave for over three days.

Person C, Male, is overworked, but otherwise unnaffected.

Person D, Female, is overworked, but also risks losing her job if impregnated.
__________________________________________________

Mandatory maternity leave is definately something that I would want to include in a bill this month. My question, really, is what other biological differences require special care for women?

I don't feel as though a bill on mandatory maternity leave, standing alone, is full enough to take votes. Perhaps this and other things could be put together into a bill for the protection of women and/or protection of mothers.

It was easy to call me a sexist when this conversation began based on the fact that I started by attempting a repeal of the sex industry worker's act, but this is just one step in many.

And, please, Hirota, propose your bill. Mine, while picking up some definate support in the last days, is simply not making it. Yours is, by far, stronger than mine in many ways.

it needs work on it, plus I might be busy with bushmeat.

NOTING the failure of the resolution to tackle the real issue, the client and those who profit from the exploitation of others.

Although, despite the fact that it forces governments to legalise people selling themselves, it doesn't actually force nations to legalise the buying of them: I don't see anything in that resolution to disallow governments punishing the clients... ;)

Although, despite the fact that it forces governments to legalise people selling themselves, it doesn't actually force nations to legalise the buying of them: I don't see anything in that resolution to disallow governments punishing the clients... ;)I know, it's the loophole I use (inspired by the Swedish, who have done the exact thing in RL).