USAID requires that grant recipients of its AIDS humanitarian funds must sign a pledge that they oppose commercial sex work. A federal court recently ruled that this is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. Despite the fact the US holds that prostitution is illegal (with the exception of Nevada) and that there is a near-universal condemnation for the practice, apparently allowing the government to restrict its humanitarian funds to actually be humane is unconscionable.
Let’s be honest for a moment. Most women (or for that matter, girls) don’t get into prostitution as a career of first choice. When was the last time you asked a girl what she wanted to be when she grows up and that girl answered “I want to be a hooker!”? Most women get into prostitution out of desperation, or worse, because they were forced into it. Further, prostitutes are subject to much higher levels of abuse and maltreatment because of the nature of the work. Nothing epitomizes male domination over women more than the sex trade and sex trafficking industries.
The problem with the sex trade goes far beyond those who simply sign up for it. More often than not, women or girls are forced into it. In fact, many governments and other larger organizations have gone beyond the simple sex trade and gone into organized rape as an industry. On these issues we must tolerate diversity of opinion by the virtue of the First Amendment. That does not require that we capitulate to something that should be universally condemned. The solution to 12 year olds being forced into prostitution is not “unionization”; the solution is preventing it from happening in the first place and prosecuting those responsible.
There came a time when positions could be advocated without asking the government for a handout. Only those positions that can’t stand on their own require outside assistance. Now those positions have an ally in the federal court system.
It seems the current trend in jurisprudence is to normalize more and more outlandish behavior. NAMBLA has a right to state their position; it doesn’t mean the government should or needs to fund it. However, the courts seem to think otherwise. What’s next? Government funds to help cover up child sex abuse?
When the United States wants to fund humanitarian work, it wants to do so in a humane way. It isn’t a matter of simply policy choice, but rather a matter of justice. While there can be opinions that legalized and unregulated prostitution is best for society, nothing the Founding Fathers intended required the government to subsidize those positions.
John Bambenek is an academic professional at the University of Illinois and a columnist for the Daily Illini. He also blogs at Part-Time Pundit.
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