Quote:Prostitution is one of the worst forms of human exploitation. Although we recognise that some men and boys are exploited in this way, it remains the case that the vast majority of those trapped in the sex trade are women and girls; therefore, we focus this statement on women and girls.

We extend unwavering solidarity and empathy to all those who are trapped in the sex trade and as communists it is incumbent on us to put forward a class analysis of prostitution.

Those who founded the trade unions and the labour movement did so in a period where millions of women and children were forced to sell their bodies to survive, but they did not support prostitution as a form of “work”. They correctly saw prostitution as a social ill to be eradicated.

“…for the rest it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from the system i.e. of prostitution both public and private!”
(Marx & Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848)

Quote:Women and girls should be able to secure well-paid jobs, good housing and education without the need to prostitute themselves. Prostitution is not a genuine and free choice; it is a survival behaviour, mostly engaged in by working class women and girls who suffer economic disadvantage.

While prostitution exists, there can never be true equality between men and women. The continued existence of commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls has an adverse impact on how men and boys engage in relationships with all women. There are clear and undisputed links between the male demand for prostitution, child sexual exploitation and pornography. Prostitution, by its very nature, does not constitute a relationship of equals, as the man paying for sexual access to a woman’s body has full power and control.