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A host of Hollywood stars, including Oscar-winning actresses Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson, have lent their support to a petition demanding that Amnesty International reject a proposal to endorse the decriminalization of the sex trade. The global human rights group is set to review an internal policy document on sex work at a meeting in Dublin next month, according to the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). If the policy is adopted, Amnesty would “in effect advocate the legalization of pimping, brothel owning and sex buying – the pillars of a $99 billion global sex industry”, CATW said. Nearly 2,600 members of the public have signed the petition since it was posted on change.org last week, and endorsed by women’s rights campaigners and celebrities such as actors Emily Blunt, Lena Dunham and Anne Hathaway. US-based CATW said it agreed with Amnesty that sex workers should not be criminalized or brutalized by law enforcement agents and governments. “However, full decriminalization of the sex trade renders pimps “businesspeople” who sell vulnerable individuals, overwhelmingly with histories of poverty, discrimination, homelessness and sexual abuse, to buyers of sex with impunity,” the group said in a statement.The complete article can be read here.
