Letters to the Editor
macgupta
Published Letters: 689
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More on alcohol
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just want to show GG that there are more things in this world than dreamed of in his philosophy, and sometimes, yes, banning alcohol might be the only answer to a chronic problem.
Indian child labor:-
" Most of the families sending their children to work in cottonseed fields are economically poor. But what is important is that there is no truth in the argument that it is the poverty that drives the parents to make their children work instead of educating them. Although the children's earnings form an important portion of the family incomes, yet that is not utterly indispensible. There are many ways for these families to fill in these gaps of income. It is noted that adults, especially men, in these families are working for fewer days.
The main reason for this is not the non-availability of work. They are spending a major part of their income on the consumption of liquor. There is no need to depend on children's earnings if the adults of the families are properly employed and do not spend money on liquor. Obviously, if currently underemployed adult women or adult men were employed instead of girls at proper market wages, their families would be much better off and will not be under pressure to send their children for work and depend upon their wage earnings. Meanwhile girls could spend that time investing in their education and playing."
from
http://www.indianet.nl/sobsum.html
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forced?
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://action.web.ca/home/catw/readingroom.shtml?sh_itm=46413d9acb7e9322a28f1df36d75637c&AA_EX_Session=7b564e7079fd07b422eaf40b438519f0
"The philosophy that prostitution is a human right has been advanced, in international forums such as Beijing, by drawing distinctions between forced and free, adult and child, third world and first world prostitution, and between prostitution and trafficking (2). These distinctions are then used to make some forms of prostitution acceptable and legitimate, revising the harm that is done to women in prostitution into a consenting act and excluding prostitution from the category of violence against women. The sex industry thrives on this language and these distinctions.
When distinctions are made between forced and free prostitution, for example, it becomes almost insurmountable for many, if not most, women in prostitution to prove that they have been forced."
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more on forced
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"WHISPER, a Minneapolis-based organization of women who have both survived and who are coming out of prostitution, and who are committed to ending prostitution as a form of violence against women, found it difficult to identify job skills gained in prostitution which would advance anyone’s career (Gamache, 1991, p.4). They found that the "skills" of prostitution are: performing sex acts, feigning sexual enjoyment, enduring all kinds of bodily violation, and allowing your body to be used in any imaginable way by another person (Giobbe, 1990, p.4). What young girl would we encourage to develop these "skills?" Yet there are now "courses" to teach would-be "sex workers," as they are called, the sexual techniques of prostitution and everything they need to know to become "skilled" in the trade (7).
What prostituted women must endure in their "employment" is, what in other contexts, would be the accepted definition of sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the workplace -- "employer" behavior that is unwanted and insulting, and unwelcome sexual attention, violence, and conduct that is offensive and threatening. What then happens to women in prostitution whose very "job" -- if we term it "commercial sex work" -- constitutes, what in any other "workplace," would be defined as sexual harassment and abuse (8)? It is the exchange of money in prostitution that serves to transform what is actually sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual violence into a "job" known as "commercial sex work," a "job" performed primarily by racially and economically disadvantaged women in the so-called first and third worlds (9), and by overwhelming numbers of women and children who have been the victims of childhood sexual abuse (10)."
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more
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another term that misrepresents the exploitation of prostitution, and the harm that it does to women, is the term "forced prostitution."(11) What does this term mean? It means we are encouraged to distinguish forced prostitution from free prostitution? The Human Rights Watch Report not only consistently uses "forced prostitution" throughout, but also the term "forced trafficking"(Human Rights Watch/Asia, 1995, p.7). Are we to assume, then, that there is "free trafficking?" Building on the shaky foundation of consensual prostitution, do we now have "consensual trafficking" where some women and children freely choose to be trafficked from one place to another? Few human rights activists and people of conscience would use the term "forced slavery" or "forced apartheid" but so glibly slip into the language of forced prostitution and, now, forced trafficking.
The sex industry makes no distinctions between forced and free prostitution while encouraging others to do so. The industry is linked financially and politically with groups like COYOTE in the United States to promote prostitution as a woman’s personal choice, proclaiming that the worst thing about prostitution is that the women are stigmatized. But the worst thing about prostitution is its violation of and violence against women and children. Although claiming to be a prostitutes rights organization, COYOTE works more for the rights of the customers and the industry, rather than for the rights of women to leave prostitution. The former director of COYOTE, Margo St. James, served as a witness for the defense at the pimping trial of well-known U.S. pornographers, and works to abolish U.S. laws against pimping and soliciting women for the purpose of prostitution (12).
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All I can say is that
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn Greenwald is temporarily insane.