Several conservative leaders, including Southern Baptist official Richard Land and Campus Crusade for Christ President Bill Bright, are opposing U.S. support of a new definition of sexual exploitation that was to be considered by the United Nations Jan. 17.
In a Jan. 7 letter addressed to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, six conservative leaders argued against the “stunning” position the United States has taken on the so-called “Vienna Protocol” of the U.N. Convention on Transnational Organized Crime concerning sexual trafficking in women and children.
“In sum, the position now taken by United States negotiators is that concerted international action against sex traffickers should be restricted only to those responsible for ‘forced prostitution,’” they wrote.
“The United States position effectively would block the prosecution of international traffickers and procurers — including those involved in organized crime — unless it could be proved that ‘force’ had been used on the trafficked women.”
The leaders addressed their concerns to the first lady in her role as co-chair of the President’s Interagency Council on Women.
They also voiced concern that the position of U.S. delegates to the upcoming Vienna meeting is that international action against pornographers should be limited to t hose engaging in activities without the consent of the women involved.
“As with prostitution trafficking, the United States position effectively would block prosecution of the growing, hard-core international pornography ‘industry,’” they wrote.
The letter was signed by Land; Bright; Chuck Colson, chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries; Mary Ann Glendon, law professor at Harvard University; Kay Cole James, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
Voicing similar concerns in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Jan. 10, Colson and Bill Bennett, co-director of Empower America, discussed what they believe would be the effect of a successful White House position on the matter.
“If the administration’s position is accepted, the focus of attention would shift from the profiteers who traffic in women to the supposed state of mind of the victimized women,” Colson and Bennett wrote.
“It would create loopholes long sought by perpetrators, insulating them from criminal prosecution.”
The first lady’s press office could not be immediately reached for comment.
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