February 2, 2000

Redefinition of sexual
exploitation decried
___WASHINGTON (BP)--Southern Baptist ethics agency head Richard Land and others from widely diverse organizations have called on the Clinton administration to reverse its efforts to liberalize international sanctions against the sexual exploitation of women and children.
___Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and other conservatives, as well as feminist leaders, have written to administration members expressing opposition to the United States' support for a new definition of sexual exploitation that calls for concerted action by the international community only against traffickers involved in "forced prostitution" rather than prostitution. This change would, in effect, rescind a 1949 United Nations agreement requiring its signers to punish those who exploit for prostitution any person, "even with the consent of that person," according to the letters.
___Millions of women and girls have been coerced or lured into prostitution, especially from underdeveloped countries, the opponents of the administration policy contended. This new definition set forth in United Nations negotiations in Vienna, Austria, would not protect these women and children from the exploitation they suffer no matter how they enter the multi-billion dollar sex trafficking industry, the policy opponents say.
___Land called for those in agreement to contact the White House and their U.S. senators and representatives to express their opposition to the administration position.

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