Special Report: THE WORLD SUMMIT: END SEXUAL EXPLOITATION 2025 – MAY 11TH & 12TH 2015

Rtn. Vivian Smith attended the "World Symposium on Stopping Sexual Exploitation  held at the Carter Center with President Carter as the Convener along with Rotary International President-Elect Ravi who attended  for the 2 days and also addressed the  group.  Here is a brief summary prepared by Vivian to share some news from the symposium:

 

This summit was held at the Carter Center in Atlanta Georgia. The Conveners were Rotarians Against Child Slavery and the Carter Center.  We had speakers from Dublin, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Canada  and Great Britain.  A plea was made from some of the survivors that in our planning we must not ignore the fact that victims over the age of 18 were probably exploited when they were children and MUST be viewed as victims.  Our visitor from Ireland explained that for certain reasons she ran away from home and finished up on the streets of Dublin, sleeping on a park bench. As a youngster the offer of a place to live seemed a better alternative at the time – only to finish up in HELL.

 

We heard many stories of survival from former victims and the fact that they are all now working to rescue victims from their predators.

 

The representatives from Sweden and Norway explained the Nordic /Swedish Model. This addresses the demand for commercial sex which is the key component of any plan to prevent sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. The law in both countries is to pursue the buyers –( “john’s) and prosecute them to the greatest extent of the law including incarceration. If there were no buyers the trade – which is in the billions of dollars – would disappear.

 

A stunning and thought provoking and disturbing address was presented by Professor Gail Dines on the pervasive damage that pornography is doing to our young men. She showed examples of the Hard Porn  which is available on line. It depicts the violence which can accompany sexual degradation of women. This is corrupting our young male population to commit these heinous acts in the name of sex.

 

We were divided into groups and I attended the Business group. It was stated that participants in “Sex for Sale” , if convicted can harm the Corporate Brand. The use of Company computers  to view pornography or arrange  meeting with sexual victims is taking away from the work which should be addressed and costing companies money.

One amazing study found that sexual meeting s were mainly arranged at 2 p.m. for time after work.

Our President – elect of Rotary International K.R. “Ravi” Ravindran addressed the Summit and stated that he had no idea of the extent of this problem until he heard the presentations and vowed that Rotarians would become more involved.

President Carter was a gracious host and an avid supporter of this work

Finally – please do not refer to victims as prostitutes  although used as a verb it means “To sell) nor as a Sex worker. These are human beings who are being hideously exploited. One recommendation was that in any program a survivor should be included.