U.S. Government using aid money to normalize the commercial sexual exploitation of young people

US Government Funds Youth “Sex Work” Programs


By Tyler Ament

WASHINGTON, February 10 (C-FAM) A program funded by the United States government is using aid money to normalize commercial sexual exploitation of young people in the developing world.

Under the guise of providing health services to “young people who sell sex,” critics charge the Interagency Youth Working Group with working to normalize the commercial sexual exploitation of young people.

The program, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development, focuses on developing “interventions to reduce health risks” faced by young people involved in “commercial sex work.”

Describing various threats to the well being of young prostitutes, the program lists discrimination, and urges changes in societal norms and public policy rather than the behavior of the “sex workers.”

Critics say such strategies don’t get at the underlying problem, which is the commercial sexual exploitation of young people. They say that the focus on providing health services to “youth sex workers” is merely a harm-reduction approach, which only reduces the harm they face in the dangerous world of prostitution.

Laura Lederer is one such critic of the harm-reduction approach, and is no stranger to the commercial sexual exploitation issue. Starting in the nongovernmental sector, Lederer, was instrumental in drafting and passing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which mandated the creation of the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. As Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Global Affairs in the Department of State she traveled to over 50 countries to see the problem first-hand, visiting red-light districts, shelters, and service providers for human trafficking victims. Currently, she is president of Global Centurion, an organization dedicated to combating the demand side of the commercial sexual exploitation problem.

She says that the harm-reduction and normalization approach does not properly address the multi-leveled problem of commercial sexual exploitation. Dr. Jeff Barrows, a medical expert on the issue, says that these approaches are like “putting a bandage on a child in a burning building and walking away.” Lederer says, “We must find a way to get children out of the burning building.”

Some say that some poverty-stricken young people are engaging in what some call “survival sex.” Lederer responds that they, too, are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Lederer sees the push for normalization of “youth sex work” as part of the broader debate about whether prostitution should be considered work. She says that a crucial part of the debate is the question of whether all things are for sale. She says that the fact that developed countries like the United States donate rather than sell human organs and blood is indicative of the fact that we “categorize things so that we can protect our humanity,” and that commoditizing the human body through “sex work” is a step away from respecting the dignity of every human person.

The Interagency Youth Working Group is funded by the United States Agency for International Development through the Knowledge For Health Project.

Many thanks to Tyler Ament and the good folks over at C-FAM for exposing this. Increasingly, the rights of Christian children and their parents are coming under attack. Why? No one has ever put it more eloquently than Randy Engel:


"Is it any wonder that the state must wage war against the family? For the state requires not individuals who dream, and think, and pray, but rather what has come to be called 'the mass man' - rootless, unaffirmed, a reactor - a mere reed blowing in the wind - a thing to be manipulated, to be used, to be disposed of, but never, never, to be loved, for the giant has no heart. And since the modern state has no heart, that which men previously have done out of love, must now be done out of fear, and hatred, and brute force." (The Family Under Siege, The Wanderer, March 6, 1980).

This is why the U.S. funds Planned Parenthood, a racist organization which has given aid to a pimp's underage sex ring.  See here.