Nato urged to ban troops from brothels

[dArKeR]

By John Chalmers

Brussels - Western troops abroad should be banned from brothels and sex clubs which fuel an illegal trade in women forced into prostitution, the United States and Norway urged their Nato allies on Thursday.

The two nations urged the Western defence alliance to mount a co-ordinated clampdown on the human trafficking that sends women to work as "modern-day slaves" in bars frequented by troops on missions overseas.

"Trafficking in human beings is part of the dark side of globalisation," said US ambassador to Nato Nicholas Burns. "We don't have the luxury of turning away from this problem because tens of thousands of lives are being ruined."

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw10784217616B253&set_id=1

If I could ask one question at an AWOL press conference, 'Mr. AWOL, are the troops supposed to masturbate or will you be sending them blow-up dolls or do they become Fundamentalist Christian and just say 'No' like Henry Hyde, Gingrich, and Neil Bush?'

[Renew Deal]

1. What's the point of being a soldier

if you can't get sucky sucky for $5?

[Skittles]

4. OK

that is disgusting. Many women do this to feed themselves and their children and it is DISGUSTING that men participate in such degradation.

[private_ryan]

6. so it's ok for a women to be able to abort her baby

but not Ok to have sex for money? People have sex for a lot, lot of reasons. Why not have for money upfront too?

[JoFerret]

7. Your logic

is absurd.

[private_ryan]

8. and I say yours is

n/t

[Skittles]

9. what logic?

nt

[JoFerret]

12. Sorry

I should have said : Your lack of logic is absurd. Apologies for the confusion my remark appears to have caused.
Your leap from abortion to prostitution was just that - a leap. Now - what is it that you really think about a woman's right to choose whether or not to give birth?
Do you think that prostitution is always driven by a desire for self determination? Or do you allow for other considerations? Such as abject necessity and coercion?
These choices that you may be imagining are not all of one piece. Consider the issue through a rather more complex lens and you may see that.

[dawn]

35. Men participate in abortions, too, remember.

By either A) taking off when they hear a woman is pregnant, avoiding all responsibility
or b) urging the woman to have the abortion
or c) going along with it.

Sorry. Your logic is flawed, too.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

22. many women are forced becauseTHEY ARE SLAVES...literally...

[bearfan454]

32. It was 10 and 4 at the Black Angus

in San Juan Puerto Rico in 74, 75, and 76. The Seabee bus would pick us up in front of the barracks at 7:00 pm on paydays. They would drop us off at the Borinquen Hotel just across the street from the place. At 1:00 am the driver would come in and say if you want a ride back to the base, get your ass up right now and get on the bus.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

36. Ah yes, the legendary Black Angus.

All those places were torn down during the late 80s early 90s. You have to make way for the more upscale prostitution.

[davidinalameda]

2. why do we have troops stationed in sex clubs and brothels

I'm confused

:shrug:

[Turley]

3. What's your point?

Unless I'm reading you incorrectly it sounds as if you don't have much of a problem with the modern-day sex-trade as practiced in Europe and Asia. As it happens, the vast majority of the women engaged in the sex-industry in those places live lives of virtual slavery. It's one of the dark little secrets of Europe.

Here in Frankfurt the girls who act up usually get fished out of the Main River several Kilometers downstream. That's after their heads have been beaten in. They don't find all of them though. Generally speaking, the mafia likes to keep a stream of fresh girls coming in from the East in order to keep them in line and also to keep the prices low for Western Europeans to get laid. I'm not providing any specific links on the subject but you can Google up plenty of info on had bad the situation is.

I'm not sure if a NATO conference is the best place to be addressing the issue. Quite frankly the Europeans need to take a look at themselves in the mirror and decide if they want to continue accepting this slave trade. I suspect that left to their own devices they will continue to wink at the problem just like they wink at the ready availablity of Kiddie-porn just about anywhere in Northern Europe.

[private_ryan]

5. sex trade I have problem with

but I have no problem with soldiers visiting legal brothels. In most of Western EU and the world prostituion is legal

[Skittles]

10. it may be legal

but it is still f***ing disgusting.

[private_ryan]

11. that's your opinion and it's noted

I think every woman should be able to decide who to have sex with and why. If you think it's disgusting, don't do it.

[JoFerret]

13. Ah! A clue

A clue to the logic - you are imagining choice at every decison making point. Sex as a free market, value free commodity. How quaint!

[private_ryan]

16. sex is a commodity

wake up and smell the coffee. It's being used everyday.

[PassingFair]

19. People are murdered every day, too

...does that make that unethical behavior acceptable? Human trafficing is unacceptable. Soldiers determined to be involved in the sex trade should be court-martialed. Boys will be boys has never been a good excuse for dehumanizing behavior. Not then, not now. Prostitution flourishes in situations where women have no choices, culturally, to find productive and profitable work, whether through religious strictures or economic strain or both.
Smell the coffee, my ***.
Maybe you need to get on de-caf.

[private_ryan]

20. aha

sex trade? No one is defending slavery or trafficking, but nice try.

How about women who are willing to have sex for money? Not the slave ones. Women who decide for one reason or another that they want to charge for sex? Who are you to tell them what they can do and what they can't? Who are you to decide what humanizing or not? Maybe what you do behind those closed doors is dehumanizing to someone else. Should you stop?

[bearfan454]

33. There are whorehouses very close to almost any military base

Sorry, it is a fact.

[private_ryan]

37. you women hating ******************

you must ignore facts. Prostitution makes all women look bad and it should be banned. Women should have the right to do everything, as long as it doesn't make women in general look bad.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

23. SLAVES...no THAT'S a commodity!

...you don't seem to realize that a large part of the problem is SLAVERY.

In the course of setting up a health-and-social services program adressing the problem of "reintegration of former sex slaves" in Ukraine, I met and spoke with perhaps 25-30 women who had LITERALLY been kidnapped & trucked to countries just a bit west of Ukraine. They were kept as SLAVES for 2-6 years. No pay. Kicked out when no longer useful. Worked the streets to get a couple shekels to make it home. Then at home - mostly rejected by family.

It's a BIG problem.

[iverglas]

42. and so's your labour

I vote that we retain someone to haul private_ryan off to wherever there are some NATO troops stationed and auction off his shoe-polishing and uniform-pressing services to the highest bidder.

After all, it isn't illegal to hire one's self out to polish shoes, and it isn't illegal to pay someone to do it.

And if private_ryan says he doesn't wanna do it, well, who cares? Not him, apparently, so I can't imagine why we should.

Now let's all go to google and ask it for "trafficking in women". Should keep us busy for a few days.

.

[Just Me]

48. WHY is "sex" a "commodity"?

I think "sex" as a commodity,...is a symptom of an illness produced by,...well,...humanity.

To denigrate sex to a commodity,...is sick, in and of itself. Sex is NOT like food, water, clothing or shelter. It is PERSONAL!!! Sex deserves the same respect and honor that we attach to our voices and choices and freedoms and values as "HUMAN BEINGS"!!!!

[Skittles]

14. the fact that women are paid to be used as semen receptacles

does not make it any better. It is dehumanizing and gross.

[private_ryan]

15. flipping burgers for $5 an hour

can be more dehumanizing and gross to some. To each his own. You want women to have all the power, rights and privacy as long as they do things you agree with. Too bad.

[Skittles]

31. I absolutlely disagree

*SENSORED* absolutely not worth it. :puke:

[Turley]

21. You make zero sense

The legal brothels of Europe employ slaves. It's a fact. It's all run by the mafia a winked at by the gov't. You wanna tell me you're oK with that?

[I AM SPARTACUS]

24. not only mafia & gov't ...in the Balkans, I saw NATO & UN...

...in several locations where I have worked in the Balkans and other "conflict areas" around the world, it was the UN and NATO who actually provided "protection" for the brothels...if not ran them.

To doubters...Can I document that? you can probably google something - but no. I have no need to document it - I have seen it with my own eyeballs. And most places that I've seen it, it was fairly-well common knowledge.

Turley, I agree with you - it is fact (and not Colon Bowel's kinda fact, either)...'cept for one thing...I think that a NATO conference is exactly one of the places that this should be openly discussed. Also the UN...

[Turley]

26. I agree that NATO should address it

I just think that it's more important that W. European countries take the lead in doing something about the problem. After all, Soldiers are a tiny percentage of the customers for the trade.

As for the military in the Balkans, I personally know that MWR set up a brothel in 96 for soldiers coming out of the box. The people involved were getting a slice of the proceeds. To their credit, the Army found out about it, shut the operation down, and fired the MWR employees who set it up. I never found out if they prosecuted the MWR guys, but I know that they tried to prosecute some soldiers who were involved with coordinating security for all the MWR locations, including the "dance club" known as Captain Jack's. I know some of the soldiers personally and none of them were ever successfully prosecuted. They were mostly just doing security for the hotels and buses and weren't involved in whatever went on "upstairs" at the dance club.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

28. by MWR, you mean "Morale, Welfare, and Recreation"...??? Ironic?

My recollection is that there was a bigger version of what you're describing, run by a handful of UN uppers, who were cheek & jowl with some of the nastiest of the nasties in the flare-ups of the later 90's...

[private_ryan]

29. let me ask you this

should prostitution be legal in Europe then?

How about in Nevada?

and would you have a problem with an INDEPENDENT woman in EU offering sex for money to US soldiers. She "works" for herself, no pimps, no slave owners, nothing. She keeps 100% of the money.

[Turley]

44. That's not what this thread is about

now is it? The issue is whether NATO should involve itself in combating the illegal slave trade which supports the sex industry. We're not talking about independent free-will operators. Therefore my opinion on the legality of prostitution is not relevant.

Try sticking to the subject mater at hand. If you want a thread on the legality of prostituion, then start one.

[iverglas]

40. prostitution is legal

As was slavery in the US, if you'll forgive the tired old analogy. It's just that it happens to be so à propos here.

The exchange of sexual services for money is legal. Just a buying a slave was legal.

This does not mean that the person who is, or whose services are, being bought and sold is a willing participant in the deal.

If NATO troops are stationed in places where slavery is legal, should they be permitted to purchase slaves for their convenience during their sojourn?

If they are stationed in places where it is not illegal to beat one's children, should they be permitted to bring their children there and beat them? How about their wives, where wife-beating is not punishable? Only let them beat their wives if the wives are locals, and not NATO country nationals?

The issue has not got thing one to do with whether prostitution is legal. It has to do with representatives of NATO participating in an activity that consists largely of the violent and degrading exploitation of women who are NOT willing participants in the sale of their sexual services. It may be legal to abduct, imprison and sell the sexual services of women in some countries; what does that have to do with whether NATO representatives should be participating in it?

(Off the top, without any feminist analysis at all, it seems simply unwise for representatives of NATO to be doing things that cast their employer, and their own nations and their people, in such a negative light in the eyes of the locals who might not be too happy about foreign troops in their country in the first place. I'd recommend that representatives of NATO refrain (and be required to refrain) from getting publicly drunk and puking on local taxi drivers or peeing on the street, too, for pretty much that reason, however legal it might be to do.)

And your comments show just how much you apparently care about the real issue in this case. Something it's always nice to know.

To turn your line around: so it's okay to force a woman to remain pregnant against her will, but not okay to prohibit men from buying the sexual services of a woman being forced to deliver them against her will?

Consistent, anyhow.

.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

17. War breaks up healthy families and makes everything a commodity.

All those testosterone-inflicted young males seperated from their loved ones causes abuse and destruction every where they go.

Is peace really an unacceptable alternative to what's happening now?

Can't we all pretend to get along?

[JoFerret]

18. I am pleased

to see this raised as an issue. Soldiers and prostitutes are long associated. Tear a person (a man in mostcases) from his family, roots, community and subject him to the possibility of death, mutilation and committing brutal and otherwise inhumane acts out of fear, deperation and desire to protect and avenge....Empower him....
Armies and brothels grow side by side.
What is a healthy sign is the attention paid to that...the conditions of sexual slavery and trafficking in human beings should be placed side by side with the trafficking in soldiery. Both demean and destroy and pervert. The healthy part is looking at the reality of what happens and what has always happened. Let's stop cloaking the militrary with the mantle of glory and look at what we truly ask them to do and how they truly function. No more blind eyes. Civilians need to face the facts here.

[frustrated_lefty]

25. The US ambassador should deal with

the thousands of crackhead prostitutes in the US before he endeavors to expand his authority beyond the US.

Old white men 'fixing' the sexual health of the world just pisses me off.

[Turley]

27. I see

Real slavery, in which Americans are to some extent involved, should be none of our business. We should just turn a blind eye to it and let it be someone elses problem. Like for instance the thousands of Eastern girls who are kidnapped yearly to provide fresh meat.

How terribly responsible.

[PATRICK]

30. Echos

Sex trade was used as an off the point issue by Bush in the run up to the getting UN support. Supposedly this embarrassing housecleaning shows this mysterious stab of conscience over slavery has some real importance to Bushco.

And don't try to convince me that it has to do with Christian morality or even pleasing that constituency here in the US. Is is leverage against our critics overseas, clearing the grounds for something worse...or what? It seems more just a distraction if NATO has to take some heat like this.

[iverglas]

43. women's issues are "a distraction" ...

Forgive some of us women here if we don't see it that way.

Opposition to trafficking in women hasn't got a fucking thing to do with "christian morality" ... at least any more than opposition to murder or robbery or slavery has. I'm no christian, but my positions on these things just happen to overlap with some christians'.

This is only a "mysterious stab of conscience" to those who have not learned anything about the problems in issue and the efforts to do something about them that have been going on for years. Like I said ... let's all ask google for "trafficking in women" and see what we find.

Women's issues actually tend to garner a little more interest in international forums than within, say, the US -- largely as the result of concerted, hard work by women's organizations around the world (and other NGOs, such as Unicef and the like) for years.

The whole point of such efforts is to bring sufficient pressure to bear on national governments and international institutions (like the UN, NATO ...) that they bend to it and do something *good*. If and when that happens, it makes not a stitch of sense to oppose it.

I frankly don't care what Bush's or anyone else's motivation for doing something is, if what's done needs doing.

And something very definitely wants doing about the horrific exploitation of women in the sex industry around the world.

And I certainly would be less than impressed by anyone opposing or even questioning an effort to improve the condition of those exploited women on the basis that it might help George W. Bush somehow, which I trust is not what your post was doing.

.

[Turley]

47. Well said Iverglass

.

[Florida_Geek]

34. Where there are troops there are places to get laid

This ex-Vietnam vet has no problem with that.

[chenGOD]

38. Even if the girls are held against their will?

Here in South Korea, where prostitution is illegal (but flourishes anyways), there are often stories in the papers about girls from SE Asia who come here on "entertainment" visas and then get their passports taken, are forced to sell sex, and they get to keep just enough money to eat. (on edit) I should just mention quickly that a lot of these place are close to US bases here.

I don't have a problem with prostitutes who are doing it willingly, and under their own volition, but the sex-trade/slavery is definitely an abhorrence that needs to be dealt with.

[private_ryan]

39. true

but, if a soldier goes to a legal brothel, why should be court martialed as some (self censored) here have suggested. Should he do an independent investigation to see if she was a slave, willing or not?

Should you be jailed for buying a sweater made from child slaves in let's say Laos? You went to Sears and bought it legally.

[chenGOD]

41. Well,

ignorance of the law is no excuse (or something like that, non?)

I do think the comparison is a bit unfair, because while it's often easy for the soldier to tell if the women are being mistreated (bruises,lack of good working conditions etc), it's difficult to tell which of the many brands that Sears carries employs children in sweatshops.

However, having said all that, I don't think a soldier should be court-martialed if he in fact has no idea that the brothel is of questionable repute. However, if there has been some form of official communique from the powers-tha-be regarding said brothel, and he goes, then yes, he should be held responsible. I know that the US military website for ROK has a list of off-limit places, but since army.mil seems to be a bit of a joke in terms of accepting connections, I can't find a link to that right now.

I did find this very interesting read though, although it's a bit outdated (and kind of off-topic), you might want to read it anyways.

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/feb97army.html

[dArKeR]

45. Mechanic claims brothel visits 'not cheating'

Nuremberg - An unemployed German car mechanic who complained of sexual withdrawal symptoms after his Thai wife returned home has failed to get the state to pay for his visits to brothels.

A court ruled on Friday the 35-year-old man should not be reimbursed for the visits which he had claimed were necessary to meet "heightened sexual needs".

The daily Bild newspaper quoted the man, named as Helmut H, as saying social security authorities had initially turned down his request for a inflatable rubber doll sexual aid.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=29&art_id=qw1078488541997B265&...

[iverglas]

46. sh!

If this gets out, can't you just see the next argument against universal health care in the US? It was denied in Germany, but undoubtedly the argument would be that some lunatic unpatriotic judicial-activist court in the US would allow it ...

As far as I know, Canada's provincial plans don't cover such stuff and nonsense either. ;)

Quite the case in point of the kind of individual who engages in the trafficking in women that international (mail-order) brides usually represent ... and quelle surprise that his wife left him.

.