'Intensify battle against enforced sexuality'

More than 300 women rights activists from around the world met in the city yesterday to hammer out strategies to fight and eliminate prostitution and sexual exploitation.

"We have gathered here today to reaffirm the fundamental rights to be free from sexual exploitation in all its forms as -- sexual harassment, rape, incest abuse, wife abuse, pornography and prostitution," Aurora Javate de Dios, President of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), told the inaugural session of a three-day conference.

Dios said prostitution that used thousands of women and girls reaped enormous profit for organised crime in many countries all over the world.

She said sexual exploitation, especially prostitution and trafficking, violated women's human rights and was a severe form of discrimination.

"Imagine a world without prostitution and sexual exploitation. Women want to live life without fear of violence and sexual exploitation," she said.

"The CATW is seeking ways and means to combat this horrendous crime that is pervading all stairs of society all over the world -- the crime of sexual exploitation," said Sigma Huda, a leading women's rights activist in Bangladesh and convenor of CATW Bangladesh chapter.

Huda said the meeting would seek ways to curbing forced prostitution and the smuggling of women, which she said had reached an alarming proportion in Asia.

"We have organised the conference to raise public and official awareness of the magnitude of such crimes and the urgency to take action against them," she said.

The CATW, which represents 50 women's organisations in the Asia-Pacific region, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, was formed in 1988.

Huda said the Dhaka meeting was expected to formulate a unified action plan to intensify the battle against enforced sexuality and save women from the illegal trade.

"The conference was likely to formulate a plan of action including regional and international network, advocacy education, research direct services and human rights documentation to combat all forms of sexual exploitation," she said.

"No women and children should be in prostitution any more. I do not want the next generations of women and children to be in it too," said Evelyn Asombrado, an ex-prostitute of the Philippines, told The Daily Star.

"Prostitution is a torture," said another woman, who quit prostitution recently.

She said women in prostitution should be decriminalised while governments must provide services and economic opportunities for them.

Some 200,000 Bangladeshi women and girls had been trafficked to Pakistan alone in the past decade, according to CATW.

India has 2.3 million women in prostitution, the Philippines has 300,000 including 75,000 to 100,000 children in full-time and part-time sex businesses.

In Thailand, estimates of women in prostitution range between 300,000 and 2.8 million, of which a third are minors and children, says CATW.

The CATW urged governments around the world to not only make reforms or laws but to enforce them to ensure women were not sold for sex.

Women activists from South Asia held a four-day conference in Dhaka on sexual abuse and human trafficking in June 1998 calling on governments to crack down on offenders. That conference was also organised by the CATW.

The ongoing conference would formulate a plan of action including regional and international network, advocacy education, research direct services and human rights documentation to combat all forms of sexual exploitation.

Noorjahan Begum, editor of women's periodical Begum, inaugurated the conference while Dhaka Mayor Mohammad Hanif attended it as special guest.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Khaleda Zia and poet Sufia Kamal sent separate messages wishing success of the global conference.